Posted 2006/12/10
Campaign For Human Rights Defenders in Uzbekistan
The Uzbek government has a long-standing abysmal human rights record. In Uzbekistan, there are wide scale violations of virtually all basic human rights including; freedoms of religion, freedom of speech, free association and assembly. There is no independent judiciary, and torture is widespread in both pre-trial and post conviction facilities. In 2003, the U.N Special Rapporteur on Torture characterized torture as “systemic” in Uzbekistan. The government routinely controls, intimidates, arbitrarily suspends and interferes with the work of human rights defenders, the media and opposition political parties.
The War on Terror
In the context of 'the war on terror' the Karimov government has placed security at the top of its agenda and abused concerns over security to undermine respect for human rights. The government increasingly uses the threat of terrorism as a justification for the suppression of dissent such as political opposition and human rights reporting within the country. In this climate human rights defenders are increasingly being prosecuted under counter terrorism and counter extremism laws.
The Andijan Massacre
On 13 May 2005, Uzbek government forces killed hundreds of unarmed protesters as they fled a demonstration in Andijan, in eastern Uzbekistan. Estimates of the casualties range from a government figure of 169 dead to as many as 745 claimed by opposition political parties. To date the government has taken no steps to investigate or hold accountable those responsible for this atrocity. Instead it denies all responsibility. The massacre in Andijan was a landmark event in the history of human rights abuses in Uzbekistan and served as a catalyst for a severe clampdown on human rights defenders. In the aftermath of Andijan, human rights defenders played a crucial role in exposing the massacres, in retribution, the Uzbek government unleashed a wave of arrests, detentions, forced searches on human rights defenders homes and other forms of harassment and intimidation were executed. The Uzbek government has rejected calls for an independent international commission of inquiry and covered up the truth about the massacre.
