E/CN.4/2006/5/Add.1 Page 89 422. Reports indicated that no investigation was conducted into the actions of the prison staff. 423. According to the information received, the Uzbek Government was limiting the number of adult Muslims who could go on the haj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca as required by Islam. In 2004, only 4,200 of the more than 6,000 Uzbek citizens who wanted to make the pilgrimage were allowed to go. The numbers were reportedly controlled under an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan, by which the Saudis only issue haj visas to Uzbeks whose names were on a list drawn up by representatives of the State Committee for Religious Affairs and the state -controlled muftiate, or Islamic religious leadership. Uzbek state control was further ensured as Uzbek Muslims reportedly have to travel to Saudi Arabia by air using only the staterun Uzbek Airways. The cost of these flights would be prohibitively expensive for most Uzbeks. The minority Shia Muslim community also experie nced problems in making the haj with Sunnis. 424. The Special Rapporteur was also informed that there had been an increase in trials in which Muslim religious convictions form part of the case against devout Muslims. Uzbekistan had reportedly imprisoned two followers of Sufi Islam in February 2005. Indeed, reports indicated that, on 17 February, the Tashkent regional criminal court sentenced Abdurashid Toshmatov and Nurali Umrzokov to six years imprisonment. They were reportedly both accused of breaching articles 159 (undermining the constitutional order) and 244-1 (preparation or distribution of materials containing a threat to public security and public order) of the Criminal Code. It was reported that it was clear during the trial that both Muslims were adherents of the Sufi Naqshbandi order. It was alleged that Hizb-ut-Tahrir leaflets were planted on them during their arrest and that they were tortured while in detention in an attempt to extract a confession from them. Concerns had been expressed that the case against the two men was completely fabricated and that they had no connection to the banned Islamist Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement whatsoever. 425. On 14 February 2005, Tashkent City Criminal Court sentenced Ismatullo Kudratov, Dilshod Yuldashev, and Batyr Yuldashev to 7 years' imprisonment, Hasan Asretdinov to 6 years, Abdullo Nurmatov, Negmajan Ermatov and Karim Ziyayev to five and a half years, Eamberdiyev to five years, all under article 244-2, part 1 of the Criminal Code (forming religious extremist organisations). The eight men were reportedly accused of studying Islam from the position of Wahhabism. It was reported that the court recognized that their only guilt was that they studied Islam together and adhered to the Hanbali school of Islam. Reports indicated that they had made no attempt to change the country's religious life by spreading their views to other Muslims. The meetings of the eight men were allegedly a sort of "club" of likeminded people, who discussed religion and read the Koran. Unlike traditional Uzbek Muslims, these Muslims regarded the veneration of mazars and extravagant weddings and funerals as deviations from Islam. Response from the Government dated 2 August 2005 426. The Government informed that the import of religious relics into Uzbekistan is covered by Cabinet of Ministers decision No.131 of 23 March 1999 regulating the import and export of cultural property. In this connection, the competent bodies in