By Nick Paton Walsh writing in The Guardian

The BBC yesterday said it would close its World Service operation in the central Asian state of Uzbekistan, citing harassment by local officials. The foreign media have been under increasing pressure in the authoritarian state since the massacre of at least 500 protesters by Uzbek troops in the southern town of Andijan.

Fifteen men went on trial last month for organising the unrest. Prosecutors yesterday asked the alleged “terrorists” to be sentenced for up to 20 years, and at the start of the trial had claimed the men had been advised during the unrest by the BBC.

A BBC statement said: “The BBC World Service’s office in Tashkent is being suspended and all local staff withdrawn with immediate effect for six months pending a decision on their longer-term future. We are doing this over concerns of security.” The BBC World Service regional head, Behrouz Afagh, said that during the four months since Andijan, staff had been subjected to “a campaign of harassment and intimidation”.

In June, the BBC added, its correspondent, Monica Whitlock, was forced to leave the capital “under government pressure” after she was accused of breaking unspecified laws for her reports on Andijan.

Six other staff members have since left, two of whom have been classified as refugees by the UN. The BBC retains a monitoring office but has no correspondents in the country.

Yesterday it also emerged that Sanjar Umarov, chairman of the opposition Sunshine Coalition, who was arrested on Sunday for alleged embezzlement, had shown signs of having been tortured in jail. His lawyer said that he saw Mr Umarov naked, swaying back and forth in his cell. “He threw all his clothes out into the feeding slot and didn’t react to my words,” Valery Krasilovsky told Associated Press.

The bullet holes and bloodstains are gone, but for Uzbeks life is even worse

By Nick Paton Walsh in Andijan writing for The Guardian

Repression on a huge scale follows massacre of at least 500 protesters

Plaster covers up the bullet holes in the walls of Andijan, a city whitewashed into denial. Builders clamber around buildings, hastily repairing blast damage. Residents talk in code on the phone; the less cautious sometimes disappear. Thick-set men in sunglasses band together on street corners, their silver saloons conspicuously tailing outsiders. The veneer of normality, here in the authoritarian state of Uzbekistan, is brittle. Ola picks at her ice cream in one of Andijan’s pristine parks and says: “Everyone here has amnesia. Didn’t you know?”

In the centre, the tranquil Bobur Square yields no suggestion that five months ago it was, in the words of witnesses, awash with blood. Here troops shot dead at least 500 people protesting in support of 23 local businessmen charged with “extremism” but freed in a jailbreak. The troops walked among the wounded, finishing them off with a single shot to the head, before hoarding their corpses in a nearby school.

But while locals say between 1,500 and 2,000 people died on the square, the regime of President Islam Karimov insists that only 187 criminals were killed. They have tried to recast the massacre as a measured response to a coup by Islamists, a version of events repeated daily in the Uzbek supreme court in the capital, Tashkent.

In the court, 15 of the 23 businessmen are on trial for terrorism and may be executed. They have said they opened fire first, that the US embassy helped finance their attack, and the foreign media, including the BBC, advised them. Officials have testified that the militants refused an offer of safe passage, battered their captives and began shooting each other. State TV has replayed confessions from similarly repentant “organisers”.

This Orwellian conceit lapsed only once when a woman said troops had shot at people waving white flags. Makhbuba Zakirova, 33, who was interrupted by the judge, said: “Even Hitler did not do it that way.”

The charade is shattered behind the closed doors of Andijan’s homes. Survivors and relatives told the Guardian, the first western newspaper to gain access to Andijan since the massacre, of months of repression, arrest, and torture. Hundreds of survivors have been forced into confessing their “military involvement” to bolster the state’s case.

Disappeared

Many are in jail, up to 200 awaiting trial; others have disappeared from hospital. One police officer said 300 people had been arrested in Andijan since the massacre; Human Rights Watch suggests up to 4,200 have at some point been detained in the surrounding region. Knock on doors in a street in Andijan and it is clear the repression that hit the town of 450,000 after May 13 may eclipse the horrors of the massacre itself.

Udgarbek, 16, sits on a bed in his mother’s courtyard. On May 13 he was shot twice in the back. The first cut just past his upper spinal cord. The second is lodged in his lower back. He walks stiffly as if his back and thighs were strapped to a plank; urine stains his trousers, his nerve endings still damaged.

That day, he was left for dead near Bobur Square. Soldiers dragged him into the grounds of a school where he lay among hundreds of corpses. He saw nine injured people die before they put him on a bus to hospital at dawn. There, the security services visited him. “They beat me on the legs and the soles of my feet to make me sign a confession saying I was sniper,” he said. “They yelled at me: ‘Where are your guns and your friends?’ But I refused, fearing what they would do to me if I confessed.”

After 26 days, he was discharged. But at home convalescing and unable to walk, he was still seen as a threat. “They came again in June and took me to the regional police station,” he said. “They did not beat me that time, but fingerprinted, photographed and filmed me.”

Many did not return home from hospital. Saidkhan Saidhojayev, 27, left home excitedly on the morning of May 13. The businessmen had been busted out of prison. The local government building had been taken over. The town’s life would start anew. The president was coming to negotiate and so Mr Saidhojayev dressed in his best white shirt and trousers. By 8pm, he was staggering home after being shot in the left arm. He did not enter his mother’s house, but lay outside on a pile of gravel until 11pm, when friends took him to hospital. There his infected arm was cut off. Three days later he was moved by the police and has not been seen again.

No return

On the same day, Anvar Todjihanov,a father of four, was taken from hospital. His wife declined to be interviewed but told friends how her husband, 36, who was shot in the back on Bobur Square, had lost 10kg (22lb) in weight and is “on the borders of death” in jail. Plain-clothed security men, who last searched her flat 15 days ago, have told her to get a job as Mr Todjihanov won’t be returning.

The authorities’ reputation has heightened the anguish. The US state department says Uzbek police use “torture as a routine investigation technique”. Methods include crushing limbs, electric shocks, raping relatives before the accused, sexual abuse with a broken bottle, and in one case the boiling to death of a suspect. Others have been arrested by the National Security Service, as “hostages” to persuade relatives to give themselves up. Shurat Nuridinov, 24 and a student, was jailed for terrorism on May 26. His father Avas said the case was probably aimed at forcing his relative, one of the businessmen, Burkhoni Nuridinov, to return to Uzbekistan. Burkhoni is one of 400 Uzbeks who fled to Europe and gained asylum.

A human rights activist, Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, who spoke out about the death toll, was arrested on the Uzbek border after taking a wounded protester to Kyrgyzstan. He has been charged with criminal defamation and distributing leaflets that threaten national security. “We don’t know where he’s being held,” said his son, Ilhom. “I doubt they’ll release him. His lawyer says he’s already confessed and asked for the president’s forgiveness.” Ilhom was beaten up days after meeting the Guardian, a human rights worker said.

