Human Rights in the OSCE region:
Old Problems Persist - New Challenges Advance
Summary of the IHF report
Human Rights in the OSCE Region: Europe, Central Asia and North America, Report 2004 (Events of 2003)
22 June 2004
The IHF report Human Rights in the OSCE Region: Europe, Central Asia and North America, Report 2004 (Events of 2003) will be officially presented on 22 June 2004 at the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg. The report describes human rights developments in the participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in Europe in 2003.
While some positive developments were recorded in 2003, the general view in terms of the realization of basic human rights and democratic developments remained gloomy. While the situation in most former Soviet republics deteriorated, the human rights record of the Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) was particularly worrisome. In addition, measures taken by many established democracies to fight terrorism and organized crime put some basic human rights and freedoms seriously at stake. Freedom of the media and investigative journalism met growing problems in several states, including some in Western Europe (e.g. in France and the United Kingdom, UK).
New legislation was passed in those countries that accessed the European Union (EU) in May 2004 in order to bring domestic laws up to par with European standards. In practice, improvements took form slowly, but numerous problems remained unresolved. Many governments cited lack of funds to carry out improvements, failing to realize that many measures can also be taken without extensive financial burden. Turkey adopted new laws in order to start negotiations for EU membership, but did not always fully implement them and in some cases passed new, regressive laws.
While the IHF report mainly focuses on civil and political rights, it also grants a view to increasingly deteriorating economic and social rights in many former socialist states, particularly the former Soviet republics. Poverty was the main problem in numerous countries. Unemployment grew and resources were cut in education, health care, and other fields of major importance for future development.
Anti-Terrorism:
In Western Europe and the United States (US), laws adopted and practices introduced in the name of the fight against terrorism and organized crime have endangered the right to due process, detainees’ rights, freedom of the media and access to information, and the right to privacy. Security laws have been passed to expand the powers of the police and security services to an extent that has allowed these agencies to carry out questionable surveillance methods, often without sufficient evidence and frequently without necessary legality and transparency (e.g. in Belgium, France, Romania, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom (UK)) These methods have included various forms of surveillance of persons not suspected of direct involvement in a crime; arbitrary searches and raids by police; tapping of phones (including those of journalists); comparison of personal data registered in various electronic databases; video-surveillance of public locations; DNA fingerprinting for anyone under suspicion of committing an offense; supervision of NGOs and places of worship; freezing of finances of terrorist suspects on vague basis, etc. Often, courts did not investigate carefully all requests by police to use such methods nor were the targets later informed about the use of such methods, even though the law would have required such notification.
Terrorist suspects could be held virtually undetermined periods in the UK and the US without guaranteeing them the basic due process standards such as access to legal counsel and to a court of law. Legal measures were taken to enable un-bureaucratic extraditions of terrorist suspects (e.g. under the European Arrest Warrant and the extradition agreement between the United Kingdom and the US) to countries with varying levels of legal safeguards and practices., in which human rights violations were common and the extraditions were often carried out on a vague legal basis.
Asylum Seekers:
Fear of terrorism also affected the movement of people in general and asylum practices in particular. Most countries applied increasingly restrictive laws and practices which clearly were, in the first place, aimed at reducing the flow of refugees and the “misuse” of asylum process rather than at providing security for people who had been forced to flee their countries (e.g. Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK). Specific countries were categorically declared “safe countries of origin”, or “safe third countries” and asylum claims from persons coming from them were automatically treated as “manifestly unfounded.” Accelerated asylum proceedings became a standard procedure rather than the exception, despite the fact that their use undermines the right to individual consideration of cases and have been criticized by the UNHCR. Asylum seekers were extradited while their applications were pending. Many applicants ended up in detention pending their application as if they were common criminals. Access to public support and benefits were cut or not provided at all: in Austria and Greece, there was no public assistance to a large number of asylum seekers, and in the UK, welfare support was refused to asylum seekers who did not claim asylum at the port of entry, leading to increased numbers of refugees facing destitution and homelessness. In December, the government rescinded the regulation somewhat.
