Nafosat Ollashukurova . Photo from Repost.uz
Khorezm-based blogger Nafosat Ollashukurova left Uzbekistan on 18 January due to what she describes as continued harassment by local authorities and the threat of being forcibly returned to a psychiatric hospital, Eltuz.com reports (in Uzbek).
The website does not say exactly where Ollashukurova has gone, merely that she is now “in a CIS country”. According to Ollashkurova, she was helped to leave the country by the US embassy, the head of the human rights organisation Ezgulik Abdurahmon Tashanov and the lawyer Umidbek Davlatov.
Nafosat Ollashukurova ran a page on Facebook under the name Shabnam Ollashukurova, where she criticised authorities’ corruption and the illegal demolition of buildings. On 23 September she was arrested during the live streaming of a march through Tashkent organised by local journalist Mahmud Rajab and his relatives, who planned to march to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Pulat Babajanov and tell him about the “lawlessness that reigns in the Khorezm region”.
The blogger was sentenced to ten days in prison after being found guilty of “disorderly conduct”, “refusal to comply with the lawful orders of a law enforcement officer” and “assisting an unauthorised demonstration”. After a few days, however, she was instead sent to the Khorezm regional psychiatric hospital (she tried to contest the decision but a court rejected her appeal). A number of human rights organisations came out in support of Ollashukurova, including the Committee to Protect Journalists. They called on the Uzbek authorities to release her and bring her involuntary treatment to an end.
Ollashukurova was held at the psychiatric hospital for three months before being released on 28 December last year. A special commission determined that she no longer required treatment. Yet, according to the blogger, her harassment did not end there and three attempts were made to return her to the clinic. On the last occasion they came when she was not at home. Her parents warned her about the uninvited guests and she wandered the streets until midnight waiting for them to leave.
