Impossible as it may seem, but missions of two American non-governmental organizations in Uzbekistan won court battles last week. The matter concerns Cooperative Housing Foundation International (CHF International) and Mercy Corps. The court sided up with the defense in both cases. It is all the more surprising because a nationwide campaign against foreign non-governmental organizations is under way in the country, and Uzbek justice as such usually backs the prosecution. Verdicts of "non guilty" are practically unheard of in Uzbekistan.

On October 3, the Tashkent Municipal Court pondered the case of two former employees of CHF International (Ibodullo Bobonov and Ulugbek Bahridinov) vs the non-governmental organization. The court sided up with the latter and confirmed the previous verdict of the Mirzo-Ulugbek District Court (July 18, 2006).

In July, Bobonov and Bahridinov brought an action against the Karshi office of the American non-governmental organization claiming that they had been working overtime since 2004 and fired illegitimately in April 2006. Bobonov and Bahridinov announced that they had been paid in foreign hard currency and not in sums (the Uzbek monetary unit) as required by the acting legislation.

The plaintiffs demanded restoration in their former positions and a recompense for the moral and material losses. They failed to substantiate their claim, however, and the Mirzo-Ulugbek District Court of Tashkent backed their former employers.

Bobonov and Bahridinov challenged the verdict because it had been passed in their absence (neither had been informed that their case was to be heard). The plaintiffs are drawing another complaint now. They intend to invite representatives of the Justice Ministry and journalists to the courtroom where they say they will unmask their former employers and expose other facts of violation of the acting legislation by CHF International.

Mercy Corps is the other American non-governmental organization that scored a victory. Tax inspectorate of the Yakkasarai District of Tashkent appealed to the court claiming that Mercy Corps was hiding its profits and demanding it fined. The Tashkent Municipal Court pondered the matter and turned the claim down.

Tax structures claimed that Mercy Corps had concealed approximately $557,000 in the course if its micro-credit program in 2005. "The repaid credits and interest were never put on the bank account, left in Mercy Corps structures in cities of the Ferghana Valley - Andijan, Ferghana, Kokand, and others - in utter violation of the acting legislation," a source in the State Tax Committee said.

Shortly before the trial, pro-government expert of the Regional Politics Foundation Ulugbek Muhammadiyev criticized Mercy Corps in all earnest. "Its activities clash with the status of the organization and the so called charity," he said.

Muhammadiyev is a kind of "angel of death" for foreign non-governmental organizations in Uzbekistan. As a rule, he justifies the pressing necessity to close this or that foreign non-governmental organization and the organization is indeed ousted from the country shortly after that. This time, Muhammadiyev said he had visited the Ferghana Valley a while ago and studied the locals' opinion of foreign non-governmental organizations. Predictably enough, the locals' opinion of them was fairly poor. According to the expert, even a glance at the Mercy Corps' activities showed that its officials were interested in compilation of unfairly negative information on the sociopolitical situation in the areas of Uzbekistan bordering on Kyrgyzstan. "Representatives of the non-governmental organization study the possibility of fomenting ethnic conflicts in the region," Muhammadiyev said.

The expert also said that Mercy Corps and other foreign governmental and non-governmental organizations operating in the Andijan region and in Kyrgyzstan became particularly active in the course of the parliamentary election and the so called Tulip Revolution in March 2005. Some heads of mahallja committees and local non-governmental organizations told Muhammadiyev that Mercy Corps functionaries had asked veiled questions about the locals' attitude toward protest actions in Kyrgyzstan against the former leadership. John Strickland and Karrie O'Rourke of Mercy Corps had been gathering data on political processes in Kyrgyzstan, Muhammadiyev said.

Muhammadiyev added that Mercy Corps had financed Andijanis' trips to Kyrgyzstan "in return for a thorough report on the situation in border areas."

The Tashkent Municipal Court nevertheless backed Mercy Corps. The latter must have proved groundlessness of tax claims and thus won the first round. Still, tax structures refuse to admit the defeat. They intend to challenge the verdict in the near future.

These two episodes collide with the general practice. Unprecedented as they are, however, they should not be regarded as a breakthrough. The tame Uzbek justice blindly follows the orders from the powers-that-be. It follows that either there was no order in the first place to do away with the non-governmental organizations in question (this assumption is confirmed by the fact that the Justice Ministry was not the plaintiff) or the claims were so patently fabricated that even the Uzbek court known as "the very humane" refused to accept them. //Ferghana.Ru news agency