In Russia, the length of Moscow Immigration Services pre-registration procedure came to a new all-time high during 2003, leaving asylum seekers waiting for up to four years before they are even entitled to register their application. Despite the continuing grave abuses in Chechnya and the surrounding regions, Chechen asylum seekers faced serious problems in getting access to asylum procedures or their asylum claims were flatly rejected and they were sent or threatened to be sent back to Russia (e.g. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Norway, Poland).
Racism, Intolerance, Xenophobia, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia:
It appeared that intolerance and xenophobia were on the increase. Since the September 11 attacks in the US, Muslims and Arabs have been particularly targeted, but also anti-Semitic acts have increased (e.g. Belgium, France). In France, for example, an Islamic cemetery was desecrated as well as a religious site in la Meuse, there was an arson attack at a place of Muslim worship in Nancy, and many Internet sites distributed racist propaganda with regard to Islam. In the UK, Statewatch recorded 71,100 stops and search by the police of mainly Muslims as part of anti-terrorist operation - only 1.18 percent of which resulted in arrests.
At the same time, some monitors noted that xenophobic and racially motivated incidents were reported more often. In most cases victims of racially motivated attacks, harassment and discrimination were of African origin. In Russia, people from the Caucasus were subjected to random identity checks, arrested and harassed.
Elections:
Elections and referenda continued to fall short of international standards in numerous OSCE countries. In addition to various forms of irregularities of balloting, they were characterized by unequal opportunities and the abuse of state and public resources in favor of the incumbent president or the ruling party e.g. in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Russia and Chechnya. In Kyrgyzstan, the referendum on constitutional amendments aimed at shifting power from the parliament to the president were riddled with virtually all forms of violations of international standards and irregularities, starting with the undemocratic preparation of the amendments and ending with tampering with the tabulation of the results. During the presidential election in Azerbaijan, among other problems, several potential candidates were excluded from the elections and widespread election fraud was documented. International observer organizations called the elections a “missed opportunity” falling short of “what in the practice of civilized nations is called ‘elections’.”
In the war-torn Chechnya, a referendum on a new Chechen Constitution, Chechen presidential elections and elections for the Chechen Parliament were held, all challenged by human rights NGOs, inter alia on the grounds that neither security procedures nor open, adequate public debate were sufficient, pressure and intimidation was commonplace, and irregularities in voter lists and tabulation of the vote count were widespread.
In Turkmenistan, amendments were adopted to the Constitution to move the powers of the legislative to the president-led and undemocratically appointed People’s Council. In Moldova, the legislative was a rubber stamp to approve the polices of the ruling Communist Party.
Freedom of Expression and Media:
Serious restrictions on media freedoms were recorded in the Central Asian OSCE states (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan) as well as in Moldova. The violations included direct censorship (in Turkmenistan); virtual censorship (in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan); denial of access to information of public interest (e.g. Azerbaijan, Belarus, Croatia, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine); unjustified use of defamation and libel laws (e.g. Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine); financial pressure; repeated and unfounded tax, sanitary and other checks; indictment of critical journalists under fabricated crimes, physical assault and even killing (e.g. Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan). Unsurprisingly, all this resulted in self-censorship by journalists and editors in order to allow them to continue their work.
In Bulgaria, the year 2003 was more problematic in terms of media freedoms than any since the beginning of the transition period. In Poland, attacks on the independent media intensified (including bans on publishing data of public interest and assaults on journalists), and in Romania, media outlets and journalists faced increasing problems. In Turkey, at least 774 trials took place for verbal or written expressions of opinion in 2003.
In Belgium, France and the UK, the right of journalists to protect their sources was violated. Denial of access to information of public interest was another method to attempt to silence criticism by journalists (e.g. Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Romania). In Romania, APADOR-CH (IHF affiliate) successfully took to court some cases in which authorities refused to submit such information.
