Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit June 2011, Astana
Bruce Pannier, blogging for Chaikhana at Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, caught the rumors that before the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana this week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stopped in Tashkent for a visit and supposedly urged long-time dictator Uzbek President Islam Karimov to step down voluntarily and ensure a peaceful transition of leadership in his country.
The story is based on speculation from a Russian expert on Central Asia who spoke on Kommersant FM, a commercial Russian radio show, on the eve of the SCO summit.
As we can see from the transcript, Sergei Zatsepilov, general director of the Center for A Just Foreign Policy in Moscow, was theorizing about Medvedev's plans before he headed off for a meeting with Karimov, which he believed involved an offer to leave peacefully:
Site of Future Bundyokor Stadium, Tashkent, June 2010
When we last tuned into the ambitious plan to build a new stadium for Bundyokor, Uzbekistan's premier soccer team, it seemed like construction was halted and weeds were growing over the lot. When Zeromax, the Swiss-registered state conglomerate went bust, the stadium seemed to be among a number of projects that lost financing with the declaration of bankruptcy. Last November, it emerged that German investors were left with a €130 million bill after a Zeromax building spree; despite a $469 million trade turnover last year, relations have soured lately with the collapse of such projects.
Bundyokor seemed to fall on hard times, having to let go its highly-paid Brazilian soccer coach Luiz Felipe Scolari last year.
But there's been some back-peddling on just how close the EU has been to the president's controversial daughter, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, who has once again been in the news with a sensational libel trial in Paris against a French journalist she has accused of libel for calling her father "a dictator" and questioning her philanthropic activities.
“Providing aid to Uzbekistan does not mean we support the regime or Karimov's daughter,” an unnamed spokeswoman from the EU told the European Voice. She did not elaborate on how the EU expected to transfer funds independently to aid projects -- unlikely in a country where grants and non-profit activity are entirely under government control.
The European Commission, which oversees programs in Uzbekistan of €36 million euro, is now denying directly giving €3.7 million to the state-controlled charity headed by the president's daughter.
Yet there are still questions to be asked, given that Europa House, the EU representation in Tashkent, hastily removed a page from its website, still in Google's cache, which seems to imply that the €3.7 million were in fact slated for disbursement through the National Center for the Social Adaptation of Children (NCSAC), chaired by Karimova-Tillyaeva.
Forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields will be the focus of a June 21 hearing at the European Parliament. The International Labor Rights Forum, an advocacy organization for workers’ rights, is calling for an international investigation by the International Labor Organization (ILO) into the use of child labor and has dismissed suggestions from the Uzbek authorities that they would monitor themselves as “ludicrous.”
But whether or not the European Union has either the will to examine the practice of forced child labor in Uzbekistan or its relationship with Tashkent remains to be seen. In February, the EU ratified a preferential textiles trade agreement with Uzbekistan which included various customs and tariffs breaks and unfettered access to the European markets.
However, an increasingly vocal set of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are warning that the EU’s human rights efforts are being undermined by unprincipled trading agreements with the authoritarian Central Asian state.
Liam Aylward, an Irish MEP, said in a press release on June 8:
I have repeatedly raised the issue of human rights violations with the Commission, in particular in relation to the Uzbek cotton industry, which is one that relies heavily on child workers and the lack of action on this issue of the Commission is worrying […]
UNICEF has reported huge child labor violations in Uzbekistan, yet nothing is being done to ensure that child labor cotton does not make its way onto the European market. In fact the euro notes we all have in our wallets could have been produced with cotton picked using child labor.
Karimova-Tillyaeva at a championship in Uzbekistan in March 2010.
More drama from the Karimov family libel trial in Paris -- and sensational allegations that the European Union may be propping up the dictatorial first family of Uzbekistan-- with a soundtrack from UN agencies. The trial began investigating whether journalists can even safely call President Islam Karimov "a dictator" but has turned into a forum about the EU's financing of charitable programs in Uzbekistan closely associated with the regime. Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva is seeking €30,000 in damages.
Augustin Scalbert, the French reporter for the website rue98.com accused of libel over a piece about Karimova-Tillyaeva's participation in an AIDS fund-raiser last year, believes he can simply plead the truth defense. For the court hearing which opened last month, the respondent summoned human rights activist Nadejda Atayeva, head of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, and Mutabar Tajibayeva, leader of the civic group Fiery Hearts from Andijan. They supplied plenty of evidence of suppression of independent media, harassment and jailing of human rights activists, forced child labor in the cotton industry, and torture and imprisonment of thousands of Muslims accused of extremism.
Also at stake in the trial was a claim that President Karimov's daughter had spent large amounts for a charity event in February 2010 organized at Versailles Palace, and had even paid a fee -- the allegation was €230,000 -- to secure the attendance of Italian supermodel and actress Monica Bellucci.
As threatened, the Kazakh government has returned at least 28 Uzbek asylum-seekers to Uzbekistan, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported. The Uzbek government requested the extradition, saying the men were allegedly charged with terrorism and membership in extremist groups.
A spokesperson from the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to HRW that 28 Uzbeks were handed over to Uzbek authorities today and said that the International Committee for the Red Cross and unspecified human rights groups would be able to meet with them. The status of the remaining 4 is not known.
