Uzbek citizens risk ending up in jail or a psychiatric hospital for criticizing their country’s president, Shavkat Mirziyoev, on social media.
At least three people are currently serving prison terms for criticizing Mirziyoev online, and one man has recently had his forced “treatment” extended at a psychiatric ward for a mental disorder he insists he does not have.
Before his arrest in 2021, Valijon Kalonov, who lives in the eastern Jizzakh Province -- the home region of the president -- frequently criticized Mirziyoev and his policies on YouTube.
Kalonov, 54, was particularly critical of Mirziyoev’s government maintaining good relations with China despite Beijing’s clampdown on Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang Province.
In one YouTube post from March 2021, Kalonov urged Uzbeks to end Mirziyoev’s rule by voting him out of office.
“I am not calling on you to take up arms and fight, I am urging you to use your democratic right to vote in an election,” he said. “I don’t trust my country and my children’s future with Mirziyoev.”
Kalonov was arrested by the regional police’s department against terrorism and extremism and was convicted by the Jizzakh city court of “insulting the president” and committing other “criminal offenses that endangered society,” according to authorities.
The details of the case against Kalonov and his sentencing were not made public. Kalonov was eventually transferred to a psychiatric hospital, a legacy from the Soviet era still used by some Central Asian countries to punish government critics.
Insulting the president of the country is a criminal offense in Uzbekistan punishable by up to five years in prison.
'No Regrets'
This week, Kalonov’s family told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service that in November a district court in Jizzakh extended Kalonov’s forced “treatment” in a mental hospital by three months.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the relatives said he doesn’t suffer from any mental disorder. Relatives say that Kalonov has told them during their weekly visits to see him that the doctors try to force him to take tranquilizers.
According to a copy of an official document obtained by RFE/RL, Jizzakh doctors concluded that “Kalonov’s mental condition has not improved” and that he still has “no regrets about his actions” that officials say landed him in the psychiatric hospital.
Meanwhile, in the neighboring Samarkand region, a teenager was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for “insulting the president” on Instagram.
A copy of the October 26 court ruling says Dilshod Iskandarov, 19, used a swear word against Mirziyoev and his family. Iskandarov later deleted the comment which he had posted in 2022 as a migrant worker in Russia, the ruling said.
Iskandarov was arrested, charged, and subsequently convicted upon his “voluntary” return to Uzbekistan in 2023, despite telling the court that he regretted his action and had “no discontent with Uzbek President Mirziyoev’s policies,” the document stated.
In the eastern Ferghana Province, two men ended up in court -- in separate cases -- after complaining about a shortage of natural gas and electricity in their region on the Telegram channel Kokand Methane Gas.
Utkirbek Sobirov, 27, “insulted the president,” voiced “dissatisfaction with the government’s policies,” and spoke about “the need to push” Mirziyoev out of office, said a court document detailing Sobirov’s case and 3-year sentence.
Another user of the same Telegram channel, Ahrorbek Quchqorov, 30, was handed a 4-year term of house arrest for a similar post.
RFE/RL has asked the office of the Uzbek president for comment but has not yet received a response.
Zero Tolerance
There is no genuine political opposition or real independent media in Uzbekistan, where the government stifles free speech and critical voices. Media and rights advocates accuse Tashkent of imprisoning and torturing journalists and bloggers who criticize the government.
In August, blogger Abduqodir Muminov was sentenced to 7 1/4 years in prison on dubious charges of fraud and extortion that his supporters claimed were in retaliation for his work, which included a report on the business activities of Mirziyoev’s relatives.
Mirziyoev has come under criticism in recent years for backsliding on the reforms he promised when he came to power following the death of his authoritarian predecessor, Islam Karimov, in 2016.
In his first years in office, Mirziyoev was credited for opening up Uzbekistan economically, thawing its relationships with neighboring countries, and trying to improve Tashkent’s human rights record, including by stopping the notorious forced labor in the cotton industry that had received worldwide criticism.
Mirziyoev also initially gained popularity in the Muslim-majority country for providing some religious freedoms, removing thousands from so-called extremist blacklists, and freeing prisoners jailed for their religious beliefs.
But the government began making a U-turn on reforms, restricting the media, silencing critics, and cracking down brutally on anti-government protests in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan.
In a widely criticized referendum on constitutional changes in April 2023, Uzbekistan cleared a path for Mirziyoev to stay in power until 2037 by increasing the presidential term from five to seven years and declaring that his time in office before the amendment would not be counted if Mirziyoev ran again for president.
In July, Mirziyoev was reelected in an vote that lacked genuine competition, according to Western election observers and analysts, and was deemed neither free nor fair.
