Uzbekistan is in the top ten countries for censorship of the media, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, ahead of Syria, Belarus, China and Russia.

From the Committee to Protect Journalists

Leader: President Islam Karimov, elected 1991; presidential term extended by referendums in 1995 and again in 2002.

How censorship works: Karimov has re-established a Soviet-style dictatorship that relies on brutal political intimidation to silence journalists, human rights activists, and the political opposition. Karimov’s regime uses an informal system of state censorship to prevent the domestic media from reporting on widespread police torture, poverty, and an Islamic opposition movement. Uzbekistan has also distinguished itself among the former Soviet republics as the leading jailer of journalists, with six behind bars at the end of 2005.

Lowlight: After troops killed hundreds of antigovernment protesters in the city of Andijan in May 2005, Karimov’s regime cracked down on foreign media. The BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Institute for War & Peace Reporting were forced to close their Tashkent bureaus. A dozen foreign correspondents and local reporters working for foreign media had to flee the country.

At the Frontline Club

Wednesday 10 May 2006 ‘ 7.30pm

Discussion: ‘One Year After Andijan: Uzbekistan Shuts Down the News’ Admission FREE

With Sharifjon Akhmedov, former BBC stringer and a live witness of the Andijan events; Steve Crawshaw, London Director, Human Rights Watch; and Andrew Stroehlein, Director of Media, International Crisis Group.

Moderated by the Guardian’s Jonathan Steele.

On 13 May, 2005, Uzbek government forces shot dead hundreds of unarmed protesters at a demonstration in eastern Andijan.The United Nations and other intergovernmental organisations documented the massacre, but the authorities continue to refuse an independent investigation into the events, and persecute those who seek such an enquiry. An all-out crackdown on civil society has targeted human rights defenders and journalists, and created an information vacuum inside and outside the country.

The government has either shut or forced the closure of the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Liberty, Deutsche Welle, and many international organisations ‘ the United Nations is the latest to come under attack. Numerous Uzbek journalists and human rights defenders have fled the country. A new media law puts Uzbek citizens who work for foreign news organisations without official accreditation at risk of imprisonment.

Freelance journalist Shahida Yakub travelled to Andijan a month after the massacre. She’ll show her video footage, which includes testimony from Andijan refugees and from Qabul Parpiev, the only surviving leader of the group that triggered the May 2005 protest.

In light of recent developments in Germany we are reposting this article from March.

This is an excellent article from Galima Burkabaeva, which deserves to be studied.

I was continually stunned by the enthusiasm of the cooperation of German officials and Ministers with the Uzbek regime. This even included Joschka Fischer, the most sycophantic of all politicians to regularly visit Tashkent.

The British consultant and former Liberal MP Michael Meadowcroft was kicked off a German-led, EU funded consultancy programme with the Uzbek parliament for pointing out that this was a token parliament (it meets five days a year) in a one party state. The rest of the consultants were all German and seemed to have no problem at all with this. Michael pointed out to me that they were all Russian speaking East Germans. That is indeed true of most of the Germans in Tashkent in official persons, particularly in the German aid agency..

When the EU brought in travel sanctions against Uzbekistan, on the very day those sanctions came into force Germany admitted Uzbek Interior Minister Almatov, the first name on the EU banned list, for medical treatment organised by the German government.

The German Air Base at Termez is of great symbolic significance to Germany because it is the first permanent overseas base Germany established since the Second World War. How fitting then that it should be sited with a fascist regime.

I am very reluctant indeed to conclude this, but I can no longer think of any other explanation for the attitude of German politicians and officials to Karimov, except that the German establishment retains a hereditary yearning for fascism.

Craig

Germany’s dialogue with the Uzbek regime: a disgrace for German democracy

From Muslim Uzbekistan

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From Human Rights Watch

Almatov Decision Hurts Berlin’s Reputation

(Berlin, April 6, 2006) ‘ The decision by Germany’s federal prosecutor not to open an investigation against former Uzbek Minister of Interior Zokirjon Almatov for crimes against humanity will be challenged by Human Rights Watch. The prosecutor’s decision is a blow for victims in Uzbekistan and damages Germany’s reputation as a principled leader on behalf of international justice, Human Rights Watch said today.