Libel and defamation suits were one of the most common indirect methods to stifle investigative reporting, particularly on corruption, organized crime and other misconduct by public officials. Criminal libel was still applied in e.g. Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Croatia, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Ukraine, and in all Central Asian countries. In Kyrgyzstan, the newspaper Moya Stolitsa closed after having been ordered to pay approximately ˆ76,000 in damage in 31 libel cases from public officials (a quarter of it to be paid to Prime Minister Tanaev). In Montenegro, libel was decriminalized but fines remained unacceptably high and dozens of libel cases were in courts in 2003. In Serbia, some 200 suits were brought against journalists and editors for “inflicting mental pain” on people they reported on: the journalists were ordered to pay huge sums in fines.
In many countries, the concentration of media became increasingly problematic, endangering diversity (e.g. in Russia and Ukraine but also in Austria and Italy). In Russia, the government-controlled media played a central role in promoting President Putin’s re-election and in the Duma elections.
Countries especially dangerous for (investigative) journalists were Russia and Ukraine. Critical journalists were intimidated, threatened, physically assaulted, and killed. In Russia, at least 10 journalists died for what they had written or were investigating, and at least 100 were physically attacked.
Freedom of Association and Peaceful Assembly:
The right to association was flagrantly violated particularly in the Central Asian countries, Belarus, Turkey, and the Ukraine. In Belarus in 2003, the Minister of Justice, Viktar Galavanaw, ordered intensified controls on NGO activity and the ministry carried out checks on 81 NGOs, resulting in 810 reprimands, a number six times higher than in 2002. Courts liquidated 51 public associations on the basis of lawsuits initiated by the ministry. The IHF member committee received an official reprimand for possible closure because the name it used allegedly did not “correspond to that stated in its statutes” – inverted commas were missing. In Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, IHF affiliates had serious problems with registration: in Uzbekistan, the authorities took the application apparently only because international media outlets were present when it was submitted, and in Kyrgyzstan, a pro-governmental “NGO” was registered under the name of the Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights.
In Turkey, police dispersed with force numerous peaceful public meetings, and arrested and changed demonstrators. In Azerbaijan, demonstrations protesting the flawed elections in October were dispersed by excessive use of force (as many other demonstrations) and dozens of people were arrested.
Rule of Law, Judicial System, Independence of the Judiciary and Fair Trial:
While legislation in most OSCE states was largely up to par with international human rights standards, implementation was inadequate either due to ignorance or poor training on the part of the judiciary and law enforcement officers or as a result of intentional failure to apply progressive laws and regulations, frequently under political pressure.
Courts’ lack of independence from the executive remained a basic human right problem in numerous states, hindering people from seeking redress for wrongdoings. Judiciaries were under direct or indirect control of the Executive (e.g. in Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan): they were financially dependent on authorities, the appointment procedure of judges was inappropriate; and, in worst cases, authorities directly interfered in sentencing policies (e.g. in Ukraine, Turkmenistan). Court cases often dragged on for years (e.g. in Italy, Poland, Montenegro) and in many cases the execution of court rulings was not much faster (e.g. in Albania, Croatia, Poland).
Corruption was a major obstacle to the administration of justice. Judges’ salaries were often very low, making them vulnerable to bribes. In Albania, a survey showed that most people paid bribes to bailiffs to get sentences executed.
Poor physical conditions of courts resulted in additional problems: for example, trials were held in places not designed for trials (such as the judges’ offices), as a result of which only the parties involved had space to be present. This effectively violated the right to an open trial (e.g. in Macedonia and Moldova).
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, judicial reform – which was indeed necessary – was carried out too fast, without participation of domestic experts and civil society, and without proper training of the judiciary. Some laws were imposed by the High Representative (HR) and only later adopted by parliaments in summary proceedings and under strict instructions of the HR, and, again, without public debate. In Montenegro, civilian cases were officially moved from the military courts to civilian courts, but in practice this was not implemented. In Kosovo, a major achievement was the adoption of a new Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code in the summer of 2003. While a judicial system was established and functioning under international control, the Serb population used its own, parallel judicial system, which was under the control of Belgrade.