The crackdown has continued across Uzbekistan, as Mr Karimov hurries to ensure that any repeat of Andijan will not be as well publicised. Two weeks after the massacre, in the town of Jizzakh, a human rights worker was attacked at home by 70 people who gave him 24 hours to leave town. “They were all state employees,” Bakhtiyor Khamraev said. “They hit me over the head with a stick. For 50 minutes they screamed: ‘You are an American spy, a terrorist. You have sold yourself.'”

The next day they came back, but Mr Khamraev was with a US researcher from Human Rights Watch. The threat of publicity caused the crowd to flee, he said. Since then telephone calls have threatened his family, warning: “We will kill you. No foreigner can help you.”

Amnesty International have issued an alert for Student Marsel Isaev who was forcibly returned to Uzbekistan on 12 October, from Tatarstan, in the Russian Federation. He has not been seen or heard from since he was put on the plane, and the authorities in Uzbekistan have refused to confirm or deny that he is in custody. He is thought to be held incommunicado in a detention centre in the capital, Tashkent, and he is at grave risk of torture.

AI Index: EUR 62/029/2005

If you wish to help with the appeal please contact your local AI office.

PRESS-RELEASE from Sunshine Uzbekistan Coalition

October 23, 2005 (13:55 Tashkent time)

Sanjar Umarov gone missing in Tashkent

Yesterday, October 22 a massive attack by General-Prosecutor’s Office was unleashed on members of Sunshine Coalition.

As the result 5 people were detained by the General-Prosecutor’s Office, including the Coordinator of Sunshine Uzbekistan, Ms. Nadira Khidoyatova.

That same day, since 10pm October 22nd, Chairman of Sunshine Coalition Sanjar Umarov has gone missing. Although unconfirmed reports have pointed that he is being detained in the General Prosecutor’s Office in Tashkent, officials from General-Prosecutor’s office have told that he is held in Tashkent City Police Department. Search is continuing.

This attack by Uzbekistan’s authorities came right after Sanjar Umarov wrote a letter of compassion to Russian Foreign Minister during his visit to Tashkent.

Update Pravada has published an article today which says that the government has arrested Sanjar Umarov on embezzlement charges.

By Craig Murray writing in the Guardian

The government’s anti-terror measures have already attracted accusations that they propose a form of internment without trial, deportation to countries that use torture, and a vague new crime of “glorifying” terrorism. But they also reveal a disturbing willingness to make use of intelligence material that is simply false.

The bill being rushed through parliament includes the proscription of 15 “terrorist” organisations. One of them is the Islamic Jihad Union. This is claimed to operate in the dictatorial central Asian state of Uzbekistan, until recently a key US ally in the “war on terrorism”. But the statement made last week by Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister, included one seriously misleading explanation as to why this group was being banned, and she relayed one straightforward falsehood.

“I have been assured,” she told MPs, “that the group would cause a threat to British interests overseas … The intelligence on which the home secretary reached his decision was from our own sources, so I hope that that reassures members that the matter has been scrutinised properly.”

“There was an explosion in Uzbekistan that killed nine people who were involved in the construction of portable improvised explosive devices”, she elaborated. “Over the following three days, there was a series of shoot-outs and suicide bombings that were carried out in Tashkent, Bokhara and Uzbekistan, leaving about 25 dead and 35 wounded.”

Ms Blears was trotting out the Uzbek government version of events in March 2004. But this string of alleged suicide bombings does not appear to have been anything of the kind. As Britain’s ambassador, I visited the site of each of the bombings within a few hours – or, in one case, minutes – of the alleged explosion.

The physical evidence on the ground did not coincide with the official explanation. For example, each suicide bomber was alleged to be using explosives equivalent to 2kg of TNT. But nowhere, not even at the site of an alleged car bomb, was there a crater, or even a crack in a paving stone. In one small triangular courtyard area a bomb had allegedly killed six policemen. But windows on all sides, at between 10 and 30 metres from the alleged blast, were not damaged; nor was a tree in the middle of the yard. The body of one of the alleged suicide bombers was unmarked, save for a small burn about the size of a walnut on her stomach.

A full account of my investigations of these bombings is to appear in my forthcoming book: one reason, perhaps, why the Foreign Office will seek to block its publication. There is no more reason to believe this version of events in March 2004 than to believe the Uzbek government’s version of the Andijan massacre in May this year. What is more, as ambassador I sent back the details of my investigation to London, and the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre (Jtac) agreed with my view that there were serious flaws in the Uzbek government account – agreeing with my view that the US was wrong to accept it. I concluded then, and still believe now, that these events were a series of extrajudicial killings covered by a highly controlled and limited agent-provocateur operation.

Why then is this Uzbek government propaganda now being uncritically relayed to the Commons by Hazel Blears? The false information she relayed to MPs is the assurance that the intelligence on the IJU is from our own sources. There was no intelligence material from UK sources on the above events. The UK has no intelligence assets in central Asia. We are dependent on information given to us by the United States’ CIA and NSA. There was information from the NSA. We had NSA communications intercepts of senior al-Qaida figures asking each other if anyone knew what was happening in Tashkent (no one did). Despite the only intelligence we had indicating plainly that al-Qaida was not involved, Colin Powell immediately went on the record in Washington to support the US’s ally, stating specifically that Uzbekistan was under attack from Islamist militant forces linked to al-Qaida. Almost certainly MI6 and MI5 happily accept this nonsense, as it suits their own agenda. But if they pretend that they have independent information, that is a lie.

I am greatly concerned that ministers are prepared to push a security service agenda so uncritically. I am sad but far from astonished that they are so seemingly cavalier with assurances to troubled MPs. There was little time for debate and no opportunity to vote individually on which organisations should be banned.

I am not, in a practical sense, concerned by the proscription of the Islamic Jihad Union. The evidence that this organisation exists at all is extremely tenuous, and if it does it is almost certainly the fruit of an Uzbek agent-provocateur operation. But I am greatly concerned by the glib repetition of propaganda by British ministers. It was the manipulation of dud intelligence for political purposes that led us into Iraq. And was that not a factor in the present wave of terrorism that we face in London?

‘ Craig Murray was the British ambassador to Uzbekistan between 2002 and 2004

from BBC Online

An Uzbek woman says she saw government troops open fire on unarmed civilians during protests in Andijan in May.

Her testimony, at the trial of 15 men alleged to have led the revolt, contradicts government accounts of what happened during the unrest.

The Uzbek government says nearly 200 people, mostly “terrorist organisers”, died when security forces put down an armed Islamic uprising.

