Summary

The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, conducted an official visit to Uzbekistan from 29 November to 7 December 2021.

During the past five years, Uzbekistan has experienced substantial political change. Reform efforts, primarily focused on economic and social issues, but also on the rule of law and structural changes, are in progress. Uzbekistan has been elected to the Human Rights Council and has an important role to play in demonstrating and practicing a sustained commitment to human rights protection.

The Special Rapporteur commends the Government of Uzbekistan for having repatriated its nationals in a sustained and effective manner from conflict zones abroad. She highlights the Government’s integrated, multidisciplinary and inter-agency approach to reintegration as a good practice, as well as the productive cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in sustaining a long-term approach to successful reintegration. The Special Rapporteur believes that other States could learn valuable and practical lessons from the work being undertaken by the Government of Uzbekistan in this realm. She strongly recommends the establishment of mechanisms to undertake human rights monitoring and evaluation on return and repatriation activities as a way of sharing best practices and learning from the work done to date.

The Special Rapporteur identifies several significant human rights challenges resulting from the security, counter-terrorism and extremism frameworks that are operational in Uzbekistan. She finds that the criminal law concerning terrorism and extremism is broad and vaguely defined, impinging directly on fundamental human rights protected by international law. She expresses serious concern about the use of the term “extremism” in national law and practice. She highlights the need to fundamentally revise a range of Criminal Code provisions related to “extremism”, “terrorism” and national security. She expresses deep concern about fair trial guarantees, the use of “expert” evidence in counter-terrorism and “extremism” cases, prosecutorial fragmentation, access to independent legal representation and equality of arms for defendants in proceedings. She recommends reviewing and revising the national legal frameworks and offers her technical assistance to that end.

She affirms the historical and endemic challenges posed by torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment in detention facilities. She addresses enforced disappearances. While she acknowledges that reforms are under way, practices and concerns persist and she stresses that more must be done to address the legacies of such practices.

The Special Rapporteur addresses the measures in place aimed at countering the financing of terrorism and the ongoing mutual evaluation process involving Uzbekistan. She makes several recommendations for reviewing and reforming the national strategy against money-laundering and the financing of terrorism in such a way as to ensure compliance with the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, Security Council resolution 2462 (2019) and the interpretative note to recommendation 8 of the Nine Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing of the Financial Action Task Force.

She commends the Government of Uzbekistan for the positive role that it has played in addressing the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in neighbouring Afghanistan. She encourages the international community to support Governments in the region, including Uzbekistan, in providing practical humanitarian support to the people of Afghanistan, in partnership with the United Nations. She addresses the status of Afghans currently in Uzbekistan, stresses the need to uphold the principle of non-refoulement and supports the establishment of human rights-compliant national standards to regularize the status of Afghans in Uzbekistan.