In a troubling development earlier this month, Sharifa Madrakhimova, a prominent Uzbek human rights defender, found her passport deliberately tampered with and rendered unusable. This act prevented her from travelling abroad to receive an award recognizing her outstanding work in the defence of human rights in Uzbekistan.
Shortly thereafter, Abdurakhmon Tashanov, another leading figure in the field, was subjected to a civil defamation ruling, resulting in a substantial financial penalty. The case stemmed from an innocuous post he shared on Facebook.
Although the two incidents are not officially linked, they starkly illustrate the forms of retaliation faced by human rights defenders in Uzbekistan, where their work has grown increasingly fraught with risk.
Mr. Tashanov serves as the head of the Ezgulik Human Rights Society, one of the few officially registered organisations dedicated to human rights within the country. He utilizes his widely followed Facebook platform to document and expose violations, a role that has evidently drawn unwelcome scrutiny.
These actions against activists underscore the precarious environment in which human rights advocacy continues to unfold in Uzbekistan.