[Russian translation here.]

Statement of concern over the indictment and imprisonment of Professor Andrei V. Kubatin, Institute of Oriental Studies, Tashkent

10 June, 2019

The European Society for Central Asian Studies expresses its deep concern over the indictment and continued imprisonment, and alleged torture of our colleague Andrei V. Kubatin in Uzbekistan. Andrei Kubatin is a well-known scholar, who worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent, and who has made a significant contribution to the study of the early history of Uzbekistan.

In December 2017 Andrei Kubatin was convicted of treason and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment (later reduced to six years on appeal).^[1] The prosecution alleged that he provided scanned copies of rare books to a foreign scholar. Kubatin maintains that none of the materials involved classified documents, but were copies of publicly available scholarly works from his own library. He maintains his innocence of all charges. International human rights groups and scholarly associations have repeatedly highlighted his case and urged his release.^[2] They have also pointed to credible evidence that he was tortured during the initial phase of detention.[3]

The continued imprisonment of Andrei Kubatin threatens to undermine recent important advances made by the Government of Uzbekistan in expanding academic freedom and promoting international academic cooperation. We understand that Andrei Kubatin has been granted an appeal hearing which will take place once again on Wednesday, June 12.

We join others in the scholarly community in calling for Andrei Kubatin’s release.

The ESCAS Board.

[1] http://enews.fergananews.com/news.php?id=3801&mode=snews

[2] See the statement by the Central Eurasian Studies Society, at https://www.centraleurasia.org/2019/kubatin  Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/08/beyond-samarkand

[3] Human Rights Watch World Report 2019, ‘Uzbekistan’,  https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/uzbekistan