by Gulnara Oltieva, spouse of the detained poet Yussuf Djumaev

to

the President of the United States Mr George Bush

the UN Secretary-General Mr Ban Ki Mun

the UN Secretary on Human Rights Ms Louise Arbour

the President of the European Council Mr Dmitri Rupel

the Acting Chairman of the OSCE Mr Ilkka Kanerva

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am aware that you are very much occupied with important and most urgent affairs throughout the world. Nevertheless, a simple Uzbek woman, I had the courage to write you this open letter with the hope that my voice will be heard and that you will be able to provide support to my case.

On 15 April 2008 the Bukhara regional court on criminal cases sentenced my husband Yussuf Djumaev to five years of imprisonment. On 17 January of the same year, the Karakul district court on criminal cases sentenced my son Mashrab Djumaev to a prison term of three years. Presently I am hiding with three of my sons (Alisher, Kodiriy and Djavkhar Djumaev) in neighbouring Kazakhstan. At that time, my husband Yusuf Djuma are directed to the colony with strong regime, but the courts verdict was that he would be in the colony of settlement.

What crime has my family committed against the Uzbek state? For many years, my husband, the dissident poet Yussuf Djumaev, has criticised and derided through his poems the despotic regime in Uzbekistan as it came into being with the rise to power of Islam Karimov in mid-1989. On state order, his poems were banned from publication in journals or in books. Only in the late 1990s his poems began to appear on independent websites and gained wide recognition in the country. In 2001 Yussuf Djumaev was arrested by officers of the National Security Service (SNB) and accused of infringement upon the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan. For 71 days he was detained in SNB cellars. But thanks to international pressure by the world’s democratic institutions and in particular to the US embassy to Tashkent, he was released in court.

Yet the SNB and the police went on with their provocation against our family. Several times my sons Alisher, Mashrab and Bobir were beaten by unidentified persons, and our family was intimidated. On 24 July 2007 law enforcement organs detained our son Mashrab Djumaev who is handicapped and has grave problems with his eyes. He was severely tortured, but the prosecutor still was unable to prove his guilt and he was released in court on 14 August. During these three weeks our whole family was picketing in front of the district state prosecutor’s office and protested against the lawless activity of law enforcement organs.

Yet on 4 December 2007 Mashrab was once again detained by the Karakul district police, and this time the accusations were even more astonishingly false. The acting President Islam Karimov had no constitutional rights to candidate for another term as President of Uzbekistan. When, in violation of the constitution, he began campaigning for another term, we who consider him the source of all mischief that our country experiences, began picketing. We protested against our son Mashrab’s second detention and asked not only for our son to be released but as well for Karimov’s dismissal.

Little earlier October 5, 2007 my husband Yusuf Djuma has submitted to court on the president Karimov accusing him under clauses ¹159 of the Res. Of Uzbekistan on terrorism and attempt to restrict constitution and parallel has submitted the application to the Bukhara prosecutors for permit us for picketing against Karimovs third turm illegal election.. He could not agree in any way, that Karimov rudely breaks the Constitution of Republic of Uzbekistan. After that pressure from the Karimovs enforcement organs on our family has increased. They opened a criminal case for me blaming me in terrorism. My husband Yusuf Djuma understand that it is impossible to have a permit picketing and began to act. On December 6 he with his sons began to protest against Karimovs illegitimate acts. The could able picketing 3 days.

Our family picket which took place on 10 December happened to be the last one. This day we were severely beaten by police officers, and a particularly hard challenge awaited us at home. During the night of 10 December a large crowd of special purpose police – some 200 men armed with automatic rifles – attacked our house. Apart from the eldest son Alisher, all family members who were in liberty were at home at that moment. As the cars drove to our house, some minutes before the attack neighbours warned us about the imminent threat to our lives.

We managed to run out of the house and get to a house of our friends, yet we heard distinctively as the special purpose officers opened gunfire on our house. We were saved because all lights went off in the village and, covered by darkness, we were able to get to the street and drive to Tashkent. We had no documents with us, only some light clothes and no shoes. We surely were happy that no one of us had been killed, but our happiness did not last for long. On 17 December Yussuf Djumaev and our son Bobir were arrested in the friends’ house where they had spent the night. We understood that President Karimov had given an order to arrest all remaining family members and therefore I took the decision to leave the country for the neighbouring Kazakhstan, what we managed to do. In Almaty, my three sons and me turned to the Almaty Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and applied for refugee status. In Almaty we learned that our son Mashrab was sentenced to three years in prison. Some days ago, Yusuf Djumaev’s sister Rokhat was able to see Mashrab in prison. She reported that he was barely able to move, that he was all meagre, had lost half of his weight and was almost blind. This, he explained, was due to torture and humiliation inflicted upon him. On 15 April 2008 the Bukhara regional court on criminal cases sentences Yussuf Djuma to five years of imprisonment, finding him guilty of violation of three chapters of the criminal code: infliction of corporal damage, defiance of lawful authority and defamation. The same court sentenced Bobir to a three-years-term on probation.

According to our relatives, all our property is robbed and our piece of land of 10ha has been confiscated. The family is separated: my three sons and I are in Almaty, Yusuf and Mashrab are in detention, and Mashrab’s wife and his children, Bobir and our daughter Firuza are in our house which was shot upon and robbed.

No member of our big family feels guilty, contrary to Uzbekistan’s authorities, for Yussuf Djumaev’s praise of liberty and democracy; for his hate of violence, tyranny and injustice. No one considers himself criminal for participating in peaceful pickets and our protest against the authorities’ lawlessness and arbitrariness. We are not guilty that every member of our family had the courage to stand up against severe violation of the constitution of Uzbekistan by its President Islam Karimov who ran as candidate for another seven-years-term. He does not like families like ours and exterminates them without mercy.

From the latest news we received from Bukhara we have learned that Yussuf and Mashrab are being tortured and humiliated in detention. We have learned that a new criminal case was started against Yussuf Djumaev. Thinking of the renowned writer Emin Usman and the human rights defender and former deputy Shavrik Razimuradov who were savagely put to death in prison cells because of their struggle for liberty, then we fear that Yussuf Djumaev as well might be killed in detention.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our family has no means to liberate my husband and my son from prison. But we know that respected international organisations have saved many people’s lives in different countries with authoritarian regimes. My whole family implores you to protect the dissident poet Yussuf Djumaev and our son Mashrab Djumaev. We do not lose our hope that in these hard times the leadership of the UN, the OSCE, the European Union and the democratic countries will provide us their help.

Yours sincerely,

Gulnora Oltieva;

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Tel. +77024480257

E-mail : g.oltieva@gmail.com