On 9 of November 2023, political prisoner Zhumasapar Dadebaev, sentenced in Uzbekistan to 12 years for supporting the ideas of Karakalpakstan’s sovereignty on the Internet, called his Tashkent based lawyer Sergei Mayorov from the colony. Mayorov represented his interests in the appellate court. Dadebaev said that he “felt better,” and his treatment by the administration is now “normal” (in the summer, Dadebaev’s father reported pressure and even torture). This improvement was likely a consequence of international attention to Dadebaev’s case (including the recent OSCE/ODIHR Human Dimension Meeting in Warsaw where issues of Karakalpakstan were a subject of a side event organized by Freedom for Eurasia). Dadebaev also asked to file a cassation appeal after the amendments to the legislation entered into force at the beginning of 2024. He expressed a desire to personally participate in the trial, although in Uzbekistan the decision on this issue is left to the discretion of the court. Dadebaev is an ethnic Turkmen from Karakalpakstan, illegally taken from Turkey in January 2022 as a result of a special services operation and convicted the same year in Uzbekistan on charges of supporting “Karakalpak separatism,” calling for rallies, insulting the president, etc. Dadebaev is currently serving his sentence in the KIN-3 colony in Karshi.
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