Through the security apparatus and laws restricting the registration of non-governmental organizations, the state effectively blocks the activities of civic groups. Uzbekistan routinely ignores its citizens' due process rights. Arrests are often carried out without prosecutorial sanction. From beginning to end, the right to a fair hearing is violated, with accused persons often deprived of the right to counsel, held in incommunicado detention, and tortured. Being accused is usually tantamount to being convicted, as the presumption of innocence is entirely lacking.
Torture is a growing problem in pre-trial detention.
Though Uzbek laws forbid it, courts routinely rely on confessions or denunciations extracted under torture as evidence to convict suspects. There are increasing reports of deaths in detention, particularly of persons arrested for religious and political offenses. There is no effective recourse for victims of torture, and the perpetrators are held to account in extremely rare cases. The most chilling evidence of Uzbekistan's deepening human rights crisis are attacks on local human rights activists, who increasingly face the same fate as those they attempt to defend. The scope of human rights violations in that country requires a broader approach than any single thematic mechanism can provide.