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Alert

RSF calls for independent journalist Ruslan Sharipov's immediate release

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has voiced deep concern over the ongoing trial of Ruslan Sharipov, president of the press freedom organisation Union of Independent Journalists of Uzbekistan (UIJU) and former correspondent for the Russian news agency Prima News, who is imprisoned on charges of homosexuality and sexually abusing minors.

Although he has repeatedly denied the sexual abuse charges since his arrest on 26 May 2003, he is reported to have confessed on 8 August during his in camera trial, which got underway on 23 July. Sharipov reportedly announced his intention to plead guilty and ask President Islam Karimov for a pardon. He also refused to see his mother, the only person linked to him who is allowed to attend his trial, and his lawyer.

"In view of the unrelenting repression of independent journalists and press freedom defenders in Uzbekistan, everything indicates that Sharipov was arrested on false and sordid pretences designed to rid the authorities of a bothersome, dissident voice," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to President Karimov.

"We are extremely concerned about this journalist's physical and psychological state and we hold you responsible for any mistreatment he may suffer in prison," Ménard continued. "We demand that all charges against him be dropped and that he be released at once," he concluded.

Sharipov was arrested in Tashkent on 26 May along with fellow UIJU members Azamat Mamankulov and Oleg Sarapulov, who were released four days later. Mamankulov and Sarapulov were not charged, but Mamankulov was beaten and threatened while in detention and was cited as a witness for the prosecution at Sharipov's trial.

The police originally denied Sharipov's arrest to the Human Rights Watch representative in Tashkent, Matilda Bogner, and to a United States embassy official before finally confirming it on 27 May to a representative of Freedom House, another non-governmental organisation.

Sharipov is accused of being a homosexual and of paying two 15-year-old boys to have sex with him under Articles 120, 127-3 and 128-2 of the Criminal Code. He faces up to 18 years in prison. The journalist, who has never denied his bisexuality, told the president of the Uzbek human rights organisation E'zguilik, Vasilya Inoyatova, who visited him in detention on 27 May, that he did not know the alleged victims.

The two boys were detained on 26 May and held for three or four days. Sharipov's lawyer claims they were beaten and threatened by police in efforts to persuade them to testify in court. The trial has been adjourned several times because of their failure to appear in court.

On 28 May, Sharipov told Human Rights Watch the police had tortured and threatened him in an attempt to persuade him to abandon his human rights activities. In a letter from prison, he also reiterated that he had been mistreated.

Sharipov was physically assaulted and threatened several times in 2001 and 2002 because of his work (see IFEX alerts of 8 and 4 February 2002 and 19 July 2001).