GENEVA / BISHKEK (22 August 2017) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Tuesday welcomed the news that former UN employee Erkin Musaev has been released by the Uzbek authorities, 11 years after he was arrested at Tashkent airport while travelling to a regional seminar.
Musaev, who was the country manager of a joint UNDP-European Union programme, was tried on three separate charges in 2006 and 2007 receiving sentences of 15, 6 and 4 years respectively.
In 2008, the independent UN ‘Special Procedure’ known as the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared that Mr Musaev had not been tried fairly and that his detention was arbitrary. His case was subsequently taken up by other UN entities, including various other UN Special Procedures and the Human Rights Committee, as well as three successive High Commissioners for Human Rights.
Zeid, the current High Commissioner, specifically raised Mr Musaev’s case in his meeting with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev when he made the first ever visit to Uzbekistan by a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in May this year. This followed earlier written submissions by Zeid to former President Karimov and Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister.
During his visit to Uzbekistan in May, Zeid also welcomed the release of a number of other political prisoners since Mr Mirziyoyev became President in December 2016, and urged the authorities to release all political prisoners, some of whom – like Erkin Musaev – received very long prison sentences after highly problematic trial processes.
“Mr Musaev has lost 11 years of his life, which can never be restored to him,” Zeid said. “Nevertheless he is now finally a free man again, and this is another indication that under the new Government of Uzbekistan, there is a distinct change taking place. I urge the Government to consolidate this particular area of change by releasing all other remaining political prisoners as soon as possible.”
Welcome to the United Nations 
OHCHR 
