Uzbekistan: Key Concerns For UN Universal Periodic Review – OpEd
By IPHR
International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) and Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA) have submitted a joint report for the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Uzbekistan, which will be held in November 2023.
The joint submission covers key developments and concerns regarding the 2022 Karakalpakstan protests; freedom of expression and the media; human rights defenders, civil society, and lawyers; torture and ill-treatment; rehabilitation; domestic violence; LGBT; and forced evictions. The report concludes with suggested recommendations to the government of Uzbekistan.
The submission has been prepared based on IPHR’s and AHRCA’s ongoing cooperation on monitoring and documenting fundamental rights developments in Uzbekistan.
The UPR is a review mechanism covering all UN member states that takes places under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council. It involves a review of the human rights record of individual states based on information provided by the states themselves, UN human rights bodies, as well as civil society organisations and other stake-holders and is carried out through an inter-active exchange between the state concerned and member and observer states of the Human Rights Council.
It ends with the adoption of an outcome report featuring recommendations to the state concerned. Reports submitted by NGOs feed into a document with civil society concerns compiled for the review by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and are an important source of information for state delegations taking part in the review.
