The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is sending a 52-person police presence to southern Kyrgyzstan known as the Police Advisory Group, but the group is still mustering and will not deploy until September. With insufficient applications for the tough job of serving as an unarmed law-enforcement advisor in a region where the mayor has volubly expressed his rejection to the deployment, the deadline was extended. Most recruits are from Russia, Turkey, and Serbia, with a few from Finland and Eastern European countries, reports ferghana.ru. A statement on the OSCE website said that recruits are also promised from the United States, Ukraine, Hungary, and Switzerland. The U.S. is contributing one million dollars towards the budget of 3.77 million euros; Finland will supply 120,000 euro and Turkey is also reportedly contributing. OSCE has not deployed a police force like this in many years, since the Balkan wars, and it is not certain how it will fare.
On the one hand, local and international human rights groups and humanitarian relief organizations are calling for the outside police because they are finding so many abuses of particularly ethnic Uzbek men by the Osh region police -- which notably do not have ethnic Uzbeks among their troops. The Kylym Shamy human rights center says that only ethnic Uzbeks appear to be arrested on charges related to the June arrest, and are being tortured in detention; meanwhile, Kyrgyz suspects appear to walk free, uznews.net reported. Aysulu Alym-kyzy, Kylym Shamy coordinator says the Kyrgyz law-enforcement agencies appear to be "on the brink of physical and psychological exhaustion" and are themselves working in very poor conditions, sleeping on the floor and handling dead bodies without protective clothing. They have become angry and have aggressively lashed out and indulged in nationalistic expressions, says Alym-kyzy. That's why a neutral police force is very much needed, she says.
On the other hand, protests against the OSCE deployment have increased and have now spread to other Kyrgyz cities, with various parties and NGOs petitioning the OSCE not to send the police, saying that it will only lead to secession, citing the precedents of Yugoslavia and Georgia. But for all the protest, it's not clear how much the OSCE PAG can intervene in any event. It only plans to stay four months, and the multi-national group will merely hold consultations with local police, monitoring them as they make patrols. Markus Mueller, a Swiss diplomat, has been appointed Head of the OSCE Police Advisory Group
Ulugbek Abdusalomov, the editor of an independent newspaper, and Azimjon Askarov, a journalist and human rights defender, have been arrested on trumped-up charges of extremism which should be dropped immediately, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement on its website August 12. CPJ joined other local and international human rights observers who protested the scapegoating of these two ethnic Uzbeks, who they say were in fact covering the violation of human rights in their communities during the violence in June.
Prosecutors in the southern city of Jalal-Abad charged Abdusalomov, editor of the Uzbek-language newspaper Diydor, and Askarov, head of local human rights group Vozdukh and a contributor to the regional news website Voice of Freedom, with extremism, incitement to ethnic hatred, calls to mass disorder, and complicity to murder, according to regional press reports and CPJ sources. Both men were arrested in June. Abdusalomov was taken to a hospital due to a heart condition. His lawyer said his newspaper covered issues facing the Uzbek minority in southern Kyrgyzstan and exposed social and political disadvantages, and should not be characterized as "extremism." Askarov has been tortured in detention, and was in fact filming police brutality during a raid, human rights monitors say.
The Uzbek government is also continuing relentlessly to try journalists who have been critical of the state and to reject appeals for clemency. The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan turned down the appeal of Dilmurod Sayid, holding the sentence of 12.5 years of imprisonment. Sayid was accused of extortion and embezzlement of large sums of money and tried secretly, although human rights groups in Uzbekistan say that the sentence was in retaliation for his reporting on corruption. Sayid's lawyers protested numerous violations of due process, including the obvious pressuring of witnesses, starting with the lead figure in the case who testified that Sayid was not involved, and the failure to permit exonerating evidence to be presented.
Another journalist in Uzbekistan is facing a libel trial. Vladimir Berezovsky, a correspondent of the paper Parlamentskaya Gazeta in Russia. He is charged with libel and insult for materials he published on the website vesti.uz, a site Berezovsky founded to cover Russia's domestic and foreign policies for Russians living in Central Asia, which has since been closed. His arrest has been protested by the Russian Foreign Ministry and NGOs.
Reports from observers continue to indicate that police feel a sense of impunity. When Protestants' homes were raided this month and 23 people, including small children were detained, police under Major Ilyos Mustafayev broke into a house and confiscated religious and musical literature. They then began pushing the believers into police cars, kicking and dragging some. When asked why the police were "acting like bandits” by a Baptist who later spoke to Forum 18 News Service, Major Mustafayev, reportedly replied cynically: "Yes, we are bandits."
This week Uzbeks began to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A television broadcast by Mufti Usmonxon Olimov, the chairman of the state-approved Muslims' Board of Uzbekistan, indicated how much the state intrudes into the religious sphere in Uzbekistan. In a program on Uzbek TV First Channel, the mufti called on believers to appreciate the peace achieved in Uzbekistan. Anvar qori Tursunov, the chief imam of the city of Tashkent and the host of the TV program, called on viewers not to remain indifferent to the state's efforts in ensuring peace. The remarks were an oblique reference to the massive anti-terror operations that Uzbek security forces have launched against actual and perceived militants and anyone operating outside the approved state religious organizations. The spiritual authorities also employed the state television broadcast to instruct people on how they should celebrate the holiday. The chief imam chided people who organize lavish dinner parties to break the fast.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick compiles the Uzbekistan weekly roundup for EurasiaNet. She is also editor of EurasiaNet's Choihona blog. To subscribe to Uzbekistan News Briefs, write [email protected]
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