Image: Farmer Umida Ibragimova, June 2023 Source: Uzbek Forum These various state-initiated efforts to ‘optimise’ the use of farmland have led to the illegal confiscation of large swathes of land leased by farmers from the state. The result has had a serious impact on rural communities throughout the country. Farmers, who leased their land from the state generally for a period of 30–49 years, have experienced serious breaches of their rights by regional hokims with the assistance of the police and local prosecutors. Land lease terminations have been forcibly obtained under threat of penalty, intimidation and fraud and through the use of arbitrary detention by government officials. This involved coercing farmers into making “voluntary” statements to terminate their land leases, where farmers have no right to compensation. In Pop district in the Namangan region, for example, hundreds of farmers, along with thousands of hectares of land, have been unilaterally disenfranchised. After a massive land seizure, more than 6,000 hectares in Pop district were given to the Art Soft Tex cotton cluster. There is no suggestion being made here that Art Soft Tex was involved in the coercion of farmers during the lease cancellation process. The company was invited to comment on the farmers’ claim their land was confiscated by the state using improper means. No response was received. The section below sets out farmer cases from the Pop district. 50 A False Sense of Legality The case of Umida Ibragimova On 17 December 2015, the hokim of Pop district, Namangan region, issued decree no. 1968, which granted Umida Ibragimova a 49-year lease over a 40.7 hectare plot of land in the Dustlik area, for the production of grain and cotton.144 The lease was signed on 21 December 2015, marking the foundation of ‘Ibrohim Ma’mura’ farm, on which Ibragimova intended to grow grain and cotton. According to the farmer, she had consistently fulfilled the government-imposed quota to grow cotton and grain over the years, until her land was arbitrarily confiscated by the authorities in January 2019.145 On 18 January 2019, it is alleged that the hokim of the Pop district, Azamjon Sultanov, under the pretext of holding a meeting, gathered some 450 district farmers in the hall of the district’s culture centre, where farmers were told to write and sign statements confirming the voluntary surrender of their land to the state.146 Farmers who did not come to the meeting were allegedly brought in late at night by police officers.147 Ibragimova states that most farmers initially refused to sign these statements and were indignant about the procedure.