[inspic=5,left,,170] According to the BBC Uzbek Service, human rights activist Gulbakhor Turaeva was recently freed from custody after being in prison for almost five months.  Gulbakhor Turaeva was sentenced to six years of imprisonment for crossing the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border with literatures published by the opposition organization Erk, whose content is allegedly destructive to Uzbek society, as it advocates overthrowing the constitutional regime.  On April 24th the court found her guilty on three articles of the Uzbek Criminal Code:

Article 159 “Attempting to overthrow the constitutional system of the Republic of Uzbekistan�, Article 244, Part 1 “Producing and spreading materials threatening public order and security� and Article 244, Part 2 “Creating, heading and involvement in religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist or other banned organizations�.

On June 12th, the court of appeals reduced the six years term to three years of suspended sentence. Turaeva’s case largely resembles the case of another human rights activist, Umida Niyazova. Niyazova was accused of the identical illegal actions. On May 8th she was freed, which  happened right before the EU decision on sanctions on Uzbekistan was announced. Experts commented that Umida Niyazova’s case was in effect a theatrical show whose main audience were EU countries. Nevertheless, the show was not successful – the EU decided to prolong the sanctions on Uzbekistan stating that lessons from Andijan’s case had not been implemented well enough and that the human rights in the country were still being violated. The EU then called for Uzbekistan to release other human rights activists such as Gulbakhor Turaeva.

Before she was freed, Umida Niyazova was forced to confess all her “wrongdoings� in the court and ask for the mercy of the government. It is presumed that Gulbakhor Turaeva was forced to go through this too, having no other choice.  Turaeva is 40 years old and has been kept in custody for almost five months; it is also important to note that conditions in Uzbek prisons are extremely poor.

The Uzbek government is playing a game that is only beneficial to itself. The release of human rights activists may make it seem that Uzbekistan is paying more attention to human rights, however it is still obvious that the Uzbek government is trying to keep all “speakers of freedom� in fear of governmental control.  The government threatens activists with loose sentencing for “challenging the society to overthrow the constitutional regime in the country� and later release them after they have admitted their “wrongdoings� and plea for the mercy of the government.

Even though she has now been freed, Gulbakhor Turaeva will never be able to live her life as she had before. Five months in custody may be enough to become “brainwashed�. Given this, I don’t think that she will be able to continue her work in the human rights sphere in Uzbekistan any more. The only way to do this would be to leave the country, get refugee status and live in a western country. Although I doubt the government would allow her to flee.