Human rights groups say 500 or more civilians may have been killed.

Makhbuba Zakirova told the court that she saw soldiers shooting at people waving a white flag.

“Even Hitler did not do such things,” she said.

Mrs Zakirova said that after speaking out in court, she feared for her life and freedom.

Correspondents say her statement undermines three weeks of testimony in what many foreign observers had dismissed as a show trial.

All 15 accused men have pleaded guilty to charges that they were trying to overthrow the Uzbek government and set up an Islamic state, and they have all given long and detailed testimonies.

‘Telling the truth’

Mrs Zakirova, 33, said she mingled with anti-government protesters in the city square while walking with her children.

She said she stayed out of curiosity when she heard Uzbek President Islam Karimov was supposed to talk with the protesters.

“There were people in helmets everywhere. I twice saw soldiers shooting from military vehicles. The shooting was intense,” she said, the Reuters news agency reported.

Mrs Zakirova was interrupted by the prosecutor, who asked: “Do you realise what you are saying? Are you sure?”

She replied: “Are you going to arrest me now? I was telling only the truth, and you yourself asked me to give a truthful testimony… I am only saying what I saw.”

Earlier this week, the Uzbek authorities denied reports that illegal methods may have been used to force confessions from the 15 men on trial.

A former Uzbek interior ministry employee told the BBC that beatings or psychotropic drugs were often used to force confessions.

Professor Colin Bundy, head of SOAS, is extremely keen to defend Shirin Akiner, Karimov’s Western cheerleader and a SOAS lecturer. But it seems that his defence of academic freedom only applies to those on one side of the argument. Akiner is perfectly at liberty to defend Karimov’s right to massacre the opposition, but Bundy just three months ago censured an Islamic student who argued that the Palestinians have the right to use force to resist occupation. You don’t have to agree with the student’s view to find Bundy’s different approach to the two cases interesting. The following report is from the Islamic Human Rights Commission.

ACTION ALERT: IHRC demand end to SOAS student witch hunt

SOAS masters student Nasser Amin wrote an article in his university paper defending the right of Palestinians to resist occupation by violence. After the publication of the article Amin became the focus of a bitter witch hunt which resulted in him being reprimanded by SOAS University. The reprimand was published on the university?s official website without even informing Amin.

His article ?when only violence will do? was written in response to one published by Hamza Yusuf which said, in effect that Muslims in Palestine should ?turn the other cheek? when facing Israeli violent antagonism.

The Article was not extreme nor even unusual, and similar arguments have been used and promoted in academia e.g. by Professor Michael Neuman. The article was set in a context of open debate about the moral rights and wrongs of Palestinian resistance, and SOAS?s response is at best bizarre.

Amin has received death threats on Zionist websites, and calls have been made in parliament for action to be taken against him. This is not only unacceptable but has been fuelled by SOAS?s failure to defend academic freedom and moral discussion.

The incident is also being used by pro Israeli groups to justify a need for incitement to religious hatred legislation, clearly showing how this law, if passed, will be used against those criticizing the aggressive actions of the State of Israel.

Instead of defending Amin from this witch hunt SOAS announced they had issued him a public reprimand. They did not follow correct procedure or allow him an opportunity to defend himself; in fact, they did not even bother to contact him.

This is yet another example of Zionists bullying anyone who speaks out against Israeli oppression and institutions buckling for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic

Any suggestions as to the explanation of Bundy’s contradictory attitude in the Amin and Akiner cases would be interesting to hear.

Craig

From AKIpress

Internews Network has lost its bid to continue working in Uzbekistan, the Central Asian nation where it has operated for ten years to support independent media. After ten minutes of deliberation, the Tashkent City Court on Tuesday denied Internews Network’s appeal of a court order last month to shut down the US-based organization’s Uzbekistan office.

‘We expected our appeal to be denied because it’s been obvious from the start that the authorities want to boot us out for political reasons,’ said Catherine Eldridge, Internews’ Country Director for Uzbekistan. ‘But we’re still very disappointed. We’ve put up a good fight and we’ll continue to fight this decision through the courts, starting with an appeal to the review board of the Tashkent City Court. But it looks like we really have to go.’

The US-based non-profit media organization began operations in Uzbekistan in 1995 where it has helped develop the country’s independent, private television stations through trainings, technical assistance and support of local news and information programming.

According to Uzbek legislation, Internews is now obliged to close its office in Tashkent and cease all operations in Uzbekistan. However, all its activities were effectively suspended more than a year ago when the Central Bank froze its bank accounts without warning or explanation.

Last month the Tashkent City Court found Internews Network guilty of a number of ‘gross violations’ of Uzbek law and told it to close. In August, two Internews employees were convicted of conspiring to publish information and produce TV programs without the necessary licenses. The liquidation order was based on these convictions as well as a number of other violations.

These included: using the Internews logo without registering it first with the Ministry of Justice, referring to itself as ‘Internews Uzbekistan’ instead of ‘Internews Network Representative Office in Uzbekistan’, “monopolizing the media,” and carrying out activities without getting prior permission from the Ministry of Justice. Such permission is actually not required according to the Bilateral Agreement Regarding the Cooperation to Facilitate the Provision of Assistance between Uzbekistan and USA under which all American NGOs work in Uzbekistan,

Internews projects in Uzbekistan have been supported by the US Agency for International Development and EuropeAid (the international aid branches of the US and EU, respectively) and the US State Department.

In the last 18 months, there has been a crackdown on foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs), especially those supporting the development of democracy. In September another foreign NGO, IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board) was suspended for six months for allegedly conducting activities not in line with its charter and not registering its logo with the Ministry of Justice. Many believe that the Uzbek authorities fear a repeat of the popular uprisings that brought down the governments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

In May, relations between Western governments and the authoritarian regime of President Islam Karimov worsened after Uzbek forces brutally quashed a popular uprising in the city of Andijan, killing hundreds of mostly unarmed protesters. In July, Uzbekistan gave the US military six months to leave its base at Karshi-Khanobad.

Yet another of the very brave Uzbeks with whom I worked has just been taken in by the Uzbek authorities. She was arrested in the middle of the night by over thirty armed members of the security services, many dressed in full combat gear and with their features obscured by balaclavas. Urgent action is needed to save Mutabar.

I have just sent the following letter to my MP:

Craig J Murray

Please contact your MP similarly ‘ in the UK you can use the ‘Fax your MP’ link on the home page of this website. If you are reading from abroad (and so far this website has been visited from 98 different countries) please contact your own authorities.

Below we post the recent exchange of e-mails between Craig Murray and Professor Bundy of SOAS. Two names have been removed for reasons of confidentiality.

