As Western governments are intensifying their relations with Central Asian countries against the backdrop of Russia’s war on Ukraine, this offers an opportunity to achieve specific advances for human rights in the region, Human Rights Watch said on January 11 in its World Report 2024.
“Central Asia’s authoritarian governments severely restrict freedoms of speech, assembly, and other fundamental freedoms, arbitrarily lock up government opponents and critics, and allow impunity for serious human rights violations, including torture and domestic violence. High-level diplomacy by the United States, the European Union, and EU member states should focus on ending such abuses in the region, especially since Central Asian leaders have shown interest in this rapprochement to diversify their foreign policy options,” Human Rights Watch said.
“The West’s renewed interest in Central Asia coincides with human rights backtracking or stagnation across the region,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “As Western and Central Asian states bolster ties, it’s critically important for other countries to make human rights concerns a central part of the agenda and for Central Asian governments to follow through on promised reforms.”
In the two years since large-scale protests rocked the country, authorities in Kazakhstan have failed to ensure accountability for the disproportionate use of force against protesters or for the arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, ill-treatment, and torture of detainees in the aftermath, Human Rights Watch said. Violent attacks on journalists increased in early 2023 and authorities have persisted in using overbroad criminal charges against government critics and activists. New legislation strengthening protections for women fell short of criminalizing domestic violence as a stand-alone offense, while Kazakhstan continues to impose heavy restrictions in law and practice on the right to peaceful assembly.
In Kyrgyzstan, human rights protection and civil liberties continued to decline in 2023, with systematic stifling of critical voices by the authorities, the report says. Civil society and media freedom came under severe threat, with criminal cases against leading media outlets and draft laws that would expand censorship and government control over nongovernmental organizations. Scores of activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and politicians remain in pretrial detention on charges of fomenting “mass unrest” over disagreement with the transfer of a dam to Uzbekistan in a border agreement. An effective and independent investigation into the death in custody of the human rights defender Azimjon Askarov in 2020 is yet to be completed.
In Tajikistan’s repressive political and human rights climate, the government forced hundreds of nongovernmental organizations to close, detained scores of bloggers for their opinions on the government’s policies, and banned or limited the activities of religious organizations. Several political movements and parties seen as a threat to the government remain banned, including the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan and Group 24, with their members serving lengthy prison terms and some subjected to forced returns from abroad.
Turkmenistan’s government remains closed and repressive, quashing religious and political expression that is not sanctioned by the authorities. The government tightly controls the media and access to information, prosecutes people who enable access to an uncensored internet, and allows no independent monitoring groups. The authorities also jail perceived opponents and government critics and harass activists abroad and their relatives in Turkmenistan. Dozens of people remain victims of enforced disappearance.
Uzbekistan’s human rights record deteriorated in 2023, with a notable increase in harassment and prosecutions of bloggers and journalists, and promised legislative reforms continuing to stall, the report says.
