Eurasianet has the story early today of the release of Yusuf Juma, the Bukharan poet and activist who was jailed in 2008 after publishing a series of controversial poems that became an anthem of sorts for protests related to the Andijon events of 2005.
Convicted of slander and on two counts of resisting arrest (articles 140, 219 and 105), Juma was sentenced to five years in prison. Only adding to the the alarm of many human rights groups and onlookers concerned about the precedent being set for freedom of speech in Central Asia, shortly into his sentence Juma was inexplicably transferred to Jaslyk–Uzbekistan’s maximum security prison colony notorious for allegations of widespread torture and abuse of inmates.
His release today is reportedly an act of clemency directly from the president in honor of the upcoming 20th anniversary of Uzbek independence.
This post was written by...
Noah Tucker – author of 27 posts on Registan.net.
Noah has an MA in Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies from Harvard, where he studied under John Schoeberlein and specialized in Central Asian religious issues. He lived in Tashkent from 2002-2005 and returned most recently to Central Asia in 2007. He's lived in Russia as well, and traveled throughout much (but by no means all) of the former Soviet Union. He speaks Russian fluently and reads Uzbek and French, though admittedly not all that often and almost never at the same time. He and his family live at this particular moment near the ocean in a place that's supposed to be warm.
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