[ad_1]
An ethnic Karakalpak journalist is accused of conspiracy to overthrow constitutional order after the autonomous area’s lethal unrest.
Uzbekistan’s state prosecutor mentioned on Friday it had charged a journalist with conspiracy to overthrow constitutional order after 18 died in unrest over proposals to weaken an autonomous area’s standing.
The bloodshed within the Karakalpakstan area has seen President Shavkat Mirziyoyev stroll again proposed constitutional amendments that may have eliminated the area’s proper to carry a referendum on secession from Uzbekistan.
Mirziyoyev has claimed the unrest was deliberate years prematurely with assist from “exterior forces”, whereas critics have fingered his authorities’s failure to seek the advice of the area’s public on the modifications because the set off.
The arrest of an ethnic Karakalpak journalist, Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov, final week was seen as contributing to a pro-autonomy protest of unprecedented dimension within the area’s administrative capital, Nukus, on July 1.
Dealing with 20 years in jail
Authorities launched him in a bid to calm demonstrators however he was later re-arrested. The state prosecutor mentioned on Friday he was one in every of two individuals detained on the cost which carries a most penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment.
Tazhimuratov labored as editor of a regional newspaper and known as for protests in Karakalpakstan previous to his arrest, non-public media in Uzbekistan mentioned.
An announcement from the state prosecutor mentioned that one other arrested journalist, Lalagul Kallykhanova, was suspected of “crimes in opposition to public security” after making and publishing a video calling for secession.
The workplace mentioned it had prioritised “the prevention of torture, violence and different merciless or degrading actions” in circumstances associated to the unrest.
Individually, Mirziyoyev’s workplace on Friday introduced the sacking of Zaynilobiddin Nizomiddinov as chief of workers, the primary high-level dismissal because the starting of the disaster in Karakalpakstan, the place a state of emergency has been imposed.
The Nationwide Guard mentioned greater than 500 individuals had been arrested throughout the unrest, a few of whom have since been launched.
Karakalpakstan, a area of two million individuals, takes its identify from the minority Karakalpak individuals, who, like Uzbeks, are a majority-Muslim Turkic group.
The Karakalpak language is nearer to the Kazakh spoken in neighbouring Kazakhstan than the Uzbek language used all through Uzbekistan, a Central Asian nation of about 35 million individuals.
[ad_2]
Source link