"No one left to witness"

"Uzbekistan has become synonymous in recent years with an abysmal rights record and a torture epidemic that plagues its police stations and prisons. United Nations bodies determined in 2003 that torture was "systematic" and "widespread" in Uzbekistan's criminal justice system--a crisis that only deepened after the Uzbek government killed hundreds of protesters in the eastern city of Andijan in May 2005. In 2008, the Uzbek government introduced the right of habeas corpus, or the judicial review of detention, followed by other procedural reforms, to its system of pre-trial detention. Such measures should have heralded a more positive era for Uzbekistan. They did not. Despite improvements on paper, and the government's claims that it is committed to fighting torture, depressingly little has changed since habeas corpus was adopted. There is no evidence the Uzbek government is committed to implementing the laws it has passed or to ending torture in practice. Indeed, in several respects, the situation has deteriorated. The government has dismantled the independent legal profession, disbarring lawyers who dare to take on torture cases. Persecution of human rights activists has increased, credible reports of arbitrary detention and torture, including suspicious deaths in custody, have continued, and the government will not allow domestic and international NGOs to operate in the country. Uzbekistan's increasing strategic importance as a key supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan has led the United States, European Union, and key actors to soften their criticism of its authoritarian government in recent years, allowing an already bleak situation to worsen. "No One Left to Witness": Torture, the Failure of Habeas Corpus, and the Silencing of Lawyers in Uzbekistan documents the cost of the West's increasingly complacent approach toward Uzbekistan and urges a fundamental shift in US and EU policy, making clear that concrete policy consequences, including targeted punitive measures, will follow absent concrete action to address serious human rights abuses."--P. [4] of cover.