On December 12, 2005, eight Uzbek victims of abuses, accompanied by Human Rights Watch, submitted a complaint against Almatov to the German federal prosecutor. They asked the prosecutor to open a criminal investigation against Almatov and 11 other Uzbek government officials for crimes against humanity related to the massacre of hundreds of unarmed citizens on May 13, 2005 in the eastern city of Andijan, and for the widespread and systematic use of torture. Almatov commanded the troops that bore primary responsibility for the mass killings in Andijan and, as interior minister, also oversaw Uzbek prisons and pre-trial detention facilities, where torture is routine. Four of the plaintiffs are victims of the Andijan massacre and four are victims of torture.

‘These victims have suffered horrific crimes and turned to Germany for the justice they could never find at home,’ said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director of Human Rights Watch. ‘It took tremendous courage for the victims to bring this case, so it is particularly disappointing that Germany has let them down.’

On March 31, 2006, Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm issued his decision not to go forward with an investigation against Almatov, arguing that the likelihood of a successful investigation and prosecution was ‘non-existent,’ given that Uzbekistan was unlikely to cooperate and an investigation in Uzbekistan would be necessary. The prosecutor apparently gave little weight to the fact that hundreds of victims and potential witnesses now live outside Uzbekistan, including in Germany, Romania, Holland, and Sweden.

What is more, the prosecutor appears not to have considered that he could interview international witnesses such as the former U.K. ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, or the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Theo van Boven, who had declared their willingness to serve as witnesses in the case. As special rapporteur, van Boven issued a report in 2003 documenting the systematic nature of torture in Uzbekistan.

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By Andrew Stroehlein in Transitions Online

The fallout from last year’s massacre in the Uzbek city of Andijan continues throughout the country and throughout the region. Since 13 May 2005 ‘ when state security forces fired on mostly unarmed civilian demonstrators, killing hundreds, perhaps even 1,000 ‘ the regime’s paranoia about independent public activity and its desperate drive to control information have accelerated with no apparent bounds.

Along with nongovernmental organizations and human-rights activists, the media has been a primary target. The regime has openly denounced journalists, both foreign and domestic, who reported on the massacre and the subsequent crackdown on witnesses and their families. Several international news organizations have come under harsh criticism, from the BBC, CNN, and the Associated Press to the Moscow-based service Ferghana.ru.

Uzbek First Deputy General Prosecutor Anvar Nabiev called journalists from these media outlets “hyenas and jackals searching for carrion,” and accused them of having known about the uprising plot beforehand and launching an “information war against Uzbekistan ‘ simultaneously with [the] terrorist aggression.”

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By Chris Patten in the International Herald Tribune

To the list of the world’s most self-destructively repressive regimes we should add one name that is too often overlooked: Uzbekistan. Like North Korea or Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan suffers under a brutal authoritarian system that not only impoverishes and commits massive abuses against its own citizens, but also threatens to spread violent instability to its neighbors.

The international community needs to develop new strategies to prepare for such a potential meltdown in Central Asia. True, Uzbekistan represents no direct security threat to Europe or the United States, and the government in Tashkent is not at risk of imminent collapse.

But when the regime does snap in the medium to long term, this will have a significant impact on Western interests. It could, for example, prompt an aggressive Russian intervention in the region and stimulate the undercurrents of Islamist extremism that so far have been more of an irritant than a major threat.

Never a shining light of freedom since the former Soviet republic became independent in 1991, Uzbekistan under President Islam Karimov has grown increasingly authoritarian. This process accelerated on May 13, 2005, when state security forces opened fire on a demonstration of mostly unarmed protesters in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijon, killing hundreds. That massacre sparked a new surge of state repression against the survivors and their families, and Tashkent has been pressuring neighboring states to hand over refugees.

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From HRW

(New York, March 21, 2006) ‘ The Uzbek government’s closure of the U.N. refugee agency in Tashkent will deprive refugees in Uzbekistan of international protection and set a terrible precedent, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on the Uzbek government to reverse its decision.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated yesterday that on March 17, the Foreign Ministry ordered it to close its office in Uzbekistan within one month, claiming that UNHCR was no longer needed in the country.

‘Uzbekistan is one of the few countries ever to kick out UNHCR,’ said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. ‘If a government can get away with expelling UNHCR every time it objects to the agency assisting its nationals abroad, the international refugee protection regime will fall apart.’