To: Colin Bundy

From: Craig Murray

Professor Bundy,

Thank you for your email. In addition to the email which I forwarded to you from Mr xxxxx of xxx, here is an email from xxxxx. I repeat to you, that I don’t think you realise the damage being done to the reputation of your institution.

You might care to let the Chairman of your ethics committee know that you have seen evidence that two independent and highly respected sources in the field also view Ms Akiner as dishonest (It is interesting to me that Mr xxxxx and Mr xxxxx both independently chose that word to describe her). If this really does worry you as little as your response would indicate, you are an arrogant man.

I am sorry, but I don’t understand your request for substantiation. I don’t think any of the facts in my letter to you are in dispute. If you think they are, please clarify which and I will endeavour to substantiate them.

I am pleased that I made my letter public, because had I depended upon sensible investigation by you, plainly I would have been disappointed. Your letter to me, and this reply bar names of third parties, will also be published.

Craig

——————————————————————-

From: Colin Bundy

Sent: 06 October 2005 09:18

To: Craig Murray

Subject: Your e-mail to me

Dear Mr Murray,

I have given careful further consideration to your e-mail to me, and your request that it be placed before the School’s Ethics Committee. Your e-mail makes a series of allegations but none of them is substantiated. If you could supply proof for such allegations this would indeed be an issue that would require assessment by the Ethics Committee; but I do not believe that the Committee can proceed on the basis of unproven assertions. I am copying this to the Chair of the Ethics Committee.

I might add that I was a little surprised to discover that what I had taken to be a private communication to me had also been placed in the public domain, by its appearance on your website.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Bundy

To place these communications in context you may wish see the initial email to Prof Bundy and further comments and analysis

From the Washington Post

ALMOST FIVE months after Uzbekistan’s president, Islam Karimov, ordered his security forces to massacre hundreds of mostly unarmed demonstrators in the city of Andijan, European governments are finally taking steps to punish his regime. On Monday in Brussels, foreign ministers of the European Union agreed on an arms embargo against Uzbekistan as well as visa restrictions for government officials complicit with the slaughter. That was an important and necessary step, especially given Mr. Karimov’s defiance of Western calls for an international investigation and the campaign of repression he now wages against survivors of the massacre. It raises the question of why the Western government that claims to be at the forefront of promoting freedom in the Muslim world — the Bush administration — has not taken similar action.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the United States cultivated Mr. Karimov despite mounting evidence that he was one of Asia’s most brutal rulers. The reason was simple: The Pentagon coveted the Karshi-Khanabad airbase, which Mr. Karimov provided as a staging point for U.S. air and rescue operations in Afghanistan. Under pressure from Congress, the State Department finally suspended several aid programs to Uzbekistan last year. But the action was publicly disavowed by the Defense Department, which quickly supplied Mr. Karimov with alternative funding. After Andijan, the State Department joined in denouncing the violence and helped to organize the evacuation of several hundred refugees from neighboring Kyrgyzstan to asylum in Europe. The security relationship, however, remained intact until the aggrieved dictator himself ended the base deal in July.

Mr. Karimov didn’t stop there. His thugs have beaten some of Andijan’s survivors into confessing that the prison break and anti-government demonstration that preceded the massacre were funded by the U.S. embassy, which supposedly gave its support to an Islamic terrorist group linked to al Qaeda. This allegation would be merely ludicrous if not for the fact that American soldiers have fought and died in neighboring Afghanistan while combating that very extremist movement. As it is, it is a gross insult by a ruler who has benefited extraordinarily from the U.S. intervention.

Far smaller offenses have caused the Bush administration to downgrade cooperation with democratic countries in Europe and Latin America. Yet there seems to be abundant patience for Mr. Karimov. Last week he was visited by a delegation of senior officials, who offered him another chance to rescue relations with Washington. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is insisting on paying $23 million for what it says are services rendered by Uzbekistan at Karshi-Khanabad. It’s hard to believe the payment would be made if the Pentagon did not hope to mend its relationship with the tyrant.

A better approach would be that adopted by the Senate this week, in an amendment to the defense authorization bill: suspend the payment for a year, while waiting to see whether Uzbekistan will demonstrate a willingness to cooperate with the United States. A renewed partnership, the official delegation told Mr. Karimov, must include political liberalization and an end to the malicious propaganda. In the very likely event that neither of those conditions are met, the Bush administration should join European states in siding against a dictator who deserves no more chances.

By Bronwen Maddox writing in the Times Online

IT’S called sending a message. It may not do much, but at least it’s been sent. Yesterday the US Senate voted to block a payment of $23 million (’13 million) to Uzbekistan, for the use of an airbase that the US has now been told to leave.

On Monday the European Union slapped sanctions on the country for refusing to allow an international investigation into the Government’s crackdown on a protest in May, said to have killed hundreds of unarmed people. Next week Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, will visit most of Uzbekistan’s neighbours ‘ but not Uzbekistan itself ‘ to drive home US disapproval.

At last, you might say. Five months after President Karimov’s bloody repression of the uprising in the northeastern city of Andijon, the West has decided to do something.

Its initial hesitation was not surprising although not inspiring. Uzbekistan is perhaps the nastiest regime to which the US turned for help after September 11, 2001. Karimov lent a big airbase to the US for use in the Afghan war, and kept access open after the war ended.

But the brutality of Karimov’s rule exposed the US from the start to charges of hypocrisy in its foreign policy: that it was fighting to establish democracy and freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq, while tolerating an ugly despotism in Uzbekistan.

For four years the US has publicly accepted Karimov’s claim that he was doing no more than fighting Islamic fundamentalism (the same justification President Putin of Russia gives for the suppression of Chechnya).

It pointed to Uzbekistan’s membership of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and its co-operation agreements with Nato and the EU.

But once the heat of the Afghan war subsided, senior US officials were prepared to say privately that putting up with Karimov was unpleasant.

On the British side, the discomfort came to a head earlier with the charges by Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Tashkent. He was recalled last year after he accused Britain and the US of condoning torture in Uzbek prisons.

It was the May uprising which forced the US and the EU to harden their positions. Karimov claimed that 187 people were killed, and that most were Islamic terrorists. Witnesses said that about 700 people were killed, mostly unarmed civilians. Karimov has refused all international requests for outside investigation.

On the contrary, he told the US to leave the airbase, and began courting Russia and China.

Will this week’s measures have much effect? No: they are symbolic. The loss of $23 million from the US ‘ fees for the past two years’ use of the base ‘ is not crippling, although it is designed as an insult and will no doubt be taken that way.

‘Paying our bills is important, but more important is America standing up for itself, avoiding the misimpression that we overlook massacres and avoiding cash transfers to the treasury of a dictator just months after he permanently evicts American soldiers from his country’, the Republican senator John McCain said.

