The findings of this study strongly suggest that the unconstitutional and illegal expropriation of private homes and farms by the state, enacted by the executive and enabled by a compromised court system, is a systemic and systematic problem that has tainted this redistribution of land. Because the compulsory acquisition of privately held real property, along with associated forced evictions, are organised by the state in order to facilitate private, commercially oriented developments, the state appears to be in in gross violation of its international human rights obligations2 with respect to ‘the human rights to adequate housing, food, water, health, education, work, security of the person, security of the home, freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and freedom of movement’.3 Although these egregious abuses have been systematically brought to the attention of the president and national accountability bodies, no substantive action has been taken to address these abuses. Therefore, this report concludes that these violations potentially constitute egregious abuse of fundamental human rights by state officials in pursuit of formal or informal government policy.3 The principal victim of these abuses are homeowners and farmers who face compulsory acquisition of their property and forced eviction.4 These abuses formally begin with government decisions known as decrees, which compulsorily acquire landed property in violation of private property rights.5 In the case of homeowners, these decrees are explicitly issued to facilitate private real estate developments, while in the case of farmers the land is more commonly absorbed into a central land fund and then redistributed to agro-industry. These improper decrees precipitate further coercive action by state agencies, and frequently corporate developers, in order to forcefully evict homeowners and farmers. While government decrees ordinarily require that private developers compensate homeowners for the value of their property, this, in effect, constitutes a state-coerced sale in violation of residents’ private property rights and fundamental market freedoms, with homeowners frequently arguing that the compensation offered is below market value. In the case of farmers, victims interviewed for this project claim they have not been compensated for their loss. 6 A False Sense of Legality In some of the case studies examined in this report, victims received notional support from the Ministry of Justice, Prosecutor General’s Office and the Human Rights Ombudsman, who in letters and communications affirm the legislated/constitutional private property rights of victims and the associated illegality of the state’s actions. However, when victims have sufficient resources to seek the courts’ protection, the courts in a significant majority of cases ignore both the wording and intent of these national laws and constitutional protections, validating what appears to be illegal, government-directed compulsory acquisitions of property. The courts also use questionable methods to dismiss cases on technical grounds without the need to consider substantive legal issues, particularly in judicial review cases that question the legality of government decrees. Unlawful government decrees together with supportive court judgements generate a veneer of legitimacy that obscures the serious improper content of these compulsory acquisitions and eviction exercises. These findings demand urgent redress, including an immediate moratorium on all compulsory and voluntary acquisitions of property by the Uzbekistani state until: (a) an immediate and large-scale public inquiry has been concluded that remediates victims and holds state officials to account; (b) an international human rights stakeholder forum has been convened that can build a human rights compliant reform roadmap for addressing the abuses documented in this report and elsewhere; and (c) the roadmap of significant human rights reform has been completed. A summary of the research findings will now be presented. In Part II of this report, five case studies will be presented on compulsory acquisitions and forced evictions. These case studies have been produced drawing on data collected by human rights monitors. In Part III, the risks evident in the data will be summarised and a set of actions will be proposed, which will require support from the private sector, civil society and the international community, to address the systematic abuses documented in the study.