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From BBC Online

The UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, says it has been ordered to leave Uzbekistan within one month.

The agency said that on 17 March it received a communique saying its entire office must shut, an order which it told the BBC was “a rare occurrence”. According to the agency, Uzbekistan’s ministry for foreign affairs said the UNHCR, which has been in the country since 1993, had fulfilled its role.

The Uzbek authorities are yet to comment on the decision. According to the UNHCR, the government statement said the agency had “fully implemented its tasks and there are no evident reasons for its further presence in Uzbekistan. With this regard, the ministry requests UNHCR to close its office in Tashkent within one month.”

UNHCR spokesperson Astrid Van Genderen Stort told the BBC the decision “came as a surprise”. She said usually individuals were asked to leave a country rather than an entire office ordered to shut down. UNHCR has two international staff in Uzbekistan.

From the New Statesman

The Railway

ISBN 1843431610

Reviewed by Craig Murray

Like almost all decent Uzbek literature, Hamid Ismailov’s The Railway has been banned in Uzbekistan. It is not a political work, but it presents a kaleidoscopic view of the extraordinary ethnic, cultural and political mix of Uzbek society across a period ranging from about 1880 to about 1980. It consists of a series of tales structured loosely around a remote village, Gilas, and the effect on the lives of the inhabitants of the railway built through it.

This mixture is, like Uzbekistan’s ethnic composition, so rich as to be almost indescribable. However, the two main strands are the folklore of the Asiatic peoples of the steppe, desert and mountain, and the subversive literature of communist states, with their suppressed individualism. We have mythic stories of heroic nomads performing impossible physical feats alongside the tale of Ulmas Greeneyes, nicknamed Mullah, a naIf swept along by events beyond his comprehension, who becomes a cog in both Stalin’s and Hitler’s interchangeable machines. Ismailov’s text is itself a product of Uzbekistan’s remarkable history. Discernible influences range from Omar Khayyam to Bulgakov, all overlain with the country’s cultured and tolerant version of Islam.

Indeed, Ismailov’s writing appears deeply infused with a rich heritage of Sufic thought. The translator, Robert Chandler, has brilliantly reproduced the rolling rhythms of the incan-tatory, mesmeric prose. Some of these stories could have been told by Scheherazade. Ismailov is a skilled craftsman, completely aware of the tradition on which he draws, and the book is peppered with scholarly allusion, but brilliantly done in a manner not distracting to the uninitiated. If you are familiar with central Asia and its literature, you will find the foreword masterly and will wallow in the footnotes. If not, I would advise you to ignore both and just drink in the novel.

The society Ismailov paints is recognisably still the Uzbek society of today – it made me yearn to go back. While the novel makes no direct criticism of the current regime, many of the incidents described, often casually, are features of modern Uzbekistan. In particular, The Railway details the sexual blackmail of women by the police, the huge corruption in the state cotton industry and the capriciousness – sometimes lazy, sometimes vicious – of the government (a poet is executed).

Thanks to the human-rights campaigns of the past couple of years, far more people in Britain now know something of Uzbekistan. Ismailov’s novel will further advance our understanding of this fascinating land. It is a work of rare beauty – an utterly readable, compelling book.

Craig Murray is Britain’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan

With yet again no effective protest from the international community, another major leader of the Uzbek democratic opposition is packed off to torture camp. Nodira is a personal friend of mine and I am deeply sad.

She is not, doubtless, a personal friend of my replacement. I was sacked for trying to help democracy and stop this kind of thing. Where now is the British Embassy. Where was my successor, David Moran, when this sentence was passed?

Doubtless doing nothing but swanning from cocktail party to golf course with his mouth, eyes and ears closed, as a good diplomat should,

Craig Murray

From the Washington Post

TASHKENT (Reuters) – An Uzbek court sentenced an opposition activist to 10 years in prison on Wednesday on embezzlement and tax evasion charges in a case her supporters say was politically motivated.

Nodira Khidayatova, a leading member of the moderate opposition Sunshine Uzbekistan Coalition, was arrested in December after returning from a trip to Moscow where she held a news conference to criticize President Islam Karimov.

