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In October 2017, Ahmed Shaheed — then the United Nations Particular Rapporteur on Freedom of Faith or Perception — was the primary U.N. particular rapporteur to go to Uzbekistan since 2002. The go to got here within the first 12 months of Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s presidency following the 2016 demise of the nation’s longtime ruler Islam Karimov. It was an period of robust reform commitments from Tashkent, and a gap of Uzbekistan to not simply its neighbors however the international neighborhood.
As Uzbekistan started to re-engage with processes Karimov had lengthy deserted, Tashkent was inundated with a veritable avalanche of suggestions. Many addressed varied human rights considerations, significantly associated to spiritual freedoms, which underneath Karimov had been closely restricted by worldwide requirements.
In early 2018, Shaheed submitted to the Human Rights Council and the Uzbek authorities a report containing his findings and outlining a dozen suggestions. In the summertime of 2018, the Uzbek Parliament authorised a roadmap to implement the U.N.’s suggestions; on the time a brand new legislation on religions was additionally within the works.
Within the intervening years, there have been areas of progress — particularly in regard to Uzbekistan’s relations with its neighbors and likewise the elimination of pressured labor, which led to the finish of the boycott of the nation organized by the Cotton Marketing campaign — paired with stagnation or, in some instances, regression as Mirziyoyev laid out his imaginative and prescient for “New Uzbekistan.” Within the eyes of many analysts, Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan is a dusted off, modernized, up to date model of Karimov’s strongman state however shares many traits with its predecessor.
5 years after his momentous 2017 go to, Shaheed — whose particular rapporteur mandate led to July 2022 — and his crew opted to revisit the suggestions they’d made. This can be a helpful train, too hardly ever executed, wherein precise modifications and efforts are laid up towards suggestions and expectations. It’s at all times simpler to vow reforms than to enact them.
The 2018 preliminary report contained 12 suggestions. The revisiting of the suggestions “assesses 16 areas to which the suggestions pertain, discovering some progress in eleven and noting persistent gaps in 5 areas.”
The areas wherein Shaheen decided his earlier suggestions had been “partially carried out” embody these concerning secularism, reforming the nation’s legal guidelines on the liberty of conscience and non secular organizations, restrictions on non secular literature, the facilitation of spiritual coaching, reform of the legal code associated to freedom of faith, countering terrorism and violent extremism, the matter of spiritual detainees, the promotion of spiritual literacy, the involvement of ladies non secular leaders, the strengthening of nationwide human rights establishments, and the rights of prisoners in regard to the liberty of faith.
The suggestions that Shaheen’s report decided haven’t been carried out embody these pertaining to Uzbekistan’s ban on proselytism and missionary exercise, the registration of spiritual or perception communities, restrictions on unregistered communities, non secular schooling for kids, and the surveillance of people and communities.
These are advanced and interrelated points. In lots of instances, whereas legislative modifications have been made, implementation lags behind or modifications have solely been incremental, with a lot work to be executed to carry Uzbek legislation into line with worldwide requirements.
For instance, in 2018 Shaheen advisable that Uzbekistan “[f]ollow via on the acknowledgement that the 1998 Regulation [on freedom of Conscience and Religious Organization] wants substantial revision.” A brand new faith legislation was, optimistically, hoped for by 2019 however didn’t materialize till 2021. In July 2021, the brand new faith legislation was lastly enacted after a course of that included some public enter however remained moderately murky, with no mechanism for public suggestions on revisions of the preliminary draft. Finally, Shaheen’s newest report notes, “whereas the 2021 Regulation addresses quite a few considerations raised by worldwide stakeholders, the legislation nonetheless falls in need of satisfying Uzbekistan’s obligations underneath Article 18 [of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] and different worldwide human rights legislation devices.”
Uzbekistan’s Prison Code has been underneath assessment since a 2018 presidential decree. A draft was unveiled in February 2021 with a brief interval for public remark. Two years later, the reform of the Prison Code stays in limbo. Some facets, Shaheed’s newest report notes, are promising, together with the decriminalization of manufacturing, importing and distributing religions supplies and elimination of references that “conflate non secular perception and ‘extremism.’” However different troubling facets stay, together with legal sanctions for unsanctioned conferences and the actions of unregistered non secular organizations. The draft legal code additionally retains the criminalization of same-sex sexual exercise between males, deeming it a criminal offense “towards household, morality and kids.” It additionally retains provisions that “seem to criminalize the peaceable train of faith or perception as ‘extremist,’ regardless of not amounting to internationally-accepted definitions of terrorism or incitement to violence or discrimination.”
It’s vital to understand the methods wherein issues of spiritual freedom intersect with different freedoms. Shaheed’s latest report factors out that “UN Human Rights specialists have drawn a transparent hyperlink between freedom of faith or perception, and the liberty to precise oneself, affiliate with others and assemble. They acknowledge that these rights are particularly interconnected; an infringement on one can simply result in diminished protections towards violation for all 4.”
For instance, the flexibility of journalists to report on points related to individuals is hampered when media retailers are fined for “unlawful dissemination of spiritual supplies” as occurred to Kun.uz and Azon.uz in the summertime of 2021. The offending articles included interviews with non secular officers about Ramadan and a report about New Zealand incorporating hijabs into police uniforms.
Shaheed’s five-year replace report concludes with 14 follow-up suggestions, which mirror the continued nature of such work. In lots of instances, the suggestions urge the persevering with of processes to reform legal guidelines and encourage open dialogue of spiritual issues. As soon as once more, Uzbekistan is urged to “revisit and refine” its ambiguous definitions of “extremism” in a method that safeguards the rights of perception, expression, affiliation, and meeting.
Whether or not Uzbekistan takes on Shaheed’s new suggestions as enthusiastically as Tashkent appeared to 5 years in the past is to be seen. He was scheduled to go to Uzbekistan once more in 2021 however the authorities reportedly deferred the go to to the spring of 2022 and it’s not clear it happened earlier than his mandate ended final July.
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