AKIPRESS.COM - A city court in Uzbekistan’s capital on May 7, convicted a freelance reporter for calling for the overthrow of the government, but did not sentence him to prison, Human Rights Watch said.

The verdict, at the end of a high-profile trial, requires the reporter. Bobomurod Abdullayev, to pay 20 percent of his income to the government for three years for “infringing the country’s constitutional order,” a much milder sentence than many observers had expected.

The court freed Abdullayev from pretrial detention, and quashed the charges against his three co-defendants, including Hayot Nasriddinov, a well-known economist and blogger. It also ordered an investigation into alleged abuses of Abdullayev in detention by the State Security Service, known as the SNB.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who took power in 2016, has pledged to protect freedom of expression, among other human rights reforms. While there have been some recent improvements in media freedom, heavy censorship and intimidation of journalists remain serious concerns, the HRW reports.

Abdullayev, 45, was detained on September 27, 2017, in Tashkent, the capital, by the SNB on charges of “conspiracy to overthrow the constitutional regime,” which can carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The authorities accused Abdullayev of writing “extremist” articles and of being part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government, along with Nasriddinov and two other people.