“The court rules that Khidayatova be imprisoned for 10 years,” Judge Zokirjon Isayev said. Companies controlled by her must also pay $230,000 in back taxes, he said.

Since a bloody government crackdown in the town of Andizhan last year in May, the authoritarian Central Asian state has held a series of trials resulting in the jailing of more than 180 people accused of involvement in the uprising. The authorities have also arrested members of the opposition, like Khidayatova, who criticized Karimov’s government.

“Her guilt was completely unproven,” Khidayatova’s lawyer Oleg Babenko told reporters. He said she would appeal against the verdict.

Sanjar Umarov, a 49-year-old cotton and oil businessman who chairs the Sunshine coalition, is also on trial on economic charges. Prosecutors called last week for him to be jailed for more than 13 years. Umarov set up the Sunshine Uzbekistan Coalition last year to campaign for reform of the country’s Soviet-style economy, which independent economists say has kept much of the population in poverty.

Following the violence in Andizhan, where troops opened fire on a large crowd of men, women and children after armed militants seized a government building, Umarov criticized the government and called on people to join his coalition. Khidayatova held a news conference in Moscow in November, calling on Russia to drop its support for Karimov and acknowledge widespread human rights abuses in Uzbekistan.

Karimov, who says he is fighting militant Islamists and is backed by Russian and China, has denied any ordinary members of the public were killed in Andizhan. His government says 187 people, mostly “bandits” and “terrorists” and some police, were killed, while independent witness estimates put the death toll at around 500.

From the International Crisis Group

OVERVIEW

Economic misrule and political repression have left Uzbekistan in a woeful state. President Islam Karimov’s intransigence has meant that efforts to encourage economic and political reform have failed. Relations with Europe and the U.S. are the worst since independence in 1991. Religious and political repression and worsening living standards have raised domestic tensions and provoked violence. There is little that Western countries can do now to change Uzbekistan’s direction but they should be doing more to prepare the Uzbek people and the neighbouring states to withstand future instability in Central Asia.

Uzbekistan is well down the path of self-destruction followed by such countries as Burma, Zimbabwe and North Korea, in which an elite prospers while the majority lives in worsening poverty. Even as European governments and the U.S. have encouraged regional development, Tashkent acts as a persistent spoiler and presents a growing threat to its neighbours, with refugees and drugs spilling over its frontiers. The other four Central Asian states and Afghanistan are all relatively weak and vulnerable. Kyrgyzstan was profoundly shaken by the arrival of fewer than 500 refugees after the Andijon massacre in May 2005. Tajikistan has been hard hit by border closures and trade restrictions. Even relatively prosperous Kazakhstan could be seriously troubled if violence were to drive Uzbeks across its border.

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I am very worried about this development. After the Andijan massacre a large number of Uzbek activists, including several of my personal friends, fled to Ukraine, which is as close as Uzbeks can get to the West without a visa. It is further evidence of the collusion which the Karimov regime is able to obtain throughout the Former Soviet Union. It is also yet another count against the government of President Yevchenko, who have turned out to be as appalling as the lot they replaced, Orange revolution or no.

Craig

From Human Rights Watch

(New York, February 17, 2005) ‘ Ukraine has deported 10 asylum seekers to Uzbekistan, where they face torture and abuse, Human Rights Watch said today. These deportations violate international law.

On the night of February 14-15, a group of 10 Uzbek men was deported to Uzbekistan, apparently pursuant to an Uzbek extradition request. An eleventh detained man was not deported, apparently because he had relatives in Ukraine. Nine of the 11 Uzbeks had registered as asylum seekers with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kiev. Human Rights Watch learned prior to their deportation that the other two wanted to lodge asylum requests, but had not been able to do so. UNHCR issued a statement today deploring the forced return of the entire group.

‘Ukraine had a duty to protect these people and instead it sent them back to almost certain torture and abuse,’ said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. ‘Now the government needs to find out how it could have happened that asylum seekers registered with UNHCR were deported. And it must take steps to ensure that it never happens again.’

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Earlier this year, the scandal-hit British government was embarrassed by revelations that UK troops had trained the Uzbek army in “marksmanship” months before they gunned down more than 700 peaceful demonstrators in the now-infamous Andijan massacre. Now, Eurasia reports, British army officers are to “observe” (one of life’s great military euphemisms) the training of Uzbek soldiers by the Indian army.

