The Cabinet of Ministers issued resolution on Saturday providing for declassifying information on the number of prisoners in Uzbekistan.
Specific figures on prisoners have never been published to date. The Department for Execution of Sentences under the Interior Ministry reported that it uses world-wide practice of counting for releasing data. In 2018 on average there were 140 prisoners for every 100,000 people in Uzbekistan (by 10% less compared to 2017).
The resolution approves the list of information subject to declassification, which includes data on the number of persons held in penitentiary institutions and remand centers of the Ministry of Interior.
The list also includes information on the number and location of penitentiary institutions and pre-trial detention facilities, the number of deaths, as well as persons against whom compulsory medical treatment is applied. Information on production facilities of prisons and colonies will also b e declassified.
According to the National Center for Human Rights, over the past 15 years, the number of prisoners held in prisons has more than halved and as of January 1, 2017 stands at 133 people per 100 thousand of the population. At the same time, the average occupancy rate in Uzbekistan’s penitentiary institutions is 80%, in some institutions about 30%, and less than 10% in the country's only juvenile correctional colony.
