Uzbek Editor’s Prison Sentence Extended in Continuing Pattern of Repression

On January 24, just days before the scheduled release of Uzbek editor Muhammad Bekjanov, a district court in Kasan added an extra five years to his prison sentence for allegedly breaking unspecified prison rules. Bekjanov was the editor-in-chief of Erk, a now-defunct newspaper founded by Uzbekistan’s opposition party of the same name and is banned in the country. Muhammad Salih, Bekjanov’s brother and leader of the Erk party, now lives in exile in Norway after being sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia. (...)

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