An international delegation of officers from the Israeli and British armies is expected to observe the training of the Uzbek personnel. Officials within the Ministry of Defense in Tashkent hope that not only will such training herald a deeper security relationship with India, but will also remind Western observers of the needs still facing the Uzbek security structures, as well as conveying the political message that Tashkent can secure alternative sources of security assistance.

From Eurasia Daily Monitor

Nadira Khidoyatova, coordinator of the Sunshine Coalition, which unites one opposition party and several human-rights NGOs working inside Uzbekistan,was detained by Uzbek police on December 20, 2005 at

Tashkent airport. Khidoyatova, 37, was not presented with an arrest warrant, and state prosecutors did not present any charges against her until she had spent her first night in prison.

She has been accused of variety of economic crimes,such as tax evasion, expropriation of property and money laundering. If she is found guilty of these crimes, under Uzbek law she would likely serve a

prison sentence of five to six years.

Khidoyatova has been transferred to a pre-trial detention prison in Tashkent, where she remains at present.

Uzbek opposition and human rights groups consider Khidoyatova to be a political prisoner. Prior to her arrest, she spent two months in Moscow trying to raise awareness in Russian political circles about the increase in repression on the part of the Uzbek regime. Her sister, Nigora Khidoyatova, is leader of the Free Peasants Party, a key part of the Sunshine Coalition.

This is the second time that Nadira Khidoyatova has been arrested for her political activity. In 1995 she was arrested and imprisoned on similar economic charges after she had helped the former Uzbek ambassador to the United States, Babur Malikov, escape the country to go into exile and into opposition. At that time Khidoyatova was four months pregnant; after her arrest a compulsory abortion was performed on her.

Khidoyatova is a mother of daughter aged thirteen and a son aged three.

Her arrest follows the arrest of the leader of the Sunshine Coalition, Sanjar Umarov, on October 23, 2005, also for alleged economic crimes. According to his lawyer, who has been granted access to him only four times since his arrest, Umarov is being tortured and injected with psychotropic drugs against his will.

Another member of the Sunshine Coalition,Arif Aydin,a Turkish citizen and Nigora Khidoyatova’s husband,was expelled from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan in early December. Two weeks after his departure he was shot by unidentified men in southern Kazakhstan, and he died in the hospital two days later.

The attacks on the leaders of the Sunshine Coalition are just part of the Uzbek government’s recent campaign of repression against opposition parties, NGOs and independent media outlets. Facing official pressure, BBC shut down its office in Tashkent this summer, and in December, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was closed down by authorities. Activities of other NGOs including the Soros Foundation and Internews have been suspended as well.

Please write to us to find out more about Khidoyatova’s case. We would appreciate you help in publicising this case.

Sincerely,

“May 13 campaign for Justice and Democracy in Uzbekistan”

From the chatter on the web, it’s clear that there are still a few diehard Bush/Blair supporters out there who believe this is about democracy and security.

I hate to disillusion such people, but everyone should be aware of this document:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushlay12.html

(This was released with other Enron court documents. To anyone covering the Enron story, it meant very little. Now, however….)

…and here’s the full text:

Kenneth L. Lay

Natural gas. Electricity. Endless possibilities.

From RFE/RL

On 14 December, Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court announced the beginning of the first trial of Uzbek officials in connection with the bloodshed in Andijon in May, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reported. In a stark reminder of the gulf that now separates Uzbekistan from Western countries, which have called for an independent investigation of eyewitness accounts that Uzbek security services perpetrated a massacre in Andijon, the officials face charges not of employing excessive force, but rather of negligence in the performance of their duties.

On trial are 10 police officers, two prison medics, five prison guards, and 19 soldiers. One of the police on trial is Dilmurod Oqmirzaev, former head of the Interior Ministry’s Andijon section.

Most of the accused face charges of negligence on 12-13 May, when a group of armed men in Andijon carried out attacks on a local prison and army post before seizing the government administration building in the city center. The medics testified at an earlier trial that they supplied a mobile phone and relayed messages to Akram Yoldoshev, the jailed leader of the so-called Akramiya movement who Uzbek authorities have charged was behind the violence in Andijon. Elsewhere in Uzbekistan, 78 people are on trial for alleged direct involvement in the violence.

