New Documentary Film: Oqlanmagan (The Unexonerated)

In the 1990s, Uzbekistan’s first president Islam Karimov arrested tens of thousands of practicing Muslims, imams, and citizens engaged in Islamic study groups, forcing them to sign pre-written confessions that led to decades in prison on terrorism and treason charges. Following Karimov’s death in 2016, his successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, acknowledged for the first time the existence of a blacklist against former prisoners, their social contacts and extended family. Oqlanmagan – The Unexonerated, a documentary sponsored by the Oxus Society, is one of the first attempts to tell the story of more than 18,000 people formerly designated as “extremists” by the Karimov government.

The film was screened at the Wilson Center at 2pm on Friday, January 26th. There was a Q&A with Noah Tucker, Oxus Society senior researcher and the film’s producer, and Emina Umarov, a researcher whose family lived through the Karimov repression and the prison system before receiving asylum in the United States.

The film will be screened at the Davis Center at Harvard University on Tuesday, January 30th at 6:30 pm. Producer Noah Tucker will be in conversation with Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University.