Torture, Police Misconduct, Detainees’ Rights:
Torture, ill-treatment and other forms of misconduct by law enforcement officials remained perhaps the most widespread human rights violations. It was systematic in several countries, such as Turkey, Turkmenistan, Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. In Turkey, there were markedly fewer cases of extra-judicial killings and arbitrary shootings, and it appeared that the forms of torture used were less severe than in previous years: However, the practice still remained widespread and systematic. In addition, abductions (by officers in plan clothes) increased. Terrorist suspects in UK and US custody were subjected to “interrogation methods” which amounted to torture and ill-treatment and the conditions they were held in constituted inhuman and degrading treatment.
Most reported cases of torture and ill-treatment were not investigated. If police officers were disciplined, the punishments were usually lenient and they could continue their work. In most OSCE countries a central problem in the lack of accountability was the absence of independent mechanisms to investigate police misconduct, and the poor training of officers. In addition, “confessions” extracted under duress were widely used as evidence, including in Russia, Ukraine and Central Asian countries.
On the Greek-Albanian border, there were instances in which Greek law enforcement officials appeared to have used firearms simply to intimidate, deter or to punish illegal border-crossers.
In Belarus, the disappearances of Yury Zakharanka, former minister of interior; Viktar Hanchar, vice-speaker of Belarusian Parliament (XIII convocation); Anatol Krasowski, a businessman; and Dzmitry Zavadski, Russian public TV operator, remained unresolved. In November, a Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) rapporteur visited Belarus to look into the disappearances and stated that official investigations into these disappearances had been cloaked in controversy and lacked transparency, impartiality and any efforts of good-faith to make progress. Further, he stated that senior Belarus officials may have been involved in the disappearances and that steps had been taken “at the highest level of the state” to cover up the truth.
Prison Conditions:
Prison conditions remained poor or extremely poor in most OSCE member states. The main problem was overcrowding, both in the former socialist states and also in the West: in the UK and in the US the prison populations were exploding, and in France and Italy overcrowding was a major factor contributing to poor conditions. Overcrowding was largely attributed to disproportional and harsh sentencing policies (e.g. in Kyrgyzstan and Belarus) and the lack of legal provision for alternative sentences or the failure to apply such existing provisions (e.g. in Belarus, Poland and Romania). On a positive note, in the Czech Republic, the introduction of alternative sentences or suspended sentences and shorter prison sentences started to show in statistics and ameliorated prison conditions, and in Serbia, authorities showed willingness to improve prison conditions.
In many countries (particularly in the former Soviet republics) prisoners were dependent on food, medicine and other necessities brought by relatives and friends, medical care was almost non-existent and hygienic conditions under any acceptable standards. Infectious deceases (particularly TB) were widespread and the number HIV/AIDS cases increased. In Kyrgyzstan, the conditions of death row prisoners were so poor that some of them sent an appeal to the Kyrgyz president asking him to put an end to the moratorium on the death penalty and execute them, rather than letting them endure the excessive conditions. Riots were staged in protest of inhuman conditions e.g. in Moldova, where police calmed them with excessive force. Two people fasted to death in Turkey in 2003, to protest against the introduction of the so-called F-type prisons, which were criticized for subjecting inmates to isolation and inactivity. In Turkmenistan, one prison colony, Bayram-Ali, was designed for 600 prisoners but housed some 4,200 inmates. As a result of unbearable conditions, two people were reported to die there every day in the winter and 3-4 during summer. Uzbek monitors reported that an average of ten people died in the Tashkent hospital colony Uja (64/18) every day.
Death Penalty:
The death penalty remained in use, for example, in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan (although a moratorium was prolonged), Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the US and Uzbekistan, while the new Armenian Criminal Code did not provide for the death penalty. In the Central Asian countries, no statistics were published about death sentences and executions, in violation of international law. In Belarus, four persons were sentenced to death (according to the authorities) but no information was given about the number of executions. In the US, 65 people were executed in 2003 and 38 of the 50 states provided for capital punishment in the law. The US has carried out the largest number of known executions of child offenders in the world and executed mentally ill people –
both prohibited by international standards. In a positive move, the State of Illinois commuted the death sentences of 167 people because it was suspected that they had been sentenced in unfair and racially biased trials and many had been released due to innocence.
