Blogger Abdukodir Muminov was detained in Uzbekistan on suspicion of extortion (Article 163 of the Criminal Code) and fraud (Article 168 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty with reference to the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the city of Tashkent.
A day earlier, information appeared on social networks that the blogger had disappeared. His relatives told the publication that Abdukodir Muminov left the house at 6:00 am on February 8 to fill up the car, but never returned. Later, people in civilian clothes came to the house and conducted a search.
“At that time, my daughter-in-law was at home, she was frightened and did not open the door for them. But then these people opened the door with their key and entered the house. They showed my daughter-in-law a warrant and began to conduct a search. After completing the search, they took my son’s computer with them “When my daughter-in-law asked them where Abdukodir was, they told her that they did not know. 12 hours have passed since his disappearance, and we still do not know where he is. The internal affairs bodies do not give us any information,” the blogger’s mother Sabokhat Abdullayeva said earlier. She connects his detention with her son’s critical speeches.
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The Tashkent police department reported that the case against Muminov was opened on the basis of a statement from citizen E.Z. He claims that in October 2021, the blogger promised to “favorably resolve the criminal case” in relation to the company registered to the applicant and his younger brother through “critical videos” that were supposed to help the investigators make a positive decision. According to investigators, Muminov “demanded $10,000 for this, received $3,800 of this amount in advance, spent it on his own needs and did not fulfill his promise.”
In addition, according to the police department, in October 2021, Muminov met with a resident of the Jizzakh region and told him that he had filmed a negative video about his company. For keeping the information secret, the blogger allegedly asked for 70 thousand dollars.
On December 23, 2022, unknown persons attacked Abdukodir Muminov. They beat him and smashed the windows of his car with a bat. Law enforcement agencies reported that fingerprints of five people and a baseball bat were found at the scene of the incident, and a criminal case was opened under the article “robbery”. However, the details of this case have not yet been made public.
A close colleague of Abdukodir Muminov, blogger Asliddin Kamol, said that the detained blogger was conducting a journalistic investigation into the business of the sons-in-law of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. According to him, despite the persecution and attack, Abdukodir Muminov continued to work on the investigation.
Last week, the security forces raided the office of the Human.uz website. The director of the Human.uz website, Khurshid Daliyeva, and six other journalists were detained as administrators of the telegram channel Kompromat.uzb. The State Security Service (SSS) of Uzbekistan suspects them of extortion.
