THE JAILING of dissenters is nothing new in Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous country, where faulting the president can land you in trouble. What is unusual is the recent public outcry after the imprisonment of an ordinary motorist, who found himself behind bars after his tirade over fuel shortages went viral.
Gayrat Dustov posted his profanity-laced rant late last year from a petrol station in Tashkent, the capital. He had spent two nights queuing, unsuccessfully, to fill the van he drives trying to make a living in the gig economy. His harangue turned into a jeremiad about precariousness. He tore off his trainers and held them up to the camera to show how his footwear was not, as he put it, fit for a corpse. Mr Dustov touched a chord with many Uzbeks, who, though their country is among the world’s top 20 gas producers, reliably face fuel shortages every winter. Where, some ask, is the bruited “New Uzbekistan”?
That is the slogan of Shavkat Mirziyoyev, an apparatchik who came to power as president in 2016 after the death of his tyrannical predecessor, Islam Karimov. Mr Mirziyoyev embarked on a series of liberal reforms to build what he claims is a people-friendly country that respects rather than tramples on human rights and freedoms. His agenda included market and legal reforms, state pullbacks from swathes of the economy and guarantees of free speech. “Surely in a democratic state where there is freedom of speech, freedom of citizens and supremacy of the law, I have the right to speak?” Mr Dustov asked.
Apparently not. A court slung Mr Dustov behind bars for 15 days on charges of hooliganism, to his countrymen’s anger: he had “simply expressed the opinion of millions of his fellow citizens”, one of them fumed online. A meme did the rounds of a prisoner gripping the bars of his cell with a ball and chain around his ankles, the ball taking the form of a fuel container. Thanks in large part to the outcry, Mr Dustov was freed early on appeal, having spent the new-year holiday in jail. Yet his imprisonment has inflicted “enormous damage on public trust in the state”, says Khushnudbek Khudoyberdiyev, a lawyer with a big social-media following.
The outrage over Mr Dustov’s brief incarceration was not a given. Other critics have been banged up for years with barely a murmur from the public. Few reacted when Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov, a lawyer, was handed a 16-year prison term in 2023 after being convicted of fomenting fatal unrest in Karakalpakstan, an autonomous part of Uzbekistan. International watchdogs called the case a travesty of justice. Dozens of people have been imprisoned under legislation approved by Mr Mirziyoyev in 2021 that makes it a crime, with up to five years in prison, to criticise the president. One woman was even imprisoned last year on charges that included making remarks about Mr Mirziyoyev in private voice messages. Such cases are reminiscent of Karimov’s iron-fisted rule. They make “a mockery of President Mirziyoyev’s reform pledges”, Human Rights Watch says.
Cases of dissenters and their treatment rarely rile the public. By contrast, Mr Dustov’s imprisonment blew up the Uzbek internet. That was not despite his lack of prominence but because of it. He is no outspoken intellectual but an Uzbek Everyman, voicing the day-to-day concerns of the working poor. His incarceration was seen as a typically heavy-handed reaction from a government that prefers to silence critics rather than do anything about the problems they raise. Many Uzbeks believe that Mr Dustov received retribution from a state that cannot, despite Mr Mirziyoyev’s promises of change, tolerate criticism.
The outcry over his treatment indicates that, after over eight years of talking about, but failing convincingly to deliver, a “new” Uzbekistan, the president and his reform agenda have raised unmet expectations. Mr Mirziyoyev promised Uzbeks the right to speak freely. Now they expect to be able to exercise that right without getting thrown behind bars. ■