Behind Closed Doors

All of the trials are closed to the public, journalists, and human rights activists. In its statement, the Supreme Court said the measure was necessary to safeguard “state secrets in the criminal cases” and to guarantee “the security of victims, witnesses, and other trial participants.”

The first Andijon trial, which began on 20 September with guilty pleas from all 15 defendants and ended on 14 November with prison terms of 14-20 years, received heavy coverage from the international press. But as Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted in a 30 November press release on the organization’s website, the Uzbek government has blocked access to subsequent trials. Allison Gill, HRW’s representative in Tashkent, told RFE/RL why she thinks the authorities decided to clamp down.

“The government used the first trial as a theatrical spectacle to convey its version of events to the Uzbek people and the international community,” Gill said. “The trial was covered every day in detail by Uzbekistan’s state television channels, and foreign observers and correspondents were given permission to attend. But because the trial absolutely failed to meet fair-trial standards, it evoked very negative reactions. In order to prevent mounting criticism, the government decided to hold all further trials on the Andijon events behind closed doors. Moreover, there is the possibility, however small, that witnesses or defendants could open their mouths and say things that depart from the government’s script. This is why the trials are closed.”

‘Eliminate The Witnesses’

In Andijon itself, residents had their own reactions to the latest trial. “In the first place, the people on trial were witnesses to the events of 13 May,” one Andijon resident told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service. “The most important task for Uzbekistan’s president today is to eliminate such witnesses because they could talk at some point in the future.”

The resident said he was personally acquainted with defendant Dilmurod Oqmirzaev, the former head of the Interior Ministry section in Andijon Province. “It’s now clear that evil, heartless men are coming to take the place of good police officers like Oqimirzaev,” the local said. “This is what they’re doing now to keep the people of Andijon in fear.”

Police Not To Blame

Asked about the actions of police on 13 May, the resident replied: “On 13 May, there were a lot of police in civilian dress and with white armbands. You could see on the faces of many police that they were being forced to do their work.” The individual said that some police showed a desire to join the demonstrators who gathered in the center of Andijon on 13 May, while others shouted at the protestors and threatened them with their weapons. He summed up, “Now the good police officers are on trial, while the ones who threatened the people with weapons are still doing their jobs.”

An elderly resident of Andijon told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service that police conducted themselves honorably during the demonstrations that took place in Andijon before 13 May as a verdict neared in the trial of 23 businesspeople accused of membership of the Akramiya movement. “When our children were on trial, the police and their commanding officers were in the area,” she said. “We didn’t see them do anything bad.”

The woman asserted that the police were not responsible for the shooting on 13 May. “On 13 May in Andijon, it wasn’t the police, but the soldiers who shot at us,” she said. “The soldiers shot at us in Chulpon Street and in the village of Teshiktosh. We didn’t see any police or police commanders.”

Dilshodbek Tullakhujaev, the head of the Democratic Initiative Center in Andijon Province, told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service that if any officials should be charged with dereliction of duty in connection with the events of 12-13 May, they should be from the National Security Service (SNB).

“When the attack began [on the night of 12 May], there were no commanders or officers on duty at the army post,” the man said. “As a result, they should be tried. But the heads of the provincial Interior Ministry section weren’t at fault. In my view, the main fault lies with the SNB. Now, the main job of the SNB is fighting against rights activists and democrats.”

From Human Rights Watch

Suit Filed in Germany Against Uzbek Minister Zokirjon Almatov

(Berlin, December 15, 2005) – Survivors of torture and the May 13 massacre of unarmed protesters in Andijan, Uzbekistan, filed a case on Monday in Germany calling for the prosecution of Zokirjon Almatov, Uzbekistan’s Minister of Internal Affairs, for crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said today. Almatov is in Germany receiving medical treatment.

“This case represents a unique opportunity to bring a measure of truth and justice for some of the horrors that occurred under the command of Zokirjon Almatov,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “While the victims could not safely seek justice in Uzbekistan, German law allows them to seek redress before a German court.”

German law recognizes universal jurisdiction for torture and crimes against humanity. This means that Germany can try and punish the perpetrators of such crimes, no matter where the crimes were committed, and regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators and victims.

