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Uzbekistan: Uzbekistan: Human Rights in the OSCE Region: Europe, Central Asia and North America, Report 2005

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Source: International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
Country: Uzbekistan

UZBEKISTAN (1)

IHF FOCUS: human rights defenders; freedom of expression, free media and information; peaceful assembly; freedom of association; right to a fair trial and effective remedies; arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment; right to life; freedom of religion and religious tolerance; migrants, refugees.

The human rights situation worsened further in Uzbekistan in 2005. In May, hundreds of civilians who had gathered to protest repressive government policies were virtually massacred by police and security forces in the region of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley. The government, however, denied all responsibility for the deaths, and instead blamed the violence on "religious extremists."

Arbitrary mass arrests of eyewitnesses and other people with any form of knowledge of the events were carried out, and coercive measures were used to force detainees to confess involvement in the violence or incriminate others. At the end of the year, in court proceedings that lacked any semblance of due process, a first series of guilty verdicts were handed down for people accused of crimes related to the Andijan events. Dozens of other suspects were awaiting trial, some of them on charges of terrorism, one of the two crimes that remained punishable by death. (2) The Uzbek authorities also issued extradition requests for people who had sought protection in neighboring countries following the Andijan events, and in some cases such requests were complied with, although a return to Uzbekistan involved serious security risks for those affected.

The government rejected all demands for an impartial investigation into the Andijan violence, as called for by international organizations and governments, and engaged in concerted efforts to promote its own version of the events. At the same time, independent journalists, human rights defenders and others who sought to reveal the facts about what happened in the region were persecuted, and in the months following the events a large-scale crackdown on media and civil society took place in the country.

Independent journalists, human rights activists and other opponents to the government were, inter alia, subject to intimidation, arrest, criminal prosecution and physical assaults. By orchestrating defamation campaigns and public shows of protest, the authorities also sought to damage the reputation of independent journalists and human rights defenders and to stir public opinion against them. Numerous NGOs and news agencies were forced to close down during the year and many journalists as well as political and civil society activists fled abroad to escape persecution.

The massive crackdown followed years of repression of opposition and civil society in Uzbekistan and could be seen in the context of recent political upheavals in Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Georgia, which have created fear on the part of the Karimov administration that a broad democratic movement will also develop in Uzbekistan. These fears were reinforced by a growing wave of anti-government pickets in the pre-Andijan period.

The Andijan violence, and the failure of the Uzbek government to allow for an independent investigation into these events, had a negative impact on the country's international relations. In an October decision welcomed by the human rights community, the European Union (EU) imposed sanctions on Uzbekistan, including an arms embargo, a visa ban for Uzbek officials held responsible for the Andijan killings and a partial suspension of the EU-Uzbek Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. (3) The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) adopted a new two-year strategy for Uz-bekistan, under which no new public sector projects and no private-sector projects with government involvement will be funded. (4) US-Uzbek relations also cooled down, and in late July, the Uzbek government requested that the US withdraw its troops from the country within 180 days.

Endnotes:

(1) Unless otherwise noted, this chapter is based on information provided by the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU, an IHF cooperating committee) to the IHF.

(2) The other one was "premeditated, aggravated murder."

(3) See The New York Times, "EU Orders Uzbekistan Sanctions," 4 October 2005.

(4) See EBRD, "EBRD Issues New Strategy for Uzbekistan," 29 July 2005, at www.ebrd.com/ new/pressrel/2005/102july29.htm:

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