Samarkand resident who campaigned for USSR restoration brought to criminal liability 

A man living in Samarkand was accused of encroaching on the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan and was prosecuted. Kun.uz has reviewed the court verdict.

According to the court document, citizen E.Kh. retired in 2011 after working for the “Vatanparvar” organization, which supports the defense of Uzbekistan. He was actively engaged in propaganda activities for the restoration of the USSR in Uzbekistan.

Thus, he was a member of the Telegram group “Uzbek SSR/USSR”, where he posted materials about how “the independence of the Republic of Uzbekistan is superficial, that the former Soviet Union has not officially disintegrated yet, that 15 republics that were part of it arbitrarily declared their independence with the help of the United States, and that the former Soviet republics will soon return and become part of the USSR”.

On March 6, 2024, during the inspection of the group “Uzbek SSR/USSR”, it was revealed that citizen E.Kh. had posted numerous video and audio materials about the USSR restoration. According to the conclusion of a comprehensive legal and political-linguistic examination, the materials posted by the user note that there are ideas that openly call for changing and breaking the current state system of Uzbekistan in an unconstitutional manner.

In his testimony, the defendant said that he heard a lecture online from Russian citizen Oleg Turishkin about registering citizens of the USSR in 2021.

“I started listening to him often and communicated with him via Telegram. During our conversation, he asked: “Have you applied to renounce your USSR citizenship?” My answer was “no”. Then Oleg Turishkin added me to the “USSR State Register” group with the words “We have information about you”. A little later, Turishkin sent me a “USSR citizen's certificate” by mail.

In 2022, I became a member of the group “Prosveshchenie” on YouTube. There, I talked with members of the group about the reorganization of the USSR and various controversial historical events during the USSR. I met a blogger named Alexey Ivanovich,” the defendant said in his testimony.

After this acquaintance, E.Kh. on January 3, 2023, at the suggestion of Alexey Ivanovich, flew by plane from Samarkand to Moscow. On January 4, in one of the restaurants in Moscow, he met, through Alexey Ivanovich, with the secretary of the "General Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks" Shchipkov Yuriy Alekseyevich and his assistant. They said that they wanted to reorganize the USSR, that they were gathering supporters for this, that this country had not yet legally disintegrated, that they would return to the Constitution and laws of the times of Joseph Stalin and that they would unite 15 republics legally within a few years.

“I was told that it was impossible to act openly in Uzbekistan and that it was necessary to gather supporters secretly. I was appointed "Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the Samarkand Region" and was told that they would contact me via Telegram,” the defendant said.

According to the court verdict, E.Kh. was found guilty of committing a crime under Part 1 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code (Encroachment on the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan).

He was sentenced to 3 years of restricted freedom. Also, additional restrictions were imposed on E.Kh., such as a ban on changing his place of residence, leaving the territory of the Samarkand region, using means of communication and the Internet without the consent of the supervisory authority.