Teacher Beaten by Khokim in Kashkadarya for Awareness-Raising Activities
On the morning of October 19, Asror Juraev, Khokim of the Nishan district in the Kashkadarya region, physically abused the 36-year-old deputy principal of School No.8 in front of local farmers. Shukhrat Shaymardonov is a deputy director at School No.8 and is responsible for awareness-raising activities. He was subjected to the abuse because an agricultural firm that is registered under Shukhrat’s wife’s name had not delivered a sufficient amount of cotton. Local farmers also complain that the current Khokim is given to violence and offensive language.
According to Shukhrat Shaymardonov, the incident took place on October 19 in the village of Balkhiyak:
“He asked all the farmers to gather in the village of Balkhiyak. He called the names of the farmers who had not produced the minimum quota of cotton. He insulted them. I was standing behind them all. At some point he called me “Hey, awareness-raiser” and asked me to approach him. When I approached him, he punched me in the stomach. Then he punched me in the face while I was recovering from the pain. I just fainted. Afterwards, I handed over the rights on my land and told him that I do not need it. Then I left the meeting. And, that is not for the first time. It happens every year. He did the same to me last year too during the same meeting.”
According to Shukhrat Shaymardanov, he registered 38 hectares of land for his wife and created his own farming business on the recommendation of the ‘Khokim’ two years ago:
“This land was given to me by the previous Khokim. 15 hectares from the whole area were saline land. Nevertheless, I completed 96% of the plan last year. This year, not only me, but also other farmers in the area had a poor cotton harvest due to the weather conditions. Now I could barely achieve the 55% from the general plan. But the Khokim doesn’t care about that. He requires the fulfilment of the plan. Those who cannot fulfill it are verbally and physically abused by the Khokim”.
During an off the record conversation with an “Ozodlik” reporter, a farmer who preferred to remain anonymous, complained that the majority of his colleagues had been beaten up on a regular basis by Khokim Asror Dzhurayev.
“He is very vulgar. He swears all the time, saying “I will rip your ass”. It was terrible when he beat and humiliated the teacher Shukhrat in front of everyone. Now there are various rumors flying around. After all, he was humiliated in front of his students. During the meeting last Wednesday, the Khokim beat more than 10 farmers, kicking their backsides, including me”, said one of the farmers from Nishan.
According to him, no one from the community can complain about the authoritarian khokim to any court.
“There is a saying among people now, ‘If your mom was beaten up by Kaziy (the judge), who would you complain about it to?’ When the Khokim is roughing us up, there are police chiefs and prosecutors standing next to him. They just observe what happens. Please tell me, who should we complain about it to? We reported everything that happened to the prime minister’s office”, said the farmer from the Nishan district of the Kashkadarya region to an Ozodlik reporter.
A journalist from our radio contacted the Khokim of the Nishan district, Asror Dzhurayev, to obtain an explanation of the farmers’ complaints.
However, he hung up the phone before he had even heard the end of the question from our reporter. Afterwards, we were not able to reach him.
Recently, Ozodlik has reported on lawlessness by the head of the Nishan district, Asror Dzhurayev. On July, 10th 2016, during the district’s activists meeting, he verbally abused the younger sister of the 53-year-old chief of the tractor park, Muzzafar Chorshanbiev. The same day the chief of the tractor park was admitted to hospital where he died of a heart attack.
Asror Dzhuraev was known as an arrogant and boorish Khokim while he was in office in the Yakkabag district of the Kashkadariya region.
Our radio has previously reported that during an evening meeting of 18-19 October 2014, Dzhurayev, as head of the Yakkabag region, had beaten farmers who had collected insufficient amounts of cotton and school principals who hadn’t sent enough teachers to the cotton harvest.
October 16, 2016
www.ozodlik.org