On the European side, the one-year sanctions barring arms sales will make little difference, as Uzbekistan has easy access to Russian equipment. The ban on travel of Uzbek officials may sting more.

It is hard to pretend that either the US or European measures will have much practical impact. However, they do send a clear signal, after four years of careful ambiguity.

That is worth doing. As the past few months of hesitation and indecision have shown, it is easily not done.

From BBC Online

An Uzbek imam has died in prison as a result of torture, his relatives and a rights activist claim. Shavkat Madumarov was serving seven years in jail for alleged ties with Wahhabis, strict Muslims who shun state-controlled mosques.

The Uzbek authorities have said that Madumarov died last month from an HIV infection and anaemia. His family say they were not allowed to see his body.

The UN has described the use of torture in Uzbek jails as “systematic”. Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, made similar claims, publicising the case of an Uzbek prisoner whom a British pathologist concluded had died from being immersed in boiling liquid.

Rights activist Surat Ikramov told the BBC Uzbek service that Madumarov’s family saw the imam three days before his death, at the final session of his trial. They said he was unable to stand and was brought in on a stretcher.

He complained to the judge that he had been given lots of injections, and that he did not know why, but the judge did not listen, Mr Ikramov said.

His relatives deny that he was HIV-positive, and say he was in good health before his detention in February.

Other cases

The case comes in the wake of several arrests of activists in Uzbekistan.

There are concerns about a human rights worker who is being confined in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Tashkent, and three students from the capital who disappeared two weeks ago after mounting a brief protest outside the American embassy calling for political reforms.

BBC Central Asia correspondent Ian MacWilliam says there has been a wave of arrests of government critics in Uzbekistan since an outbreak of violence in the town of Andijan four months ago.

Witnesses say Uzbek troops opened fire on a popular protest, killing hundreds of civilians.

The Uzbek government says 187 people died, in what it called an uprising to create an Islamic state.

On May 13 over 700 demonstrators for democracy in the town of Andizhan were massacred by President Karimov’s vicious Uzbek regime. Jack Straw had continually hailed Karimov as a valuable ‘Ally’ in the War on Terror. Yesterday the EU finally imposed sanctions on Uzbekistan over the Andizhan massacre. Better late than never.

The symbolism of the measure is probably more important than the practical effect. For historic reasons Uzbekistan’s armed forces are largely equipped with Russian weapons, and Russia will keep supplying ‘ on which more below. But Tashkent was indeed very keen on using Western technology to boost its military capacity. It was receiving this, gratis, from the USA. In 2002 alone the US gave Karimov $120 million in military assistance, and $82 million in security service assistance. That aid will probably now stop, but it is essential that the US follows the EU in embargoing the technology.

The restrictions for visas on officials involved in the Andizhan massacre is of great symbolic importance in confirming Uzbekistan’s status as a pariah state, but the EU appears to have dodged the big question ‘ do these apply to Karimov himself?

They certainly should. Two days before the massacre, Uzbek state propaganda announced that Karimov had personally travelled to Andizhan to take charge of the negotiations with the protestors, who had been massing in the square for a fortnight in ever increasing numbers. I doubt he was in truth genuinely there ‘ personal courage is not his hallmark ‘ but in Uzbekistan’s totalitarian system there is no doubt he was in charge. The decision to open fire on the crowd could not have been taken without reference to him.

Even if you accept the possibility that shooting started spontaneously, it is inconceivable that Karimov was not consulted by the next day. That morning soldiers went through the square shooting the wounded ‘ scores of whom had lain without help all night – in the head.

If the travel ban does not include Karimov and his rapacious daughters, it will be meaningless.

Russia and China are eager to fill the vacuum of US withdrawal. Russian foreign minister Lavarov has already announced they will continue to supply arms to Uzbekistan. Russia immediately reacted to Andizhan with full support for Karimov and ludicrous claims of Chechen involvement. Putin is yet again displaying his antipathy to democracy throughout the former Soviet Union ‘ and that includes Russia. Under Putin more than 100 independent journalists have been murdered, independent television has been quashed and any oligarch suspected of nurturing democratic views has been persecuted.

The UK is tomorrow conducting EU talks with Putin, and it is time we stopped pretending the man is a democrat. His murderous policy in Chechnya is as misguided an attempt to fight terrorism as Bush’s invasion of Iraq ‘ and in neither case is terrorism the real motive.

The trial continues in Uzbekistan of the 15 people accused of fomenting the uprising in Andizhan. Like all of Stalin’s show trials, they have conveniently pleaded guilty. In Karimov’s torture chambers, everyone confesses. The show is being conducted for the benefit of the domestic audience. I am not making up what follows ‘ it is the Uzbek government case, presented at the trial.

The prosecution claims that the rebels consisted of the Islamic militant group Hizb-ut-Tehrir, supported by the Taliban, and by Chechen rebels. Finance was provided by the US Embassy in Tashkent, and both CNN and the BBC were involved in the plot from the outset, conspiring to present the rebels as peaceful protestors who wanted democracy.

Obvious, isn’t it? The US were secretly on the Taliban side all along, and CNN are well known for their Chechen links, while the whole thing was masterminded from the BBC by the Teletubbies.

If it were not so serious ‘ and fifteen democrats face the death penalty ‘ it would be laughable. But what should seriously worry us is that the Russians purport to believe this rubbish too. Will Blair have the guts to confront Putin with this nonsense? Of course not.

The absurd love affair between the UK and Karimov is thankfully over. We kissed him, and he’s still a frog. The intelligence co-operation with his obnoxious torturers, which I complained so strongly against, is now finished ‘ by the Uzbeks. They have served notice to quit on the US base. The frog jilted us.

It was blindingly, staringly obvious three years ago that Karimov would never reform. His obnoxious regime is based on slave workers bonded to state farms and state mines. Our government insisted, against all the evidence, that he was moving towards democracy and capitalism. In my last meeting with an FCO minister, in May 2004, I was carpeted for not welcoming the reforms of our ally. The reforms existed only in Karimov’s propaganda and in the incredibly thick heads of New Labour ministers. The next month I wrote a strong telegram to Jack Straw saying we should no longer accept duff Uzbek intelligence, obtained by torture. I was removed as Ambassador because it was impossible for me to maintain friendly working relationships with the Karimov regime.

In truth, it was wrong to try. Finally, I think they see that. It is of no comfort to say ‘I told you so’ when your career is ruined.

Another question gives me still less comfort. The demonstrations in Andizhan had been building for weeks before the massacre. State propaganda had, two days before, announced that President Karimov had gone there in person to take charge of the emergency. Why was the British Embassy not there watching? I have no doubt, and nobody who knew me in Uzbekistan could doubt, that had I still been Ambassador I would have been in that square. I had previously overturned official barriers and driven through the guns to get to an opposition meeting in that Valley.

