01/23/2008

The twenty-five year old human rights worker spoke to RI not about his work, for which he’s been interviewed numerous times, but about the reasons he is no longer working or living in Uzbekistan.

Arkin, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is a refugee from Uzbekistan in Kyrgyzstan awaiting third-country resettlement. He hopes the process, which can take from six months to a year, if not longer, will be completed before they catch up with him. “They” are a number of interested parties, including the federal security services of Uzbekistan and the Russian Federation, which have played significant roles in determining his current situation.

Arkin’s long journey to refugee status and dire poverty in Kyrgyzstan began with the massacre of peaceful protestors in Andijon upon the order of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov in mid-May 2005. Arkin was not among the first wave of refugees who fled Uzbekistan in the immediate wake of the events in Andijon. He is among those whose continued work on behalf of human rights or in the service of political parties in opposition to Karimov’s People’s Democratic Party has marked them as “traitors” and targeted them and their families for persecution, wiretapping, detention, abduction, torture and intimidation.

Being from an influential family, Arkin was pressured to discontinue his work by his parents and siblings, who risked their professional and social standing from association with him. It was after he was struck by an unmarked car on his way to submit his report on Andijon to the US Embassy, however, and after the sister of a coworker was abducted, that Arkin decided he had to flee Uzbekistan.

He went to Moscow with the intention of lying low, but instead he began to give interviews to TV, radio and newspaper outlets about Andijon and the deteriorating state of human rights in Uzbekistan. He continued to speak out against abuses by the government in his homeland even after he was abducted and beaten by two men in a black jeep, who told him, simply, “You’ve been warned.” When Arkin questioned them for what he’d been warned, they said, “For nothing.”

The second time Arkin was detained and beaten was more official. Upon exiting the cashier’s line at a grocery store, he was stopped by two men and asked for his documents. Because he had no documents, he was taken to a holding cell, where he claims to have suffered torture until he was forced to confess to stealing. “Stealing what?” he asked. “Boots,” they answered.

Arkin was sentenced to six months in jail, which he served in the cold of the Perm region of the Russian Federation. Upon his release, and with the help of distant friends, he managed to join the small but steady numbers of Uzbek refugees in Kyrgyzstan, where he was given refugee status in two months instead of the usual six because of his history. He waits there now for the lengthy process of third-country resettlement to remove him from a dangerous proximity to his homeland.

While Arkin waits for resettlement, he lives a meager life as a refugee in Kyrgyzstan. Because he is recognized as a refugee only by UNHCR but not the government, he can’t work legally. Even if he could, he has to keep a low profile or risk abduction or, possibly, the fate of Uzbek journalist, Alisher Saipov, who was murdered in Southern Kyrgyzstan.

Upon arrival in Kyrgyzstan, Arkin received a bag of food and 400 som (US $12.00) from UNHCR, but as a single man without a family, no help with rent. And though UNHCR provides refugees with health insurance, according to Arkin, “No doctor accepts it.” But he his hopeful that a third country will, ultimately, accept him. Until then, he waits.