[**Content warning for sexual assault, torture, and brutality**]

PAIFUP provided representation to K.S., a young small-business owner who was forced to flee from Uzbekistan. K.S. learned about the construction supply business from his mentor, a successful business operator, who knew of K.S. from his part-time jobs he held in high school. When police came to his small storefront and asked to see contracts and receipts for his inventory, police hinted that they expected a bribe. K.S. was young, idealistic, and he had formed political views that he opposed the widespread corruption that plagued his country.  After spurning the bribe request, K.S. was arrested, taken to the basement of the local police station, and severely beaten. After more than 48 hours with little food or water, K.S. refused to sign a false confession. In response, his interrogators stripped him naked and tortured him sexually. Police threatened what they were doing would result in K.S. being sterilized; the police further threatened that they would rape his mother. When K.S. continued to refuse to sign a false confession, the police mocked K.S. for thinking himself a hero. K.S. yelled back at the police to have humanity, and if they insisted on torturing him, to use their hands to beat his face and upper body. They did. When K.S. still wouldn’t sign, two officers lifted K.S. over their shoulders and threw him to the floor, breaking his back.

After hospitalization and treatment for 90 days, police returned to arrest K.S. again. He pleaded with the arresting officers that he required seven more days of medical treatment for his back. The officers relented—but warned that there would be no more delays. In one week, they would return to take K.S. back into custody and continue the interrogation. Fearing torture and death, and now sufficiently recovered from his injuries to travel, K.S. left Uzbekistan for the first time in his life.

Having nowhere to go, he quickly decided to seek asylum in the United States. After traveling through Türkiye, Central America and Mexico to reach the southern border, K.S. was surprised to be placed in civil detention. After first being released into the U.S., K.S, was more surprised to later be taken back into detention and accused of being a terrorist because of his nationality. With representation from his PAIFUP lawyer, K.S. applied to the immigration court for protection from persecution and torture. K.S.’s lawyer requested evidence for the government’s accusation of terrorism. At his merits hearing, the government admitted that it had accused K.S. of terrorism without specific evidence relating to K.S. The Judge granted K.S. protection from deportation, in the form of withholding, finding that K.S. was covered by the United Nations Convention Against Torture. 

K.S. plans to resume living in Pittsburgh, where he briefly settled upon his arrival. Now 24 years of age, K.S. hopes to someday start a small business in his new city.