It was, of course, this penchant for actually doing things that made the FCO want rid of me. Much better for Jack Straw’s FCO to refuse to enter New Orleans to help British nationals until all the right forms have been signed. They left stranded Brits in the Superdome without help for four days. The FCO had told grieving tsunami relatives that if they couldn’t afford to ship the body home, better a quick local cremation. Overturning official roadblocks to help democrats fight dictatorship? Not on the agenda, old boy.

Could a Western Ambassador in the square have stopped the massacre? I don’t know, but it haunts me every time I think of the dead men, women and children of Andizhan.

Craig Murray

From WebIndia123.com

A woman arrested in Uzbekistan for distributing an anti-corruption cartoon says authorities want her to say she is mentally ill.

The BBC reports that Yelena Urlayeva is being held in Republican Psychiatric Hospital No. 2, a prison-like Stalinist relic outside Tashkent. A reporter was able to talk to her briefly through a barred window and she said she had been beaten in an effort to get her to admit illness, the news agency said.

Growing dissent in Uzbekistan has led to a wave of arrests. Urlayeva was picked up in August while she was handing out copies of a cartoon that depicted the country as a cow with bureaucrats sucking its milk.

She was examined immediately afterwards by a psychiatrist who declared that she was not mentally ill.

My letter to SOAS about Shirin Akiner has generated a good deal of heat across the blogs, with a few colleagues rushing to her defence. What follows is a previous deconstruction of her Andijan report I have lifted from Registan

“1. Agree with Nathan and David that there’s a lot to take issue with here, and that anyone with any Central Asian knowledge and/or critical thinking skills who has the patience to read Akiner’s entire report could pick it apart logically and factually if s/he wanted to dedicate the time.

One thing that is immediately clear to any reader is that Akiner had a very busy day. In fact, on closer inspection of the report, she had a nearly impossibly busy day. In any event, looking closer at how she spent her time can give readers an idea of how careful her research was likely to have been.

She says she was there for 12 hours (this was almost two weeks after the end of the events, by the way) and interviewed 40 people. That’s an average of 18 minutes per interviewee without even factoring out travel time in the city, meals, waiting for interviewees to show up. She says she also ‘walked around the city’, inspected the jail and the school, and paced out the entire square in front of the Hokimiyat in order to get a rough measurement ‘ this would have all taken time too. Akiner, however, claims to spend 20 ‘ 45 minutes with each witness ‘ a mathematical impossibility.

She notes that she spoke with a classroom of about 15 madrassah students ‘ and while it is somewhat disingenuous to pad the number of ‘witnesses’ you had by counting all the participants of a class discussion, assuming that she included these 15 as witnesses make her account of her day a little more palpable, though still unlikely. Without the 15 madrassah students from the class discussion, it is actually 25 witnesses, that gives an average of about 28 minutes per interview (again, if Akiner spent every second interviewing people, which she clearly did not).

Akiner indicates that she spoke with 12 categories of witness (Akiner calls anyone she talked to a ‘witness’) besides madrassah students: madrassah teachers, imams, mahalla committee members, cemetery keepers/ gravediggers, doctors, prisoners, prison staff, bazaar traders, government officials, law enforcement officers, independent human rights activists, one hostage. So her remaining 25 interviewees were presumably divided among these categories (mostly official appointees or state employees with something to lose’notice the absence of anyone who was actually in the square, except for the hostage and perhaps law enforcement officials).

It also appears that at least several of these remaining witnesses were mahalla leaders, as Akiner relies on them for death estimates, citing a range of 3-10 deaths per mahalla (one would hope that she didn’t just ask two mahalla leaders to get this range) this eats into the remaining 25 witnesses with people whose testimony, as just neighborhood leaders, would not be particularly useful.

So really we’re talking about 20-odd interviews that probably lasted 15-20 minutes each after factoring in all of Akiner’s class discussions, inspecting of buildings, measuring public squares and walking around town. This is still an extremely tight interview schedule, which implies that someone was bending over backwards to get her all this face time (and presumably, most interviewees would be going through those who organized the interview and, thus, could be briefed or intimidated beforehand). Additionally, most of these interviews were of people who were either direct state appointees or de facto appointees (mahalla heads and official imams) who have to more or less tow the official line.

So the real question is how did this report get so much attention? For God sakes, an entire lecture tour?!! Akiner herself even admits she is not writing as an academic, but as a layperson.

Oh, and Starr’s assertion in the introduction that HRW was hiding dead bodies in Tashkent is just plain ridiculous. It’s a shame that someone so detatched from reality is allowed to continue to teach. He should be sued for libel.

2. Comment by brian

9/19/2005 @ 10:57 pm

Great deconstruction of events in the report Matt. And as far as having offical/well-connected help to arrange the interviews, I agree something’s amiss. Something I’ve commented on a couple times before is her interview for Uzbek TV, but read the paragraph where she discusses this:

‘My companions on the journey to Andijan were themselves surprised by how greatly the situation there seemed to differ from what they had learnt through the press (these were mainly individuals who had access to foreign media reports). One of them suggested that I give a television interview about my impressions. I thought about this for a while and then agreed to do it, since I strongly believe that important issues such as these need to be debated in an independent, open manner.’

My questions are: Who were her companions? Considering they were ‘mainly individuals with access to foreign media reports’ and were quick to suggest discussing it on Uzbek TV, this makes me suspect that they were Uzbek nationals and perhaps connected to the government or national media. This goes back to what Matt suggested.

Then the obvious question is why would she think interviewing on Uzbek TV would be discussing it in an ‘indpendent, open manner’?

3. Comment by squid123

9/20/2005 @ 12:27 am

Matt W., impressive deconstruction. But an even more damning criticism of her methodology is that she admittedly did her interviews while walking around with government minders. I quote:

‘We stopped where I wanted to stop, talked to whom I wanted to. I asked Uzbek friends to help me. They were present, but not on top of me.’ She added that she felt she had some leeway because she was considered a ‘sympathetic outsider.’ She admitted that she had government cooperation, but distinguished that from sponsorship’

OK, so this lady is walking around with ‘Uzbek friends’ asking strangers, many of whom have had relatives killed or injured, about what happened. Has anyone ever conducted an interview? In Uzbekistan? OK, I’ll tell you. You can’t just walk up to people on the street and expect them to tell you the truth. Much less with a group of (possibly) government goons (or that people would preceive as such). Much less when people are paranoid because their friends were shot and made to disappear last week!!!

