A journalist and human rights activist from Uzbekistan claims she was unable to travel to Dublin last week to receive a humanitarian award because her passport was intercepted in the post and burned, rendering it unusable.
The organisation that was set to present her with the award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, Front Line Defenders (FLD), described the interception as an “act of intimidation and a violation of her right to freedom of movement”.
Founded in 2001, FLD is a Dublin-based organisation that provides services and support to human rights advocates under threat around the globe. It was awarded the UN’s Human Rights Prize in 2018.
Sharifa Madrakhimova said she is “absolutely sure it is because of her activity” covering farmers’ and labourers’ rights in Uzbekistan.
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Hours after FLD publicised the incident online, Ms Madrakhimova received her new passport in the post, albeit without her visa for the Schengen area.
Speaking to The Irish Times via an interpreter, she said the DHL postal service told her it has never had such an issue before.
Freedom of speech has improved in Uzbekistan since the death of a former president in 2016, but Ms Madrakhimova “has still faced a range of obstacles to her journalistic and public activities [such as] smear campaigns and intimidation tactics”, FLD said.
This is not the first intimidation tactic Ms Madrakhimova has suffered. She detailed an atmosphere of pro-government supporters “deliberately targeting activists” online, particularly on the messaging service Telegram, to curtail reporting on issues of social and gender inequality.
In April 2024, she and fellow Uzbek journalist Umida Niyzova were accosted by a pro-government blogger outside her home in Kokand. The incident was filmed and uploaded online in what FLD labelled a “defamatory video”.
Last February she was the subject of a police investigation that claimed she received bribes from local farmers to report their complaints after being told by the local government to kill profitable strawberry crops to make room to plant cotton.
The Uzbek cotton industry was shunned by international markets throughout the 2010s for forced and child labour in farming practices. Reforms have been implemented in recent years, but farmers are still often made to sell cotton to the government for artificially low prices.
Ms Madrakhimova said the police investigation was unfounded and eventually dropped after she discovered it was sparked by a complaint from the government press service. She denies accusations of receiving bribes, with her interpreter saying “Sharifa doesn’t even let people pay for lunch” to avoid this perception.
She also received a legal threat from the top official of her home district after reporting on local water issues in agricultural production, something for which a fellow Uzbek journalist received a six-year sentence.
The Irish Times received no reply from the Uzbek embassy in London, which has remit for Ireland, when asked to comment.
Ms Madrakhimova said she does not feel in danger at home now, but the threat to journalists looms large.
