Mutual acrimony is prompting Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to trade increasingly harsh accusations and blame each other for mounting commercial damage over competition for Central Asia’s water supplies. The prolonged battle may further damage Tajikistan’s already ailing economy, EurasiaNet reported.
In the most significant recent development for Tajikistan, President Imomali Rahmon and Iranian Energy Minister Majid Namjou attended a ceremony on November 28 to mark the start of the construction of the Sangtuda-2 hydropower plant, a project partly funded by Iran. Together, they set off an explosion that temporarily blocked the Vakhsh River, which Uzbek leaders say their country depends on for fresh water. Rahmon, meanwhile, insists Tajikistan’s hydropower projects will not have a significant impact on the region’s environmental balance or water supplies. Tashkent’s continued hold-up of rail cars bound for Tajikistan has been protested repeatedly as harming Tajikistan’s economy, so the stand-off continues.
A trial of 25 Muslim believers accused of membership in a banned religious group in Uzbekistan lasted nearly three months, the independent Uzbek news service Ferghana.ru reports, citing the Uzbek opposition website Yangi Dunyo. Unlike other trials of this nature in recent years, which have been closed to press and human rights groups, this trial in Andijan regional court was open, relatives were admitted, and a well-known Andijan human rights activists, Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov was able to monitor it. Each defendant had a lawyer, some from Tashkent, and unlike other trials, they were more adversarial, and the attorneys were able to have the trial postponed several times when witnesses failed to appear. Even some local journalists were allowed to cover the proceedings.
Yet in the end, the results were the same as every other such trial on religious grounds: 19 of the members were sentenced to prison terms of 3-9 years and six from 2-6 years. All the defendants are members of what is described as an orthodox Islam organization called Shokhidiylar, which recognizes the Prophet Mohammed but does not acknowledge Hadith, the collection of narrations about Mohammed's words and deeds, and is based only on the Koran.
According to a report by the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists in Uzbekistan cited by the independent news service uzenews.net, in the Ferghana Valley alone this year from January through September 2010, 36 people were tried on charges of "religious extremism," and 32 more are awaiting trials. All are charged with membership in banned groups deemed to be "extremist," whether Hizb-ut Tahrir, Nurchilar, Wahhabi and other movements outside state-approved bounds.
The year-end report of arrests of journalists around the world prepared by Committee to Protect Journalists indicated that Uzbekistan was again among the top violators of press freedom around the world, with at least six journalists in prison as of December 1. The government has already been busy with a counterspin of this message, with a roll-out for a new strategy to "for further deepening democratic reforms and establishing civil society," including some new laws on the media and access to information, News Briefing Central Asia reported. In a speech before parliament, Karimov mouthed platitudes about the right to disseminate information and ideas as the cornerstone of democracy. A state-sponsored media forum attended by foreign experts made sure to portray them as praising the media as progressing nicely in Uzbekistan.
Journalists and activists haven't been convinced by the claims, however, and have continued to stage pickets and protests. Journalists from the state TV channel Yoshlar picketed on Mustakilik Square in Tashkent on December 6 to protest state censorship of the media. In a separate action, human rights activists called for the resignation of Karimov and an early presidential election, with guarantees of human rights. They were taken to the police station, questioned, and warned.
Prominent defense lawyer Ruhiddin Komilov and former presidential candidates Abdulla Tojiboy O'g'li and Jahongir Shosalimov organized a gathering of a new independent party November 27, but police arrested 15 people who took part in the meeting. Not surprisingly, the rubber-stamp Uzbek parliament approved President Karimov’s plan for succession, which, while appearing to involve more democracy, actually paves the way for him to engineer his heir, in a context where the parliament is subordinate and any civil society group that attempts to become active is ruthlessly suppressed.
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) has published a report detailing a coordinating banning system used by members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to ban human rights advocates and journalists. In a kind of negative "Schengen," the system which enables individuals granted a visa in one European country to travel to another, the CIS ban list is jointly maintained by Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Uzbekistan's national system is even more restrictive than the joint CIS system, says NHC. The blacklist includes Igor Rotar of Forum 18 News Service, who was detained and deported when he attempted to investigate the Andijan massacre in 2005. Human Rights Watch staff have also repeatedly been denied visas or else deported.
On November 23, USAID conducted a roundtable to roll out their new $2.3 million outreach program which involves community services to prevent HIV and tuberculosis among vulnerable groups, including education, improved diagnosis and harm reduction. The contractor is Project HOPE, which will cooperate with the Uzbek government's Republican Center to Combat AIDS, the Republican Center for DOTS [Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course, a treatment method instituted by the World Health Organization], and also the Institute for Health and Medical Statistics of the Uzbek Health Ministry.
At the meeting, journalists submitted written questions to a U.S. Embassy staffer who got back to them the next day with answers. Reporters asked about the case of Maxim Popov, who was tried for distributing a book published in Kazakhstan in 2003, which had been reprinted thrice since then by UNDP and USAID and used in HIV/AIDS programs by other organizations including UNICEF, Population Services International (PSI), the Global Fund and others. They noted that when Popov was arrested, they had tried to get statements from these agencies and they would not comment. The U.S. Embassy statement said that the U.S. had "carefully followed the case of M. Popov and had raised this case several times with high-ranking Uzbek officials."
"USAID would like to assure you: what happened with Mr. Popov will not happen with any of the staff working within the framework of the USAID Health Outreach Program," the Embassy statement continued.
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, a weekly digest of international and regional press, write [email protected]
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