Plus, and kudos to Matt for pointing this out, she relies on mahalla leaders for her statistics. Not only unverified, like HRW eyewitness reports, but as government employees, they are the absolute worst type of source imaginable to get accurate information. Those are the people to ask if you want to hear government propaganda’or maybe that IS what she wanted? Plus, she uncritically accepts the government’s explanation of who the insurgents were and their motives.

In short, a farce’a specious piece of spin that the Uzbek government would have paid a lot of money for if it had hired a PR firm.

Peace

4. Comment by David

9/20/2005 @ 3:35 am

Wonderful mathematics, and that’s without even taking into account the key to interviewing in Uzbekistan: the plov factor. Nobody who doesn’t know you is really going to tell you anything close to the truth unless you’ve eaten plov with them, so for proper research you have to factor in large amounts of time eating and admiring your host’s rice and meat dishes. When I was young and naive i also thought I could do 8 interviews in a day in the Fergana valley. If I got two that was a good result, and that presumes that you’re with the non-drinking variety of plov eater.

On Akiner’s friends: she says she went to Andijan with Ravshan Alimov. He is a nice guy and has a reputation as relatively independent. But he’s still a government official. He used to be head of the Institute for Strategic Studies, the govt ‘think’tank, and a member of the security council. But last I heard he was apparently lecturing at the SNB academy. So you turn up with a Tashkent official with SNB connections, and expect people to talk freely with you? Its just not serious.”

In fact we now know she was also accompanied by the regional governor ‘ the hokkim of Andijan. Nowhere has anybody taken issue with my assertion that it is ludicrous to conduct interviews about an alleged government massacre, in a situation where local people are obviously going to be traumatised, accompanied by government heavies.

Craig Murray

From The Telegraph

It has taken the European Union four and a half months to decide on sanctions against Uzbekistan for the Andijan massacre. These are due to be approved by foreign ministers of the 25 member states in Brussels on Monday. They are expected to ban exports of arms, military equipment and material that could be used for internal repression. Other measures include refusing visas to those thought to have been involved in the massacre, and cuts in aid disbursed under a 1996 partnership and co-operation agreement.

The EU argues that it had to wait for the report of its special representative, the Slovak diplomat Jan Kubis, before taking action. In so doing, it ignored its own deadline, of June 30, for Uzbek compliance with a demand that the May 13 massacre, in which hundreds of people were killed, be subject to an international inquiry. To add insult to injury, it did not even bother to place Andijan on the agenda of this month’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Newport.

Mr Kubis, who visited Tashkent and Andijan three weeks ago, has duly relayed President Islam Karimov’s refusal to accede to EU demands. Instead, the government has put on trial 15 defendants charged with what it terms an uprising by Islamic extremists. Investigations by human rights organisations have, by contrast, found that the authorities applied excessive lethal force to a largely peaceful protest against poverty and repression.

The EU has the chance to compensate for procrastination at its summit with Vladimir Putin in London next Tuesday. The Russian president has moved swiftly to strengthen relations with Mr Karimov following the latter’s decision to withdraw basing rights from the Americans at Karshi-Khanabad; enhancing Russian influence in the “near abroad” tops the Kremlin’s foreign policy agenda. EU leaders should tell Mr Putin that support for the Uzbek tyrant threatens stability in a region of mutual strategic concern, and can only damage Moscow’s relations with the West. The question is: will they have the guts to do so? Dilatoriness over the Andijan massacre does not encourage optimism.

Dear Professor Bundy,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you about the activities of Shirin Akiner in acting as a propagandist for the Karimov regime of Uzbekistan. I am very reluctant to do so because I am a passionate believer in academic freedom and the right to express even the most unorthodox of views. However I feel that in her activities in attempting to justify the Andizhan massacre, Ms Akiner has entered the realm of deliberate dishonesty, and demonstrably departed from standards of academic method in a way that SOAS cannot ignore.

Ms Akiner has lied about the origin of her visit to Andizhan as a guest of the Uzbek government. She claims she was in Tashkent anyway, and accepted an unexpected invitation issued on the spot. In fact the Uzbek Ambassador to London, Mr Riskiev, had told a British businessman in London many days before this that the Uzbek government was countering the possible imposition of sanctions by sending Shirin Akiner to produce a report to give credibility to the Uzbek government’s version of the massacre. The businessman immediately told me, so I knew of her visit to Andizhan before Akiner alleges that she did.

On the question of academic method, Akiner operated under the direct supervision of Uzbek government officials. She only spoke to alleged witnesses in the presence of government officials, and indeed I believe it was almost always the regional governor himself, the Hokkim of Andizhan, who was with her. The idea that in a totalitarian state evidence of an alleged government atrocity can be gained by allowing the government to produce the witnesses, and interviewing them in the presence of government officials, is ludicrous, as any decent academic would recognise. It seems to me that on this particular point there is evidence for SOAS to speak to Ms Akiner.

Her account of what happened agrees perfectly with the Uzbek government’s account, which is unsurprising in the circumstances. Her account contrasts sharply with the excellent report by Human Rights Watch, compiled after decent individual interviews with twenty times as many individuals as Akiner interviewed individually, and in the case of HRW, interviewed without the presence of government officials. Akiner’s account also differs from those of journalistic eyewitnesses, including that of Galima Burkabaeva, a reporter for CNN I have known well for three years who was present throughout the events in Andizhan. Galima is now a postgraduate student at Columbia University, and I discussed these matters with her last week.

Burkabaeva says that Akiner’s account is completely incompatible with the truth. In both Washington and New York I found that my audiences ‘ including Columbia University, the American Bar Association and the Brookings Institute ‘ were simply astonished at the propaganda tour of the United States Akiner recently undertook. With the exception of a tiny number of the most extreme neo-conservatives, everyone asked me ‘ literally scores of people ‘ why SOAS was working for the government of Uzbekistan. I do not believe you are aware of the damage Akiner is doing to the reputation of your institution.

Let me be quite plain. I am not seeking to stop Akiner supporting the Uzbek government. Her political views are her own business. I am accusing her of deliberate abandonment of academic method in her Andizhan investigation, in order to produce a desired propaganda result. I presume that she preaches the resulting falsehoods not only in the States, not only on Channel 4 News last night, but also to your students.

I should be most grateful if you would refer this email to the SOAS ethics committee.

One final question. In Uzbekistan everybody, no matter what subject they are studying and at what level, is required to study the works of President Karimov. This starts at elementary school and extends up to PhD. I met one brilliant mathematician who had just submitted their mathematics PhD, but was very worried about the compulsory examination where they had to reproduce and praise passages of Karimov’s books.

I was recently told that Akiner curried favour with Karimov some years ago by securing SOAS funds and other resources for translating Karimov’s execrable books into English. I should like to know if that is true.

