Uzbekistan discloses data on prisoners for the first time

TASHKENT (TASS): The number of convicts held in places of deprivation of liberty in Uzbekistan is more than 29 thousand. For the first time in its practice, such data was published by the department for the execution of sentences of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic.
“Currently, there are more than 29,000 convicts in the penitentiary system of punishment, including more than 7,000 in correctional colonies, and about 22,000 convicts in other types of correctional institutions,” the department said in a statement.
Such information was made public for the first time in accordance with a decree of the government of the republic, which allowed the open publication of information about the number of prisoners, as well as the location and number of penitentiary institutions and pre-trial detention centers.
The department clarified that there are 54 penitentiary institutions in the country, including 18 colonies, 25 settlement colonies and 11 pre-trial detention centers.
As the National Center for Human Rights of Uzbekistan previously reported, since the beginning of the 2000s, the number of prisoners in the republic has more than halved.