09 August, 2017
The Basmanny Court recently ruled he would be deported to his native Uzbekistan for violating migration rules.
Feruz, who applied for refugee status in Russian Federation in 2014, was forced to leave Uzbekistan in 2008 because of refusal to cooperate with the country's security agencies and tortures.
MOSCOW: A Russian court on Tuesday postponed the deportation of an independent journalist to repressive Uzbekistan pending a European Court of Human Rights ruling after the decision caused an global uproar.
As a journalist at Novaya Gazeta, Nurmatov covered stories on hate crimes, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and migrant workers' rights.
The Uzbek reporter fled to Russian Federation in 2008 after he was tortured for two days by officers of the Uzbek National Security Service who wanted him to become a secret informant.
The European Court of Human Rights on August 4 blocked Nurmatov's deportation, pending the outcome of his appeal. He could even face death if anti-gay people attempt to take extrajudicial action.
Police last week detained Khudoberdi Nurmatov, a reporter for the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta who writes under the pen name Ali Feruz, in Moscow. In the meantime, Nurmatov will be held in Moscow's Sakharovo special detention center for foreign citizens, RBC reports.
The Moscow Court cited the ECHR ruling as the basis for its decision to halt the deportation.
On Tuesday, the Moscow City Court suspended an earlier ruling to deport Nurmatov in accordance with the Strasbourg court's verdict.
Nurmatov arrived in Russian Federation in 2011 and repeatedly tried to claim asylum saying he had endured torture in Uzbekistan, according to Amnesty International.
Russia, which is a member of the Council of Europe, is a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights that created the European Court of Human Rights. "Uzbekistan has a long and well-established record of torture, and there is little doubt that Nurmatov faces a serious risk if he's forcibly returned there".
However Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov cautioned that Russian Federation "cannot turn a blind eye to a number of violations" in comments on Nurmatov's case to journalists.