Craig Murray

UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan 2002-4

‘ BBC named for ‘colluding’ with 15 Islamic militants

‘ Observers brand Tashkent proceedings as a sham

Nick Paton Walsh in The Guardian

Western aid groups and journalists, including the BBC, helped Islamists in a bid to overthrow the Uzbek government, prosecutors claimed yesterday at the start of a trial of 15 men accused of organising May’s uprising in Andijan.

The claim was part of an attempt to portray the massacre in the eastern town of Andijan, in which witnesses have said at least 500 protesters were gunned down by Uzbek troops on or after May 13 this year, as a foreign-assisted coup aimed at forming an Islamic caliphate.

The deputy prosecutor general, Anvar Nabiev, said the “foreign destructive forces” behind the uprising “used so-called human rights groups and foreign media whose aim was to blacken the actions of the Uzbek government and help destabilise society”. He said some aid groups were created “just to help” such Islamic extremists.

The team of four blue-uniformed prosecutors put their case for five hours before the defendants, all well-dressed and fed, rose inside a large metal cage, to declare their guilt, on all charges. Their defence lawyers remained silent. All 15 face the death penalty over dozens of charges including murder, trying to overthrow the constitutional order and attempting a coup. A further 106 men will be tried.

Islamic extremism and the foreign media are commonly cited by authoritarian regimes in central Asia. Yet Uzbek prosecutors made little mention of the armed jailbreak that may have killed up to 50 prison guards, and which sparked the protests, and the crackdown.

Mr Nabiev said the 15 were linked to the Akramiya group, an Islamic movement that encourages business success. The arrest and jailbreak of 23 of its members started the Andijan uprising. Mr Nabiev said Akramiya was linked to fundamentalists Hizb ut-Tahrir and to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which the US blacklisted for its links to al-Qaida. He said $200,000 (‘110,000) had been sent from Akramiya cells in the Russian towns of Omsk and Ivanovo to fund the operation. Hizb ut-Tahrir denies such links.

The prosecutors stopped short of accusing the foreign media of having co-planned the event, yet suggested they had been tipped off. They said several foreign journalists in Andijan on the day of the massacre were brought to the state building seized by the gunmen so they would report a peaceful uprising. A Human Rights Watch report released yesterday documented months of abuse against foreign media and rights workers who exposed the scale of the massacre.

Mr Nabiev singled out two BBC journalists: Jenny Norton, a World Service reporter, for saying the protests in Andijan were of “an unprecedented scale”; and a Russian Service correspondent, Valeri Pankrashin, for saying Akramiya members were businessmen, not extremists. A reporter for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Galina Bukharbayeva, was also frequently criticised for similar comments made on CNN and in her reports.

Mr Nabiev claimed the Uzbek president, Islam Karimov, had negotiated with the uprising’s organisers for 11 hours but that their leader, Kabul Parpiev, who remains at large, had refused their offer of safe passage after talking to his handlers in Afghanistan. When the troops neared the seized building, the gunmen began to flee, “standing behind hostages as human shields”, a prosecutor added.

“They killed hostages who resisted them,” he said. He read a list of victims, repeating the government line that civilians among the 187 dead were shot in the back by the militants. Witnesses have said troops shot randomly at protesters in the afternoon, and finished off wounded survivors with a shot to the head.

Craig Murray, ex-British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said: “This is a hideous show trial, more suited to Stalin’s Russia than a country today where the US and UK still have embassies. In a state where prisoners are routinely tortured, sometimes by immersion into boiling water, admissions of guilt are ten-a-penny.” Despite admissions of guilt, the supreme court trial is expected to last for weeks.

Murad Batior, an official held hostage by the gunmen, said outside court that he recognised two defendants: “The gunmen told me I worked for the state and would have to answer. They killed a policeman before my eyes, cutting his eyes out.”

From Jeremy Page writing in the Times Online

FIFTEEN men accused of organising an uprising in Uzbekistan go on trial today as human rights groups accuse the West of doing nothing to punish the Uzbek Government for the killings that followed.

The group is the first to be tried over the violence on May 13 in Andijan, which began with armed men taking over government buildings and ended with troops shooting anti-Government protesters.

President Karimov said that 187 people were killed, mostly Islamist terrorists. But witnesses said that more than 700 unarmed civilians were killed, and human rights activists draw parallels with the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in 1989.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issue reports today accusing the Uzbek Government of further abuses and calling for an arms embargo and sanctions. Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said: ‘The US and the European Union appear to have backed off entirely rather than implement a more robust strategy to hold the Uzbek Government accountable for the loss of life.’

Uzbekistan is a member of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and has co-operation agreements with Nato and the EU. It refuses to allow an international inquiry into the killings, but no sanctions have been imposed against it.

Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Tashkent, said: ‘It’s appalling that Western governments aren’t doing anything at all.’ He called for travel bans on senior officials, as with Zimbabwe and Belarus, and to consider sanctions on Uzbek cotton, a key source of the Government’s income. ‘I’d argue that Uzbekistan is worse than Zimbabwe or Belarus,’ he said. ‘The men going on trial will all be found guilty. They will all have confessed under torture.’

Mr Murray was recalled last year after he accused Britain and the US of condoning torture in Uzbek prisons. At the time, the US was accused of softening its criticism of Uzbekistan because it had been allowed to use an airbase for operations in neighbouring Afghanistan since 2001.

However, in July, President Karimov ‘ who has been in power since before the Soviet Union’s collapse ‘ asked the Americans to leave within six months after Washington joined calls for an inquiry into the Andijan killings.

The US had also backed a plan by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to relocate to Romania 439 refugees who fled Andjian to neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. Another 11 were flown to London last week and will move on to Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands.

Washington is thought to be coming up with a tougher policy towards Mr Karimov, who tolerates no political opposition and no observance of Islam beyond the state’s control.

However, Uzbekistan has realigned itself with Russia and China, which have backed it over the Andijan killings, partly to offset US influence in the region. Russian troops flew into Uzbekistan yesterday for joint anti-terrorist exercises based on a scenario similar to the protests in Andijan.

Last week, the Uzbek Prosecutor-General’s office accused Western reporters of waging an ‘information war’, and state television called Western journalists who covered Andijan ‘hyenas and jackals’.

Uzbek prosecutors accuse the 15 defendants of attacking troops and a government building, killing hostages and forcing civilians to participate in the demonstrations on May 13.

Anvar Nabiyev, First Deputy Prosecutor-General, said that the defendants, three of whom were Kyrgyz, had been trained in Kyrgyzstan and received funding from abroad. He said: ‘This is the first group of extremists. Besides them, another 106 people were arrested as well.’