Officials in Uzbekistan are trying to reap some positive PR from the Central Asian nation’s recent successes on the football pitch. Yet, while the government lauds athletic achievements, critics say Tashkent’s top-down approach to sports exposes some of the country’s broader problems, including corruption.
When Uzbek émigrés created a new opposition group last May in Berlin called the Popular Movement of Uzbekistan (PMU), they hoped it would mark the start of a process that replicated the experiences in North Africa and the Middle East and bring Uzbek leader Islam Karimov’s 22-year rule to an end.
The recent sentencing of a executive connected with a troubled British gold mining venture in Uzbekistan offers fresh evidence that Tashkent has foreign investors in its cross-hairs. Some observers suspect a behind-the-scenes power struggle is responsible for a string of incidents involving foreign-operated companies in Uzbekistan.
Thirteen people have been sentenced by an Uzbek regional court to between 6 and 10 years in prison for their alleged membership in an Islamic group called Jihadists, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reports.
