Juan Gasparini/HRT

It has been reminded during the scrutiny of Uzbekistan’s human rights record on Thursday 11th December that children were threatened with expulsion from school and their parents told they would lose their jobs if their children did not harvest cotton. Several delegations from different continents condemned the practice.

Many countries also detailed a catalogue of human rights abuses in the country such as confessions extracted under torture, poor treatment of prisoners, systematic harassment of NGOs, restrictions on religious freedom, impunity for past human rights violations, obstructing the work of the ICRC and High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Seven Human Rights Council thematic experts have up to now asked and failed to obtain permission to visit the former Soviet Republic. On afternoon of Monday 15th December, the Council is due to ask for the provisional report to be adopted. In 2007 Uzbekistan managed to have its dossier classified under a confidential procedure known as 1503 so that its contents were not revealed.

This story was broken by the Human Rights Tribune at the time. Its burial was supported by African, Arab, Asian and East European countries as well as members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. The dossier contained details of all of the human rights violations that were highlighted during Thursdays universal periodic review of the situation in Uzbekistan.