Nasrullo Sayid (Sayidov), who flew to Tashkent from Edmonton, Canada via Istanbul, was stopped at Islam Karimov International Airport on April 20 and was not allowed to enter Uzbekistan and was deported to Istanbul in the evening of April 21.
The Canadian citizen Nasrullo Sayid, 61, is the former member of the Uzbek parliament and the member of the opposition Erk Democratic Party
According to the February 1, 2019 presidential decree, the nationals of 45 countries, including Canada, can stay in Uzbekistan without visa for 30 days from the date of entry into Uzbekistan.
According to Nasrullo Sayyid, he had been stopped at the airport’s passport control and had been taken to the basement floor where he had been reportedly kept for 12 hours and interrogated before being deported to Istanbul.
According to him, the airport staff said that "the instruction came from higher authorities " and he was handed an Act on Refusal to enter the country for security reasons based on the Annex 9 of the International Civil Aviation Convention.
Nasrullo Sayyid was the chief of the Bukhara regional branch of the Erk Party in the early 1990's. In 2017 he requested President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to allow him to return to Uzbekistan, adding that he had earlier been unlawfully stripped of the Uzbek citizenship.
