Unuttered opinion common in the Uzbek law enforcement bodies which claims that following human rights makes it significantly harder to uncover crimes is now openly confirmed by officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Ural Mukhammadiev, head of the Ministry's Central Investigatory Board referred to “unwritten rule” saying that compliance with international human rights significantly decreases level of crime detection.

“We have to chose between human rights and crime detection,” Mukhammadiev stated almost like an ultimatum at the July 11 conference in Tashkent on implementation of the right of courts to issue detainment sanctions.

The tacit argument for the use of torture in Uzbek prisons has been also often justified with the need to tackle crime.

The statement did not receive any criticism or disagreement from the audience. Surprisingly, all participants, including Uzbek Human Rights Ombudsman Sayora Rashidova, members of Ministry of Justice, Supreme Court and General Prosecutor's Office remained silent.

No one dared to argue that violation of human rights and coercing confession through torture helps to create everything but false statistics on combating crime.

Observers note that turning a blind-eye on human rights so openly is a bad sign of things to come. It might be an open disregard of international condemnation of Uzbekistan's poor human rights record or intensification of the use of torture in prisons.