An audio recording surfaced on social media, which refers to a police scheme called "Beard", within which individuals with beards are to be identified, and to be photographed before and after shaving.
“We need to speed up the Beard scheme. The city police department is demanding. The arriving guests from the Ministry of the Interior also took control over this. Each city police department (CPD) must identify 20 bearded, photograph them with a beard, and then without a beard. Next to indicate the information: where he (the bearded person) lives, what year of birth, who he is ... Each CPD is to get 20, we do not have even a single one,” says a voice on the recording.
The spokesman to the Interior Ministry Uzbekistan, Shokhrukh Giyosov, commented on the situation.
“There is no such scheme within the police bodies. Whether or not to grow beards depends on the citizen himself, on his faith. Nobody has the right to interfere with this, ”he said.
He added that the Interior Ministry will examine the audio recording to determine who is behind it.
