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CIVIL NEWS
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority It is time to sit back and reflect.
Murder Threats Against “Memorial”’s Vitaliy Ponomarev
On January 12, 2013, the head of the Central Asia programme of the Human Rights Centre “Memorial” Vitaliy Ponomarev received e-mails with death threats. Several messages were sent in both Russian and Uzbek from different e-mail accounts within about two minutes.
The “Memorial” Human Rights Centre Сentral Asia programme records human rights violations in the Central Asian states, particularly Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. The monitoring of the situation is done in the cooperation with the human right defenders on the ground in those countries.
The e-mails with deaths threats come shortly after Vitaliy Ponomarev’s report criticising the activities of the security services of Uzbekistan on the territory of the Russian Federation. The news story, posted on the “Memorial”’s website on December 27, 2012 said the Uzbekistan's security services had used torture against the Uzbek citizens held in prison on the Russian territory.
The e-mails were sent from IP-addresses in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. The expressions in the e-mails are characteristic of the Uzbek dialect typical of the Tashkent area.
The “Memorial” Human Rights Centre requested the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, to investigate the case and ensure that those behind the treats are identified and brought to justice.
This is not the first time when “Memorial” Central Asia programme workers come under pressure. On June 6, 2011, “Memorial”’s Bakhrom Khamroev was beaten when entering his home in Moscow. As of now, no perpetrators of the crime have been identified.