Uzbekistan rights abuses continue despite U.S. aid
Published on April 12, 2012 by DesiWireFeed · No Comments
* U.S. relies on country for supply routes to Afghanistan

* Human rights groups say torture is systematic

* State Department human rights report due soon

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) — Once a foreign exchange student at a Connecticut college, he also worked for a church organization, distributing food to soup kitchens that feed the poor.

Now Abdulaziz Dadahanov is behind bars on the other side of the globe. Since 2009 he has been serving an eight-year sentence for alleged religious extremism, one of many human rights cases in Uzbekistan.

“Never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine one of my kids would be in prison,” said Judith Skartvedt, the Connecticut woman with whose family Dadahanov boarded in 2001-03 while he attended Fairfield University.

She remembers him as an observant young Muslim who was so horrified by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that he spent a lot of time “going to churches, synagogues, anybody that would listen to him, talking about the Muslim religion … This act was so, so opposite of what he believed the Muslim faith should represent.”

More:
http://vancouverdesi.com/news/uzbekistan-rights-abuses-continue-despite-u-s-aid/

He quit in protest and wrote "Murder in Samarkand".

He is a human rights campaigner now and currently works to support Bradley Manning.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk

His story of how they boil people alive and drop the dead bloated body on the familys doorstep is truly awful. It might just be the most murderous regime in the world except North Korea.

from a post earlier today - http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002551769

01.02.12 19:28
US lifts sanctions against Uzbekistan

http://www.uznews.net/news_single.php?nid=18953

Thank you for the article, that's a great site. How horrible for those women. Definitely, a sick, sad world we live in.

Look at a map,


http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/maps/m_centralasia.html

Only Turkmenistan is between Uzbekistan and Iran AND both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan.

Could be an effort to strengthen the northern supply route to Afghanistan, or a supply route for raids from Turkmenistan into Iran.

Turkmenistan - Iran relations appear to be good, not close but good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Turkmenistan_relations

As is Uzbekistan Iranian relations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Uzbekistan_relations

Or can be a ploy to deny these two countries of what is called "Greater Iran" to come to the aid of Iran if the US attacks Iran

"Greater Iran" is a term of art to describe those countries that share the Iranian Plateau and thus share a lot of Cultural, Historical and long term trade interactions with each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_plateau

Farsi (Name for Iran's Language) is a second language is "Greater Iran" and remain so even during Soviet times.

Greater Iran" was the base that the Ancient Persians used to form the base for the Persian Empire of Greek and Roman times. "Greater Iran" does NOT include the furthest extent of the old Persian Empire, but those parts that consider themselves part of the tradition of Ancient Persia. Among these countries are Afghanistan and the Former Central Asia Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan (Most scholars do NOT include Kazakhstan but I include it for it is the largest state in the area outside of Iran itself). Please note residents of "Greater Iran" see language, Culture and traditions as more important then their nationality, thus being a Urbeck, or a Turk, or a Tajik, or a Pathan (the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan) is less important then who your family has been dealing and trading with, and except in Soviet times, most of that trade was done in Farsi (and in the last decades of the Russian Empire and during Soviet Times, Russian replaced Farsi as the main language of trade, it remained a second language for most people in the area).

As to other parts of the ancient Persian Empire. except for Egypt even those areas retain a good bit of Iranian traditions and language (This is noted in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the every one of the Persian Gulf nations AND those parts of Saudi Arabia that borders along the Persian Gulf and even into the western edge of China).

More on "Greater Iran"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Iran

Thus the move to treat Uzbekistan may have more to do with the War in Afghanistan or a new war with Iran then anything else.

A little more history on this area of the World:
http://asiasociety.org/countries/conflicts/central-asia-political-history-19th-century-present

You mean, it's like...a real risk n' stuff?

Our country should be ashamed for validating this on any level.

[quote]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an International Women of Courage award to an Uzbek human rights activist in 2009, the Uzbek foreign minister made what Norland called an “implicit threat” to suspend deliveries along the supply route if Americans continued to raise the issue of human rights. Afterward Norland told his colleagues in Washington to curb their complaints.

Since then Americans have had much less to say about human rights in Central Asia...

... The problem isn’t only that U.S. officials are enabling violent strongmen. As Beshimov explains, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is consolidating power over Central Asia, and the supply route is playing into his hands. “Economically, it’s very beneficial for Russia,” Beshimov says. “It also offers them the chance to use the Network as blackmail against the U.S. during times of crisis in the relationship.”


...

The Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006, had a finely tuned sense of the role that Westerners played in human rights debates in her country. Russian authorities, she argued, paid attention when Westerners spoke openly about human rights abuses and were more likely to release imprisoned human rights activists. But when Westerners said little, the authorities treated activists more harshly.

A similar situation seems to be unfolding in Uzbekistan. From 2006 to 2008, the pressure was on: the European Union sanctioned Uzbekistan for refusing to allow an international inquiry into the Andijan massacre, and American officials were systematically raising the subject of human rights. At least 24 prisoners were released in those years, according to Human Rights Watch’s Steve Swerdlow. Since work on the supply route began, just six have been freed. In 2009, after diplomats softened their statements about human rights, Uzbekistan’s independent bar associations were abolished and replaced by the state-controlled Chamber of Lawyers. Human rights lawyers had their licenses taken away, Swerdlow explains. He was kicked out of the country on Christmas Eve, 2010. An official letter said his organization was violating Uzbek law, though which law was not specified.
[/quote]

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.2/tara_mckelvey_human_rights_uzbekistan_afghanistan.php

It is awful.