Dilmurod Saiid, Freelance
Medium:Internet
Charge:Retaliatory
Imprisoned:February 22, 2009

Saiid was serving a 12-and-a-half-year prison term at a high-security prison colony outside Navoi, where he was subjected to torture, according to news reports and CPJ sources. In 2013, he was denied adequate medical treatment for tuberculosis that he contracted in jail.

The journalist was arrested in his hometown, Tashkent, and placed in detention in the central city of Samarkand after a woman accused him of extorting US$10,000 from a local businessman. Although the woman soon withdrew her accusation, saying she had been coerced, authorities refused to release the journalist, Saiid's lawyer, Ruhiddin Komilov, told CPJ at the time. In March 2009, regional authorities announced that new witnesses had come forward to accuse Saiid of extortion; authorities also said that several local farmers had accused him of using their signatures to create fraudulent court papers.

Saiid was charged with extortion and forgery. Several international human rights and press freedom groups including CPJ have found the charges were fabricated in retaliation for his journalism. Before his arrest, Saiid had reported on official abuses against farmers for the independent regional news website Voice of Freedom as well as for a number of local publications.

At Saiid's trial, Ferghana News reported, the farmers recanted and told the court that they had been pressured by prosecutors to testify against Saiid. Their statements were ignored, one of several irregularities reported during the proceedings. Komilov said that authorities failed to notify him of a number of important hearing dates. When a regional court convicted and sentenced Saiid in a July 2009 closed-door proceeding, the journalist's lawyer and family were not present.

In November 2009, the journalist's wife and 6-year-old daughter were killed in a car accident on their way to visit him in prison, regional press reports said. Authorities rejected Saiid's 2011 application for amnesty, citing alleged violations of penal colony rules, Uznews reported.

Based on findings by CPJ and other groups, lawyers with the Washington-based advocacy group Freedom Now filed a March 2012 complaint with the U.N. Human Rights Committee, contesting Saiid's imprisonment and calling for his release. The case is pending.

In a handwritten note in January 2013 that he passed, via his visiting brother, to a local rights activist, Saiid revealed some details of his conditions in jail and pleaded for help. Saiid did not explicitly detail violations he had suffered, but hinted that Uzbek and international laws against torture had been violated during his imprisonment.

On November 24, 2014, eight U.S. senators sent a public letter to President Islam Karimov, calling on him to release Saiid on humanitarian grounds.

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