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I'm writing this letter
from the courtroom. My trial is 99 percent closed to the outside
world. I'm surrounded by hundreds of armed people. But, with difficulty,
I hope to manage to give my wife a copy of this letter.
* *
*
(In my cell)
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Mamadali
Makhmudov, Uzbekistan’s most famous poet, is serving
a 14-year prison sentence. Photo courtesy International
P.E.N.
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All I could hear through
the walls of my cell were the wild barks of countless dogs, mixed
with the sound of beatings, frightening screams, human suffering,
and people's groans.
I don't know how many
days and nights passed while they left me with my hands handcuffed...
Then I was taken for
interrogation by men in disguise. They put a mask on me and (kept
me) handcuffed. After questioning, they dragged me across the
floor half dead, back to my prison cell.
I was tortured on the
orders of a man with a birthmark on his face, although sometimes,
they tortured me without his orders too.
They hit me with batons
and kicked me until my body was covered with blood. There was
no healthy part left on me. My body turned black and blue and
swelled up. My hands and legs were burnt. My nails turned black
and fell off. I was hung for hours with my hands tied behind my
back. I was given some kind of injection and I was forced to take
some kind of syrup.
* *
*
In the cold of the
winter, there were times when I lost consciousness — then
they poured cold water over me. They stuffed something smelly
up my nose. In wet clothing, in my icy prison cell, I spent the
days and nights all alone in unbearable suffering.
 At
the end of the period of heavy torture, on the orders of the man
with a birthmark on his face, men in disguise took all my clothes
off. Then they sat me on the "death chair." They handcuffed me
and tied me up. They put on me a death shroud. But then the man
with the birthmark on his face said, "An order has just been received
from Tashkent 'not to kill him yet.' So instead we'll kill you
gradually over the coming months by torturing you — or else
you will write exactly what I tell you."
* *
*
Things got to the point
where I couldn't walk or sit. My hands and legs became swollen
from the stinking injuries. My shoes no longer fit on my feet.
I was forced to write
that on February 16 I carried out all the explosions. [Makmudov's
current imprisonment dates from February 2000, when he and several
others were rounded up a few days after a series of bombs went
off in Tashkent.] The man with the birthmark on his face said,
"You write this and you will thereby save many people's lives.
Moreover you will have to make a confession on television." He
told that I was under the president's personal control: every
single move I made was being followed.
| "Things
got to the point where I couldn't walk or sit...My shoes no
longer fit on my feet." |
After I was forced
to write a story slandering Mohammed Salih [the opposition leader
living in exile] the Deputy Minister for Internal Affairs for
Uzbekistan, Sayfula Asadou, the head of the Investigation Department
Alishar Sharnfidinov, and his deputy A. Egambandirou visited this
unknown department where I was being held. They introduced themselves
to me and treated me humanely. I could see the president's influence
on them. Doctors who treated me also visited me. Now even the
men in disguise were helping me to recover. This was because they
had to show me on television.
At one time, one of
the jailers came in drunk to my cell, demanding dollars from me.
He beat me up, haranguing me. It was around about midnight.
Five or six times I
was taken to the Investigation Department and given a script to
read out for my television address. They filmed me four times.
They explained that "the president didn't like it if I told lies."
* *
*
From February 19 until
some time in April I was held in an unknown location. Suddenly,
masked men beat me, spat on me and reprimanded me. They took me
to the Investigation Department and threw me into this room. At
this point they dispensed with the mask over my face and the handcuffs
— a full one and a half months after my kidnapping.
I was in the Investigation
Department department for 5 months and 18 days. They kept asking
me "where did I get the Erk newspaper?" As a matter of fact I
am not a member of Erk [a political party founded by fellow writer
Muhammad Salih] or Birlik. I didn't write anything for the journals
of either group, nor did I take part in any of their meetings
and demonstrations.
I know Mohammed Salih
as a national poet of the Turk nation: he has a vast knowledge
and is a man of truth.
I have been to Turkey
only once in my life in 1992. At that time Mohammed Salih was
in Tashkent — and I think his relationship with the president
was then good. There is no evidence against me for the charges
brought against me by the court of investigation. It is true that
in 1998 I did travel to Kiev twice to see Mohammed Salih. What
is so bad about that? Other writers go to see him as well.
* *
*
If you understand this,
if you feel my words, I thank you — but please know that
my ability to write this is limited.
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