Victims of abuse in Uzbekistan asked the German federal prosecutor to open a criminal investigation and pursue Almatov on three counts: individual crimes of torture, torture as a crime against humanity and the Andijan massacre as a crime against humanity. Crimes against humanity include widespread or systematic crimes against civilians, including murder and torture.

Human Rights Watch provided evidence to the prosecutor, supporting the

victims’ allegations against Almatov. Since the mid-1990s, Human Rights Watch has extensively documented the use of torture by police under Almatov’s command. Human Rights Watch also handed over evidence about the role of the police in the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Andijan in May 2005.

Almatov is accused of being responsible for the use of torture by police in places of pre-trial detention and in prisons, locations under his direct control.

Human Rights Watch said it is now up to the federal prosecutor of Germany to decide whether or not to open a criminal case against Almatov and pursue the matter.”The facts are there,” said Cartner. “If the prosecutor applies the law to the facts, Almatov will be arrested and tried in Germany.”

Germany has been a leader in creating accountability mechanisms for the most serious crimes under international law. The German government was a strong supporter of efforts to establish the International Criminal Court, and incorporated that court’s statute of international crimes into its own domestic law. This commitment to international justice reflects Germany’s struggle to come to terms with its own history and its recognition of the importance of bringing to justice those responsible for crimes such as mass slaughter, forced displacement on ethnic grounds and rape as a weapon of war.

“Germany has been a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court and its investigations in Africa,” added Cartner. “With the Almatov case, Germany has the chance to demonstrate its commitment by bringing justice through its own courts.”

In 2002, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture found torture in Uzbekistan to be “systematic.” Methods of torture that police use against people in detention include beatings with truncheons, electric shock, hanging people by their wrists or ankles, rape and sexual humiliation,asphyxiation with plastic bags and gas masks, and threats of physical harm to relatives.

One of the cases Human Rights Watch brought to the prosecutor’s attention was that of Muzafar Avazov, who died in August 2002 after having been immersed in boiling water in Jaslyk prison, run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was arrested on charges of religious extremism.

Almatov also commanded the troops who bore primary responsibility for the mass killings that marked the bloodiest day in Uzbekistan’s recent history.

On May 13, 2005, in Andijan, thousands of protesters, almost all unarmed, were surrounded by troops from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as other security forces. Without warning, these forces opened fire on the crowd, killing and wounding hundreds. Those who tried to escape were mowed down by a waiting flank of government troops or were picked off by snipers posted atop surrounding buildings. Witnesses have said that the fleeing civilians did not stand a chance against the government’s firepower.

One eyewitness to the bloodshed, who saw people shot and killed all around him, told Human Rights Watch, “It was almost impossible to survive.” He said that the day after the slaughter, police walked among the bodies remaining on the ground and asked, “Who is wounded?” When those still living answered, “I am,” the officers fired single shots at them from guns with silencers, killing them. Those who could manage it fled the scene and crossed the border into Kyrgyzstan, and eventually to safety.

“Survivors of the massacre in Andijan have been brave enough to come forward with their memories of that horrible day,” said Cartner.

“They are asking for justice, and they deserve nothing less.”

For further information and background see the following Q & A

By Gulnoza Saidazimova writing in the Turkistan Newsletter

Uzbekistan’s Foreign Ministry has refused to prolong the accreditation of correspondents for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) or renew the agreement that has allowed RFE/RL to operate a bureau in Tashkent. The closure of the RFE/RL bureau in the Uzbek capital comes after a number of other prominent media organizations, including the BBC and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, were forced to pull their correspondents out of the country after security concerns.

The acting president of RFE/RL, Jeff Trimble, called the Uzbek government’s decision “yet another attack by the [President Islam] Karimov government on the basic human rights of the Uzbek people.”

Trimble said RFE/RL will continue to report accurately and objectively about events in Uzbekistan. “This unwarranted action by Uzbek authorities further erodes the already dismal state of free speech in Uzbekistan and is yet another attack by the Karimov government on the basic human rights of the Uzbek people,” he said. “While hindered, RFE/RL will not be deterred in its efforts to report accurately and objectively about events in Uzbekistan to the people of that country and throughout Central Asia and the rest of our broadcast region.”

RFE/RL has operated in Uzbekistan’s restricted media environment since

1996. It has found itself under increasing pressure from the government, however, since the brutal crackdown on protesters in the city of Andijon on 13 May.