Steve Swerdlow, Uzbekistan researcher for HRW, told Choihona that the mass extradition was "truly shocking" and set a "troubling precedent" for Kazakhstan and the whole region:
By returning people to near certain torture or ill-treatment, Kazakhstan has violated two of its most binding commitments under international law, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture, which both prohibit the return of an individual to a country where he or she faces a credible risk of torture. Kazakhstan’s international partners should condemn today’s forced return in the strongest terms, prevail on the Kazakh government not to allow any additional forced returns of the wives and children of the extradited men and those remaining in Kazakh custody. They should also demand immediate access to the extradited men in Uzbekistan to ensure their safety.
A coalition of human rights group is appealing to Kazakh authorities not to extradite 32 detainees to Uzbekistan, where they face a risk of torture, Human Rights Watch said in a statement published on its website today.
ACAT-France, Amnesty International, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, Human Rights Watch, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) have written an appeal describing the cases of the 32 Uzbek men. They came to Kazakhstan seeking asylum from religious persecution in Uzbekistan, and are at risk of torture and ill-treatment if they are forcibly returned to Uzbekistan, the groups said.
HRW wrote a detailed letter to the prosecutor general of Kazakhstan back in December explaining that the individuals are devout followers of Islam who fled Uzbekistan because they fear persecution based on their religious affiliation.
Kazakhstan has signed the UN Convention Against Torture which specifies that persons who would face the likelihood of torture cannot be forcibly returned to their homelands, regardless if they have committed criminal offenses, but has opted to ignore it. While Kazakhstan was chair-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, some observers believed Astana would feel sufficiently under pressure not to return the Uzbeks. Now the term is over, and evidently Astana sees no reason to antagonize a fellow Central Asian dictatorship.
Any day now, the State Department will announce its long-awaited annual list of "countries of particular concern" that have egregiously violated the right to freedom of religious belief and other basic human rights.
Each year, Uzbekistan has been included on the list, due to its heavy suppression of independent religious activity and the incarceration of an estimated 5,500 or more mainly Muslim religious prisoners, many of whom have been tortured in detention and tried behind closed doors without adequate legal defense. (The other countries in the list are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.)
In the past, the list was announced at the same time as the release of the State Department's report on International Religious Freedom in November, but last year at that time, Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, said the list would be announced "in a couple of months."
It was expected that the list might then be publicized around the same time as the release of the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which came out somewhat late this year in April -- but without the CPC list.
Now officials have been saying that the list will appear "very soon."
Ambassador George A. Krol, a long-time diplomat specializing in Central Asia, has been confirmed as the American ambassador in Tashkent, the Senate Office of the Majority Leader reported.
The case of Uzbek journalist Abdumalik Boboyev, a correspondent for the US government-funded radio Voice of America, was counted as a success story last year. Threatened with 15 years of prison on vague charges of "insulting the Uzbek people" and "illegal border crossing", his case was taken up by the US government, which raised his plight with visiting Uzbek officials in Washington, again during official visits to Tashkent, and at international meetings. Ultimately, the journalist was released and handed the equivalent of an $8,000 fine -- considered a light punishment only by contrast with torture in prison.
Boboyev was then granted a scholarship by the Hamburg Foundation for the Politically Persecuted, and offered an opportunity to live for a year in Germany, uznews.net reported. But here the Uzbek government reverted to form and denied him an exit visa -- the reporter has spent the last two months bouncing between Samarkand region, where he was born, and the national passport office in Tashkent, trying to get permission to leave the country.
Uzbekistan remains the only post-Soviet state that still retains the requirement to obtain permission to leave the country. (Turkmenistan formally dropped the demand, but maintains a blacklist of those not allowed to enter or exit the country.). Boboyev has been informed that because of his criminal case last year, his is under a travel ban of an unknown duration.
The German foundation is still hoping through appeals to the German Foreign Ministry that an intervention with the Uzbek government may still be possible. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has also called for an end to all the sanctions against Boboyev. .
The Choihona, as it is transliterated from Uzbek, or Chaikhana, from Russian, is a Central Asian roadside teahouse ("choi" means "tea") , famous for its role on the ancient Silk Road linking China, the Middle East and Europe for traders, explorers, and pilgrims. This community institution has existed for centuries, providing sustenance to travelers and a place to exchange news. Alexander Volkov’s Pomegranate Teahouse (Гранатовая чайхана) painted in 1924 during Uzbekistan 's Silver Age, referenced here, captures the vibrancy and warmth of this regional shared tradition.
Under the dictatorship of President Islam Karimov, Uzbek society has struggled to tell its story. Independent news operations have been shut down, journalists jailed, and foreign correspondents denied access. A number of online resources are forced to work in exile, and those still gathering and publishing news inside Uzbekistan face grave risks. This kind of setting makes state propaganda, manipulation of the facts, and rumors and speculation the fare for many people.
It is our hope with this blog will provide a place where people can come to get independent and alternative news and views in contrast with the official line. We cover news on Uzbekistan from international and regional sources in English, Uzbek, and Russian and provide some commentary so as to put the complex and changing story of Uzbekistan into perspective. Contact us if you have a story or comment to share.
About The Author
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, a freelance writer and Russian translator, is editor of the weekly Uzbekistan News Briefs and is based in New York .
