Tashkent turns into a closed city for citizens coming from other regions

People without a passport or a temporary registration for the city of Tashkent are hunted by the metropolitan police. Those people may be detained for a few days in so called “Hospitable” detention centers in Tashkent or may face high fines.

“You should better make visitors officially pay for entering Tashkent!”, claimed a high school graduate who was illegally kept in custody for 22 days due to the lack of registration.

“Policemen have but one concern, bully fellow citizens to force them pay fines,” says a native from the Surkhandarya region to the Ozodlik correspondent (the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty). Over the past three months he was stopped three times by police officers and was forced to pay a fine amounting to more than 1 million soums.

Tashkent authorities have established a fine of the amount of 400 thousand sum ($ 8) for those violating the citizens’ temporary registration rule.

On the eve of national holidays, the passport regime in Tashkent has been tightened even more, and any citizen with a “provincial” appearance becomes the object of attention of the police. These activities aim to ensure that villagers stayed at their homes. After all, they can watch all what happens in the capital on the TV.

Artist Elsevar