Activists reject Uzbek government’s version of deadly protests

LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) – Every week after Uzbekistan’s deadliest outbreak of violence in almost 20 years, opposition politicians and human rights teams are difficult the federal government’s narrative that protesters had been excessive on medicine and incited by “international forces”.

Authorities within the Central Asian state say 14 civilians and 4 legislation enforcement officers died throughout clashes that broke out within the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan within the northwest of the nation.

Rights activists and exiled opposition politicians say they consider the true toll is way greater. A European rights group, the Open Dialogue Basis, has compiled the names of no less than 58 lacking people.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has blamed the violence on what he known as malicious international forces, saying they’d been gearing up for years to “assault the territorial integrity of Uzbekistan and create an inter-ethnic battle”. He didn’t present proof of international involvement or title any nation.

The Uzbek International Ministry described the dysfunction as “mass pogroms and atrocities”, and mentioned most of these accountable for the violence had been intoxicated with medicine and alcohol.

Uzbek opposition politicians outdoors the nation poured scorn on these accounts. They mentioned the demonstrations had been sparked by authorities plans to strip Karakalpakstan of its autonomous standing, which included – no less than on paper – a proper to secede from Uzbekistan on the idea of a referendum. The federal government dropped the proposals after the protests broke out.

“The mistaken choice of the federal government was the rationale for the protests,” mentioned Pulat Ahunov, Sweden-based chairman of the opposition Birlik celebration, dismissing the president’s reference to outdoors forces.

“The place are these foreigners?” mentioned Aman Sagidullayev, chief of a Karakalpak political celebration in exile. “There aren’t any terrorists and drug addicts, these (protesters) are odd folks,” he mentioned by phone from Norway.

Alisher Ilkhamov, a Central Asia due diligence advisor based mostly in Britain, mentioned there was no proof of international instigation.

He described that as a “commonplace narrative” additionally utilized by neighbouring Kazakhstan when it put down mass protests in January, to which the authorities responded by issuing shoot-to-kill orders and calling in troops from an alliance of Russia and different former Soviet republics to assist restore order.

The unrest in Karakalpakstan raised the chance that Mirziyoyev may search to hitch that alliance, the Collective Safety Treaty Organisation, to offer himself the choice of calling on Russian help in any future disaster, he mentioned.

CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION

America, European Union and U.N. human rights chief have known as for a full and clear investigation into the deaths. The bloodshed is the worst since 2005 in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic with a file of clamping down harshly on dissent.

The opposition says the demonstrators had been peaceable and unarmed, however journalists on a government-organised journey to Karakalpakstan’s primary metropolis Nukus this week had been proven movies by the authorities the place crowds attacked police and threw stones.

The deputy commander of the Nationwide Guard mentioned some folks the place wounded once they tried to throw again smoke and stun grenades launched by the police, which exploded of their fingers.

Activists say an essential set off for the unrest was the arrest of two outstanding Karakalpak figures, lawyer Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov and journalist Lolagul Kallykhanova, who disappeared final week after talking out on behalf of the republic’s independence.

An open letter by a bunch of civil society activists from 4 Central Asian international locations mentioned Kallykhanova was believed to have been detained on June 29, and Tazhimuratov and his spouse and kids had been “kidnapped” on July 1 and their whereabouts had been unknown.

The Uzbek international ministry didn’t reply to an emailed sequence of questions on Friday concerning the fates of the pair and different folks reported lacking, in addition to the proof for the authorities’ declare of international involvement.

“Depart Uzbekistan – that’s my request to you and my testomony. Do not stay a part of Uzbekistan,” Kallykhanova mentioned in a video posted on social media earlier than she disappeared.

“I do not know what is going to grow to be of me and whether or not I’ll return to you.”

Reporting by Mark Trevelyan
Modifying by Peter Graff

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