Freedom of Religion:
Minority religions, and especially the so-called “new religions,” faced discrimination or outright bans. In most countries, despite legislation guaranteeing equal treatment, one or more “traditional” religions enjoyed privileged status (e.g. tax exemptions, the right to religious education in state school, unrestricted publication activities, etc.). In many cases, while state laws allowed for a wide scale of freedom, local authorities restricted it on mainly illegal grounds, e.g. requiring registration while using their discretionary powers to refuse it.
Law enforcement agencies and secret services frequently interfered in religious activities e.g. in the Central Asian countries, Georgia, Belarus, Greece, and Ukraine. Small non-traditional groups faced police harassment, their meetings were dispersed, and people were arrested or imprisoned. Jehovah’s Witnesses remained particular targets (e.g. CA, Georgia, Romania), also because their members refused to carry out military service.
In Belgium and in France, Muslim girls were prohibited from wearing head scarves in some schools and France introduced legislation to ban conspicuous wearing of religious signs such as a headscarf, skullcaps and crosses as of the beginning of school year.
The fear of Islamic “fundamentalism” led to closer surveillance of Muslim practices all over the OSCE region, and restrictions and stricter control in countries with Muslim majorities in Central Asia. Pressure on Muslims increased in Kyrgyzstan: members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir were targeted and sentenced on vague evidence to longer prison terms than in previous years.
National and Ethnic Minorities:
Minority rights were under special scrutiny particularly in the EU accession countries, which pursued to bring their legislation up to par with European standards. The practice, however, remained problematic.
Turkey has adopted laws to theoretically provide for better rights to the Kurdish minority to use and promote its language, but the failure to adopt additional laws to implement the right did not markedly change the practices. In Latvia, tension over the reform of minority education increased throughout the year, with mass demonstrations to protest the failure of the government to issue regulations for the transition of Russian-language secondary schools to schools carrying out minority education programs, due to be carried out in September of 2004. Minority representatives and NGOs also expressed concern that the reform lacked transparency and effective minority participation in its planning.
In Macedonia, continued tension and mutual intolerance between Macedonians and Albanians were manifested in every day life by lack of basic communication, maintenance of parallel basic infrastructure facilities such as clinics, bus stations, shops, sports playgrounds, by open demonstrations of hate, and in conflicts in schools. In Kosovo, the Serb population lived in its own enclaves in northern parts of the region and had developed a parallel shadow life. Outside the enclaves, they usually needed round-the-clock KFOR protection for security reasons. Besides their limited freedom of movement and related security hazards and concerns, their economic opportunities were scarce, and access to social services, education and health care limited. In the Serb-controlled enclaves, the security of Albanians and their freedom of
movement were restricted almost in the same manner as that of ethnic Serbs in the rest of Kosovo. Inter-ethnic tensions persisted and intensified in early 2004, leading to an outburst of violence in March 2004.
Despite measures taken in recent years to improve the situation of the indigenous people of Sami in Finland and Norway, their right to ownership of land and water resources remained controversial and unresolved.
The Roma remained the most vulnerable minority group in the OSCE region. They faced discrimination, harassment and violence, and endured worse living conditions (living in shantytowns or in segregated settlements) than any other minority group. Roma children were often schooled either in segregated classes or schools with lover level of education or unjustifiably filled classes for mentally retarded children. In Hungary, enrolment of Roma children in special schools for the mentally handicapped remained a standard method of school segregation; reliable estimates placed the rate of Roma children among pupils in special schools at 50-60%. The head of the National Police Headquarters’ Department for Disciplinary and Supervisory Matters said that out of the 38 policemen sentenced for ill-treatment in 2001 that he knew of, every second was had ill-treated a Rom. In Greece, Roma continued to live in a state of spatial segregation from non-Roma in extremely substandard conditions and were subjected to illegal raids and ill-treatment.
In an extreme case, serious suspicions were raised in early 2003 that 110 cases of involuntary sterilization of Roma women had been carried out from the 1990s until 2002 in Slovakia. The government initiated investigations and concluded that there was no proof that a crime had taken place but NGOs stated that it had failed to carry out proper investigations. Some political representatives openly threatened the authors of the report of spreading false rumors and spoiling the reputation of Slovakia.
