ABSTRACT
Uzbekistan has developed a unique and dynamic model of rehabilitation. It has evolved in three distinct phases. The country’s first rehabilitation programme was launched in 2000 as an ad hoc initiative with the presidential offer of conditional criminal exemption to members of the IMU and HTI who voluntarily renounced these groups. This was a strategic move aimed at shrinking the social base of these radical groups through encouraging disengagement and rehabilitating low-risk individuals without instituting criminal proceedings in a court of law. In the subsequent years, the government further developed its deradicalisation strategies and built a structured rehabilitation programme. This type of rehabilitation, unlike its ad hoc precursor, is offered to terrorist and extremist convicts. It constitutes three main sequential phases: the actual rehabilitation programme in prisons; an amnesty scheme for rehabilitated prisoners; and a ‘supervised reintegration’ programme for former terrorist and extremist inmates who are discharged under the amnesty scheme. Most recently, Uzbekistan has introduced a new programme of deradicalisation – ‘rehabilitation through early intervention’ – for those who are affected by extremist ideologies but remain free because they have not then been categorised as an immediate security risk. All three types of rehabilitation have been implemented in conjunction with a supervised reintegration process – a crucial endpoint of the overall rehabilitation.
