A man in Uzbekistan was given a parole-like sentence on September 3 after a court declared him guilty of “encroachment on the Constitutional Order of the Republic of Uzbekistan” for his activities promoting the restoration of the Soviet Union.
According to media reports, 74-year-old E. Khasanov, an Uzbek citizen residing in Samarkand, was sentenced to 3 years of restricted freedom, including a mandatory curfew, a ban on changing his place of residence without permission, and restrictions prohibiting him from leaving Samarkand region. Khasanov has also been banned from using the internet.
Citing the case materials, Gazeta.uz and Kun.uz reported that as a member of a Telegram group titled “Uzbek SSR/USSR” Khasanov posted that “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.”
The Soviet Union formally ceased to exist as of December 26, 1991. Uzbekistan declared its independence on September 1, 1991. There is nothing arbitrary about Uzbekistan’s independence.
The Telegram group was reportedly “inspected” in March 2024, at which time the authorities noted Khasanov’s commentary.
Telegram is exceedingly popular in Uzbekistan as both a messaging application between individuals, but even more so as a wider communications, blogging and organizing platform.
Telegram channels are easy to create. Everyone – from media figures to government agencies to businesses to average citizens – uses the Russian messaging platform in Uzbekistan. In November 2021, Uzbek authorities briefly blocked Telegram along with a handful of other social media sites, a clumsy attempt at enforcing a data localization law that had been passed earlier in the year. The backlash was swift and Telegram was unblocked quickly.
Allegedly, in 2021 Khasanov began listening to lectures by a Russian citizen, Oleg Turishkin, about registering as a citizen of the USSR. In his testimony, Khasanov said he conversed with Turishkin via Telegram. Turishkin asked him whether he had applied to renounce his USSR citizenship and Khasanov said he had not. Turishkin then reportedly added him to a “USSR State Register” group and mailed him a “USSR citizen certificate.”
In 2022, according to Kun.uz analysis of the court materials, Khasanov started following a YouTube channel, “Prosveshchenie” (Enlightenment), where he testified he “talked with members of the group about the reorganization of the USSR and various controversial historical events during the USSR.” In the group met a blogger named Alexey Ivanovich and in January 2023 flew to Moscow to meet him. In Moscow, Khasanov met Yuri Shchipkov, the head of the “Central Committee of the Bolsheviks” who reportedly appointed him “Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the Samarkand Region.”
In court, Khasanov did not admit guilt but appealed for a reduced sentence on account of his age and lack of previous convictions. A 74-year-old pensioner, Khasanov retired in 2011 after a long career with Vatanparvar, officially the “Organization for Assistance to Defense of the Republic of Uzbekistan,” a non-governmental organization founded to succeed the All-Union Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Aviation and Navy (DOSAAF) that disbanded with the collapsed of the Soviet Union. Its work, per the organization’s website, focuses on the “spiritual, moral and military-patriotic education of youth and citizens,” carried out largely, it appears, via sporting activities and driving training.
Picking through the available details, what emerges is an all-too-familiar pattern of online indoctrination and radicalization. Whether Khasanov posed an actual threat to the Uzbek state or was just an old man ranting on the internet depends on what plans, means, and opportunity he had to eventuate the goals imprinted on him by clear Russian revanchists.
More investigation is needed to fully understand how these networks of disinformation operate as they poison minds across the former Soviet Union. Restricting the movement of one man won’t adequately address the problem. How to deal with disinformation is global issue, with the internet crossing borders and efforts to restrict information quickly trampling on rights to speech.
It’s worth noting that in March 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine reported that it had “prevented new attempts by the Russian special services to destabilize the socio-political situation in Ukraine” by neutralizing “underground cells” belonging to the “Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” The Security Service said these groups had attempted “to create an extensive network” of committees throughout Ukraine, targeting “former and active soldiers who started their service during the Soviet Union” to form these cells. The Ukrainian authorities named Shchipkov’s group – the “Central Committee of the Bolsheviks” – as being behind efforts to set up branches of the committee across Ukraine and noted that Telegram was used to distribute instructions.