IDPs, Return of Refugees, Property Rights:
In many countries with a history of armed ethnic conflicts and a flow of refugees and IDPs, return of confiscated property remained a central prerequisite for return of refugees and IDPs. In 2003, the restoration of property rights was successful in Kosovo and Bosnia. However, local monitors in Bosnia also warned that the statistic could be misinterpreted: in many areas in Bosnia, the resolution of property issues did not result in the return of IDPs to their pre-war homes. They simply collected their property, sold it or locked it up and preferred to stay in other location. The failure of post-war Bosnian governments to pay sufficient attention to promoting inter-ethnic relations and arresting war criminals contributed to a situation in which safe return was ruled out.
Russian authorities continued their efforts to force Chechen internally displaced persons (IDPs) residing in neighboring republics, mainly Ingushetia, to return home despite the volatile situation in the area, including disappearances, torture and killings of civilians on a daily basis. Financial compensation for lost housing and property was promised to those IDPs who returned to Chechnya; however, the authorities defaulted on payments. Other methods used to pressure IDPs included: threats to cancel their migration service registration without which they would be unable to receive state aid; threats of arrests; visits from the FSB; increased security sweeps (zachistki) in Ingushetia; and cutting off water, gas and electricity supplies to the camps. The authorities also threatened to exclude IDPs from humanitarian aid and falsely reported on the security situation in Chechnya
Accountability:
Accountability for past abuses, a key question in the prevention of future human rights violations, remained an issue many governments had difficulties dealing with. This was particularly true with the Former Yugoslav governments. Serbia took some initial steps towards dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity – it adopted a law to this end, appointed a prosecutor for war crimes, and set up an agency for detection of war crimes, and for the first time, Albanians were accepted as witnesses in a war crime trial. However, no new trials opened in 2003. Montenegrin authorities failed to arrest indicted war criminals who visited the country and were in public view. In Bosnia, one of the main reasons why only few refugees and IDPs returned,was the fact that some of the most sought war criminals remained at large, including Radovan Karadcic and Ratko Mladic. In Kosovo, the unresolved fate of missing persons remained a key issue while the international authorities made some important arrests and carried out war crime trials.
Ukraine applied the UN Convention on the Non-application of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (1968) only against Nazi collaborators but not against the Soviet-era officials who were responsible for most cases of extermination of population.
The Russian Federation failed to set up a national broad-based and independent commission of inquiry to investigate promptly alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed in Chechnya. In addition, people who had filed applications to the European Court of Human Rights were intimidated and threatened and one applicant and her family were killed by the Russian forces in May 2003.
Accountability was also an important issue in some established democracies: in the UK, Sir John Steven issued a summary of his report on murders targeting the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, revealing cover-up and collusion with army and even government ministers. He said he was now pursuing leads about who had tried to systematically obstruct his 14-year inquiry. In October, Justice Peter Cory submitted his report on six cases, also involving alleged collusion by security forces, but the government failed to publish the report. The United States carried out a campaign to put pressure on other countries to sign agreements that would exclude US nationals from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, in exchange of financial support from the US.
Women’s Rights:
While legislation in most countries provided for equal rights for men and women, and governmental committees were set up to promote them, practice spoke another language: women remained seriously underrepresented in economic and political life in most OSCE countries. Remuneration for women – regardless of their qualifications - also generally remained under that of their male colleagues, including in countries with better than average record in women’s rights such as Finland (women earned in average 20% less than men). Domestic violence was a widespread problem throughout the OSCE region.
Human Rights Defenders:
Persecution of human rights defenders continued throughout the year in Uzbekistan. Three member of the Human Rights Society o Uzbekistan (HRSU, IHF cooperating committee) were released from prison in the summer of 2003, after been in custody since September 2002. Authorities also obstructed prevented the holding of a conference “Death Penalty: Analysis, Tendencies and Realities” on 5 December in Tashkent, organized by “Mothers Against the Death Penalty and Torture” and sponsored by the OSCE, the British embassy and Freedom House.