Surat Ikramov

Surat Khatamovich Ikramov (1945 – 3 May 2021) was an Uzbek human rights activist and a critic of Uzbekistan’s authoritarian government. Ikramov was the chair of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders. Since its founding in 2002, the group became one of the most prolific chroniclers of human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous state and an important Western ally in the Afghanistan war.

Biography

Ikramov was born in Tashkent in 1945. He studied radio technology, and worked in a printing house, a photographic studio, and taught in a college, and later headed a company producing educational materials.

In 2003, Ikramov was kidnapped, severely beaten, bound in a sack, and thrown in a secluded ditch. Given his background, Human Rights Watch said "we suspect that there may be more to this incident than mere criminal thuggery." Ikramov regularly attended trials, talked to victims and compiled dispatches which he emailed to diplomats, journalists and government officials. In a country with no independent media, his dispatches provided a rare window into the workings of Uzbekistan's repressive legal and political system. An archive of his dispatches is available at www.ignpu.net.

Much of Ikramov's work focused on exposing mistreatment, alleged fabrication of evidence, and torture of detainees, particularly those accused of religious extremism. An engineer by training, Ikramov became a human rights defender by accident. In the 1990s, he set up a small printing business, and when a state-owned factory broke his equipment, he sued and lost. He got in touch with other human-rights defenders, and eventually became one himself. Ikramov was unstinting in his criticism of the ruling regime of longtime President Islam Karimov. In a May 2010 dispatch marking the five-year anniversary of a government crackdown on protesters in Andijan, Ikramov called it "one of the most horrible crimes of the Karimov regime" that remains "uninvestigated and unpunished." The government claims it was fighting terrorists.

Ikramov was sued in a case involving the suspicious death of a famous Uzbek singer. According to the official version, she hanged herself. But Ikramov suggested she may have been murdered, and implicated the relatives of the singer's boyfriend, who was a brother of Uzbekistan's interior minister. A court ruled against Ikramov, and ordered him to pay a fine to the plaintiffs. Ikramov appealed.

Ikramov died in Tashkent on 3 May 2021.

References

• "Uzbekistan: The Court recognized human rights activist Surat Ikramov guilty of insult and defamation". Ferghana News Agency. 29 September 2010. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
• "Surat Ikramov: The judicial and legal reform in Uzbekistan is the plan, but not action". Ferghana News Agency. 12 March 2010. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
• "Human rights activist Surat Ikramov: Participants of the Andizhan rebellion sentenced to imprisonment are denied texts of verdicts". Ferghana News Agency. 27 February 2006. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
• World Briefing | Asia: Uzbekistan: Opposition Leader On Trial New York Times

External links

• Philip Shishkin (27 October 2010). "Uzbekistan: U.S. Supports Repressive Regime". Pulitzer Center. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
• Information and health tips. "Information and health tips". Ignpu.net. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
• "Surat Ikramov – The history of Uzbek human rights activist". UzNews.net. Archived from the original on 18 March 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
• "Uzbekistan: Uzbek Rights Activist Kidnapped and Beaten". Human Rights Watch. 30 August 2003. Retrieved 17 February 2012.