RFE/RL correspondents covered the unrest, during which rights groups

allege that hundreds of civilian demonstrators were killed by Uzbek government forces. RFE/RL correspondents and other foreign journalists were expelled from Andijon in the following days.

“Today, we lost not only a very good professional team of journalists of Radio Liberty. The people of Uzbekistan also lost the last platform to express an alternative view on what is going on in the country.” — Galima Bukharbaeva RFE/RL journalists have long faced harassment and persecution while working in Uzbekistan. Most recently, in August, Nosir Zokir, an RFE/RL correspondent in Namangan, was jailed for six months on charges of insulting police officers. Rights activists, including Human Rights Watch, said the charges were fabricated and politically motivated. Dozens of other RFE/RL correspondents and their families in Uzbekistan have received threatening phone calls, been interrogated by security officers, had recording equipment confiscated, or been physically assaulted.

In September, during the trial of 15 men accused of organizing the Andijon unrest, Uzbek prosecutors blamed correspondents for RFE/RL as well as those of the BBC, The Associated Press, and Deutsche Welle for “assisting terrorists in an antigovernment plot.”

The most recent rhetoric came from Karimov during Constitution Day

celebrations in Tashkent last week: “Who disseminated this slander [about Uzbekistan] around the world? You have seen it yourselves. The strong rule the world these days. The one who controls media, who controls information space, and has levers to influence others, rules the world. Meanwhile, we remain so weak.”

In late October, the BBC announced that it was closing its Tashkent bureau because of the harassment and persecution of its staff. At least seven BBC journalists have fled or been forced to leave Uzbekistan, including foreign correspondent Monica Whitlock. At least two Uzbek members of the BBC’s staff have received political asylum.

“The reason really that was given by the BBC, by the World Service, was that this was done for concerns over security,” Johannes Dell of the BBC’s World Service explained. “And I think what the BBC has made clear at the time when the BBC office was closed, that over the last four months, up to the closure, effectively since the unrest in Andijon, that BBC staff in Uzbekistan were subjected to harassment and intimidation, which basically made it extremely difficult for our reporter team to report what’s happening in the country, as you would expect them to do it.”

Internews is a U.S.-based media-development organization that first began working in Uzbekistan in 1995. It was forced to close its Tashkent office in October following a yearlong battle in the Uzbek courts on charges including “conspiring to publish information and producing TV programs without the necessary licenses.”

Correspondents from the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) were also persecuted. The IWPR’s Uzbek-language website was blocked and contributors were forced to flee the country, among them country director Galima Bukharbaeva.

Speaking to RFE/RL from the United States, where she sought refuge,

Bukharbaeva called RFE/RL the last remaining platform of objective information in Uzbekistan. “Today, we lost not only a very good professional team of journalists of Radio Liberty. The people of

Uzbekistan also lost the last platform to express an alternative view on what is going on in the country,” she said. “The people lost not only a source of good information, but also a refuge, a place where they could always come and tell about their concerns and find support.”

The Uzbek Foreign Ministry said its decision to suspend accreditation to RFE/RL’s Tashkent bureau and the journalists working there was based on the fact that RFE/RL had recruited “so-called non-staff correspondents (‘stringers’) who engaged in journalistic activity without accreditation” by the Foreign Ministry, in violation of Uzbek media laws.

Peter Noorlander, however, questions the decision. He is a lawyer for

Article 19, a London-based human rights organization that focuses on the defense and promotion of freedom of expression worldwide. “If such a law exists, then it is completely in violation of international law on the right of freedom of expression,” he told RFE/RL. “If you look at other countries’ radio stations, newspapers, they use freelancers all the time, who do not need to obtain the license or who do not need to be registered. So I would say that the actions of the Uzbek government are highly questionable.”

Following the popular uprisings that brought down governments in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbek authorities have cracked down on foreign nongovernmental organizations, especially those supporting the development of democracy.

Last year, the Uzbek government expelled the Open Society Institute, which promotes free media and education programs. In September, the activities of another foreign NGO, the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), were suspended for six months for allegedly conducting activities not in line with its charter.

(Farruh Yusupov and Shukhrat Babajanov of RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service

contributed to this report.)