Bakhodyr Kurbanov, who led the seizure of Tashkent residents’ apartments in 2016-2018, has been appointed head of the SGB of Uzbekistan

Bakhodyr Kurbanov, who led the seizure of Tashkent residents’ apartments in 2016-2018, has been appointed head of the SGB of Uzbekistan
The information website Asiaterra.info published an article about the change of leadership in the State Security Service (SGB) of the Republic of Uzbekistan. We have taken from this article the part that describes the “record” of the new SGB chairman, which directly relates to violations of the right to adequate housing committed by the highest levels of the country’s leadership. https://www.asiaterra.info/corruption/glava-sgb-uzbekistana-abdusalom-azizov-smeshchen-ego-smenil-bakhodyr-kurbanov-rukovodivshij-ot-emom-kvartir-tashkenttsev-v-2016-2018-godakh

Shavkat Mirziyoyev appointed Major General Bakhodyr Kurbanov, who has served as Uzbekistan’s defense minister since February 2019, as the new chairman of the SGB.
Kurbanov comes from the Interior Ministry. In 2002-2005, he worked as head of the Jizzak district internal affairs department of the Jizzak region. In 2005, he moved to the post of chief of the Gallyaaral district IAB of the same region.
In 2008, he became the first deputy head of the Main Department of Patrol and Checkpoint Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan. In the same year, he was appointed Head of the Namangan Oblast Department of Internal Affairs.
From December 2013 to the end of 2015, he was Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan. In 2015, he was appointed head of the Tashkent General Department of Internal Affairs. In 2018-2019, he served as commander of troops of the Tashkent Military District. In January 2021, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.
The fact that both Azizov and Kurbanov, the last two SGB chairmen, were appointed to this post after having served as defense ministers in succession suggests that in Mirziyoyev’s eyes, the position of the head of the security service is much more important. After all, this position allows him to control practically everyone, threatening to instantly open a case on any occasion. In fact, the SGB is a “pocket” power structure of the head of state, ready to deal with anyone who disagrees with him on his orders, and without any counterbalancing control from other branches of power.

Bakhodyr Kurbanov. Photo by the Presidential Press Service
But the most important detail of Bakhodyr Kurbanov’s biography is not the fact that he briefly served as Defense Minister, but the fact that earlier, from December 27, 2015 to February 11, 2018, he held the post of head of the Tashkent police general department.
During this time , the authorities have been running a large-scale campaign to criminally seize thousands of apartments from citizens in order to grant these apartments to Interior Ministry officers. It was initiated in 2015 by President Karimov, and in 2016, after his death, it was continued by the new President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
The essence of this monstrously cynical action was that for about two and a half to three years, police officers, on orders from the top, took away housing belonging to landlords. The scheme of “seizure” was the same in most cases. In an apartment rented by decent-looking people, the police immediately detected a “den of debauchery”, after which they drew up a report and fined the offenders (who were actually fake persons). There were no claims against the owners of the apartments. However, after a few months, the prosecutor’s office issued a protest and the court of appeal, of which the owners were usually not notified, decided to confiscate the apartment or house as an “instrument of crime”. Later, apartments were transferred to khokimiyats (administrations), then to the ownership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and after that were provided free of charge to district and mid-level officers.
Tashkent journalist Aleksei Volosevich investigated the cases of seizure of citizens’ apartments organized by the internal affairs bodies and published a series of articles on it:
Кампания по отъему квартир в Узбекистане: кому-то вернули, кому-то нет
Отъем квартир в Узбекистане. «Пустите меня на несколько дней…»
Отъем квартир в Узбекистане. «Притоны» возле ташкентского ЦУМа
Отъем квартир в Узбекистане. Как следственный отдел Яккасарайского района Ташкента фабриковал дела
Отъем квартир в Узбекистане. Три «притона» – три прихлопа
Отъем квартир в Узбекистане. Милицейский визит с подставной развратницей
Отъем квартир в Узбекистане. «Не имеет необходимости пользоваться…»
Отъем квартир в Узбекистане. Как милиционеры «организовывали» публичный дом
Схемы притона. Как милиция и местные власти превращают граждан Узбекистана в бомжей
Паучий заговор на Паркентской. Как государство отнимало у ташкентцев квартиры, история первая
«Как милиционеры отбирали наши квартиры». Рассказы ташкентцев
Участковым милиционерам в Ташкенте раздали машины и отобранные у граждан квартиры
https://www.asiaterra.info/corruption/predstaviteli-mvd-i-prokuratury-uzbekistana-popytalis-opravdat-konfiskatsii-kvartir

According to the decree of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev “On additional measures to provide inspectors on prevention of checkpoints of internal affairs bodies with service housing” of April 20, 2017 ( ПП-2906-сон 20.04.2017. О дополнительных мерах по обеспечению инспекторов по профилактике опорных пунктов органов внутренних дел служебным жильем, obviously not the first document in this regard, because the campaign of seizure began in late 2015), state authorities were instructed to form a housing fund to provide district police officers with apartments from among those under their jurisdiction, or from housing purchased on the secondary market, or from among the apartments REPOSSESSED BY THE STATE. The decree ordered to provide them with 537 apartments in Tashkent alone in 2017-2018.
In two years hundreds of apartments and houses were taken away from citizens in Tashkent, mostly in the central districts where housing prices are the highest, and in three years probably about a thousand (some of them were later returned to the owners).

Bakhodyr Kurbanov and Abdusalom Azizov at a meeting of the Security Council in February 2023. Photo by the presidential press service
All this was possible thanks to the coordinated work of the Tashkent General Department of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor’s office and judges, but the police were directly involved in fabricating cases. Bakhodyr Kurbanov headed the Tashkent police department and, accordingly, organized and coordinated criminal actions, apparently following the instructions of his superiors – Interior Ministers Adham Akhmedbaev (December 13, 2013 – January 4, 2017) and Abdusalom Azizov (January 4, 2017 – September 4, 2017), now removed from the post of head of the SGB.
The then Prosecutor General Ikhtiyor Abdullayev, who was later appointed chairman of the National Security Service (renamed the State Security Service – ed.), supervised the mass robberies of citizens. Sherzod Kudbiyev, the nephew of Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s wife, who from September 2016 to April 2018 headed the khokimiyat of Mirzo-Ulugbek district of Tashkent, where probably the most massive apartment seizures took place, was also involved. , https://www.asiaterra.info/corruption/v-tashkente-sudy-massovo-konfiskuyut-kvartiry-grazhdan-po-sfabrikovannym-delam-o-soderzhanii-pritona
Now , Kudbiev is the chairman of the Tax Committee of Uzbekistan,
The planned apartment weaning targets were met ahead of schedule – already in the first half of 2017. Presumably, Bakhodyr Kurbanov received the rank of Major General from Shavkat Mirziyoyev for these merits.
And this man, who violated the right of citizens to adequate housing and private property, was appointed by the one from whom such instructions came, to the position of the head of the special service.