On January 18, 2012, freelance journalist Dzamshid Karimov stopped responding to emails from friends and colleagues and his phone was disconnected. His colleagues eventually discovered that he had again been held in a psychiatric facility. In 2017, Karimov was reportedly released from the psychiatric clinic; his current whereabouts are unknown.
Case History
Dzamshid Karimov is a journalist who was held in psychiatric detention on and off for more than ten years. He is known for being an outspoken critic of the government, and for his reporting on socio-political issues as a contributor to independent journals and web sites. He is also the nephew of former Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
Karimov reported on the May 2005 incident in which troops killed antigovernment protesters in the northeastern city of Andijan. Most recently, he worked as a contributor to the Almaty-based independent online newspaper Liter. According to Uznews, Karimov wrote about social and economic problems as a freelancer.
Following his coverage of the demonstrations and reporting on the killing of civilians in the city of Andijan, local authorities began monitoring Karimov’s activities. In early August 2006, his mother petitioned authorities to remove all listening devices from her house; they refused. In fact, law enforcement agents set up more surveillance equipment in a neighboring building, the Moscow-based Central Asia news Web site Ferghana reported. The family’s long-distance telephone connections had been cut. Also in August, Karimov’s passport was seized by the authorities in Jizzakh after he applied for an exit visa to attend a journalism seminar in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.
On August 31, the head of the regional administration, Ubaidulla Yamankulov, visited the family home and offered Karimov positions at the state newspapers Mulkdor and Tasvir. Karimov refused the offer, according to the reports.
In March 2017, Karimov was reportedly released from the psychiatric clinic, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which welcomed his release. His current whereabouts are unknown.