MOSCOW — How can a photographer defame her country? Uzbekistan
tried to answer that question this week in a slander trial that harked back to
the days of Soviet censorship. The answer, in part: by showing people with sour
expressions or bowed heads, children in ragged clothing, old people begging for
change or other images so dreary that, according to a panel of experts convened
by the prosecutors, “a foreigner unfamiliar with Uzbekistan will conclude that
this is a country where people live in the Middle Ages.”
Umida Akhmedova, a photographer and documentary filmmaker,
was found guilty on Wednesday of slandering and insulting the Uzbek people, in
a case that has stirred outrage in artistic circles throughout the region.
Though the charges carried a prison sentence of up to three years, the judge
waived the penalties, saying that Ms. Akhmedova had been granted an amnesty in
honor of the 18th anniversary of Uzbek independence.
After the verdict, Ms. Akhmedova said she had been so deeply
shaken by the prosecution that, even as she walked away free, it was difficult
to feel relief.
“I can’t say my anxiety has subsided, I can’t say I’m
suddenly O.K.,” she said. “There was a fear of going to prison. But to tell you
the truth, I feel insulted, that’s the main thing. I still don’t understand how
my creative work could have brought me to this courtroom.”
Asked if she expected to be able to publish her photography
in Uzbekistan in the future, she said, “I am afraid not.”
Ms. Akhmedova said she intended to appeal the conviction.
The Uzbek authorities have, in the past, prosecuted artists
who openly took on politically charged themes, like the folk singer Dadakhon
Khasanov, who wrote a song about the 2005
crackdown on antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Andijon, in
which hundreds are thought to have died. But the
case against Ms. Akhmedova breaks ground by singling out an apparently
apolitical visual artist for her work.
At issue are “Women and Men:
From Dawn to Dusk,” a book published in 2007, and “The Burden of Virginity,”
a documentary film released the following year. Both projects were supported by
grants from the Swiss Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital.
An analysis written by six government experts declares that
the film, which explores the tradition of checking a new bride’s virginity, is
“not in line with the requirements of ideology,” and that it “promotes serious
perversion in the young generation’s acceptance of cultural values.” In an
exhaustive criminal complaint, prosecutors argued that Ms. Akhmedova’s
photographs intentionally showed Uzbek village life in an unflattering light,
as in one photograph that shows a young boy lying on the mud floor of a
spare-looking house.
“With one glance at these pictures one can see that repair
work is being done in these rooms, and that the children entered them purely
through the childish curiosity that is inherent to them,” the complaint reads.
“But to foreigners, these photographs may give the impression that these
children live in these homes.”
In all the photographs, “the images of the human face seem
sad and anxious, they are portrayed against an excessively pathetic
background,” it says. “This vision excludes the beautiful landscape of our
homeland, the remarkable spaces of our cities.”
An employee of the Uzbek general prosecutor’s press office
said that only his manager was authorized to comment and that the manager’s
position was at present unfilled.
The charges prompted widespread protest among fellow
photographers, who circulated petitions in Ms. Akhmedova’s defense and have
organized exhibits of her work in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and the
Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod. Daniil Kislov, editor in chief of the Web site
ferghana.ru,
which has followed the case avidly as part of its coverage of Central Asian
events, said he believed that the publicity prompted the authorities to grant
Ms. Akhmedova amnesty on Wednesday.
“This case was supposed to be an example to the rest of them
— to photographers, artists and so on — so they know they need to portray
reality the way it looks to the government,” Mr. Kislov said. But as Russian
media picked up the story, it became clear that the case reflected badly on
Uzbek officials.
“They really care about opinions in Moscow, from that
cultured Moscow crowd, and they understood they had crossed a line,” he said.
Notably quiet were Ms. Akhmedova’s colleagues from
Uzbekistan. Vyacheslav Akhunov, who lives in Tashkent and frequently exhibits
his installations and video projects overseas, said artists in Uzbekistan were
overwhelmingly dependent on the state to show and sell their work.
“The authorities want to show a rosy-cheeked face, a
beautiful face, as if the wise rulers rule so well that nothing will ever
happen,” he said. “And 99 percent of artists are afraid to get involved in
anything problematic.”