All charges against freelance journalist Elena Bondar in Uzbekistan have been dropped. Bondar was detained at Tashkent airport on 22 August returning from a journalism seminar in Kyrgyzstan, she was told she faced prosecution because she did not declare professional material that was seized from her.
Elena Bondar, an Uzbekistani freelance journalist who was briefly detained at Tashkent airport last week, has been notified that she is to be prosecuted for not declaring the professional material that was seized from her at the time, and that it will be examined by a censorship committee. When interrogated again for three hours on 27 August, Bondar was told that she is to be prosecuted under articles of the customs law and the civil code for failing to declare the four USB flash drives, three CDs and two video cassettes that were taken from her when she landed in the Uzbek capital on 22 August. She is facing a possible fine on these charges.
Uzbek journalist Elena Bondar was detained at the arrivals area of Tashkent airport after attending a course on modern journalism tools organised by OSCE and Deutsche Welle in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. After a thorough examination of her documents and baggage, customs officials let the journalist go home, but confiscated CDs and USB flash drives with training materials.
A rights activist in central Uzbekistan says she was detained on 15 August for an article in which she criticised the government requirement that citizens use state-issued bank cards for cash withdrawals or purchases. Saida Kurbanova told RFE/RL she was summoned to the Pakhtakor district police station in Jizzakh Province where she was “dragged up the stairs” by officers. She was released after several hours. Kurbanova added that police told her she is being sued for libel over the article she wrote and posted online in March about the difficulties faced by people using the state-issued cards.