Protesters Demand Government Resignation in Uzbekistan

TASHKENT/MOSCOW, May 13 (RIA Novosti) - Thousands of protesters have gathered in Andizhan, a city in Uzbekistan's northeast, opposite the local administration building demanding the government's resignation, reports Uzbekistan's Fergana.ru information web site.

A group of gunmen broke into the local correctional labor camp and attempted to seize the administrative building and the National Security Service, according to an official from the Uzbek president's press office. Some of the camp inmates were released. Nine persons were killed and 34 injured, reports the presidential press office.

"The streets are littered with cars with burnt bodies inside. People in civilian clothes carrying automatic weapons are seen among protesters in the city center. They are allegedly maintaining order," Fergana.ru reports.

Protesters are demanding the government and President Islam Karimov's resignation. Police or troops are not being seen in the streets, according to the web site.

More:
http://en.rian.ru/world/20050513/39975892.html

The BBC's Monica Whitlock reported on BBC World Service Radio that the crowd is calling for "freedom and justice". She also said that the crowd is surrounded by soldiers.

And Uzbekistan has already "blocked foreign TV signals".
http://www.heraldsun.com/firstnews/37-606866.html


Related thread about earlier events in the Uzbek town:

Uzbek militants seize jail, freeing hundreds of prisoners
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1468023

making political demands and calling for the resignation of the Uzbek government.

Just on CNNI.

05.13.2005 Friday - ISTANBUL 12:21

Uzbekistan Closes Kazakh Border
By aa
Published: Friday 13, 2005
zaman.com

The border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan has reportedly been closed except for diplomats.
According to the news from South Kazakhstan Homeland Security Department reported by Kazakh news agencies, Uzbek border officials have stopped allowing border crossings.
The reports speculate that Uzbekistan has taken this step after civil unrest at a government building and prison in the city of Andijan. (...)
Kyrgyzstan has also closed its Uzbek border on news of the revolt.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=hotnews&alt=&trh=20050513&hn=19469

I hope they are as creative at torture.....


http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,963497,00.html

US looks away as new ally tortures Islamists

Uzbekistan's president steps up repression of opponents

Nick Paton Walsh in Namangan
Monday May 26, 2003
The Guardian

Abdulkhalil was arrested in the fields of Uzbekistan's Ferghana valley in August last year. The 28-year-old farmer was sentenced to 16 years in prison for "trying to overthrow the constitutional structures".
Last week his father saw him for the first time since that day on a stretcher in a prison hospital. His head was battered and his tongue was so swollen that he could only say that he had "been kept in water for a long time".

Abdulkhalil was a victim of Uzbekistan's security service, the SNB. His detention and torture were part of a crackdown on Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), an Islamist group.

Independent human rights groups estimate that there are more than 600 politically motivated arrests a year in Uzbekistan, and 6,500 political prisoners, some tortured to death. According to a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy, in August two prisoners were even boiled to death.

to death, was summoned back to Britain after giving a speech on the matter.

He was then sacked. And stood against Jack Straw the foreign secretary as an independent candidate, claiming the British government is admitting evidence in court that has been knowingly obtained under torture from places like Uzbeckistan.

I wish someone in the US govenment would speak to this....



two little dictators making nice and probably exchanging torture ideas.

State TV and radio issued official statements saying the situation in eastern Uzbekistan was under control, as the government blocked foreign news broadcasts in the country.

Authorities cut all foreign TV news programming, including CNN and the BBC, replacing them with Uzbek and foreign entertainment channels.

In its news bulletins, Uzbek state TV said "an armed group of criminals" had attacked the security forces in Andijan. "The bandits seized dozens of weapons and moved on to attack a correctional colony, setting some convicts free," the TV said. (...)

'Bloodshed'

One Russian news agency reporting from the city said local Radio Diydor had gone off air and mobile telephones and the city's telephone network were working only intermittently.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4543473.stm

According to BBC Monitoring, the Ferghana.ru website reported that "in the morning, troops fired from APCs on women".

OSH. May 13 (Interfax) - Uzbek government troops and Interior Ministry forces have sealed off the troubled town of Andizhan, representatives of international organizations returning from Uzbekistan to Osh, Kyrgyzstan told Interfax on Friday.

They said army and police forces have blocked all approaches to Andizhan.

Meanwhile, a member of an Uzbek NGO told Interfax on the phone that a rally demanding the ouster of the Uzbek leadership and democratic reforms is continuing in Andizhan. He said shooting can be heard and several buildings are on fire.
http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=11283451

This is not looking good. :scared:

Britain's ambassador to Uzbekistan has said social discontent is the main cause of recent attacks in the country that killed at least 47 people. (...)

"They say that it was another case of international terror with links to Pakistan, but I think that the main cause of the attacks is here," British Ambassador Craig Murray said on Sunday at an event ahead of Monday's Word Press Freedom Day in the capital Tashkent.

"Uzbek people live in desperation, they have no hope for improvements," he said. "The worst Soviet features such as secret police, censorship, torture in prisons are still in place here."

Uzbekistan has long been criticised for its poor human rights record, including putting more than 6000 political dissidents in squalid jails where a UN report found torture is "systematic."

More:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0BD49EF8-709B-4D13-B4C9-9C0E4801F220.htm

What a wonderful ally, Uzbekistan. Almost as wonderful as Saudi Arabia...
:puke:

"Uzbek people live in desperation, they have no hope for improvements," he said. "The worst Soviet features such as secret police, censorship, torture in prisons are still in place here."


Sound familiar?

By Jenny Norton
BBC, Tashkent

Most of the protesters who have crowded into Andijan's central square today are local people - men and women, old people and even some young children.

They have come to call for an end to the poverty and injustice which they say have become a part of their daily lives.

Unemployment is very high in eastern Uzbekistan and many young people feel they no longer have a future in the area.

Andijan has been particularly hard hit by the Uzbek government's continuing crackdown against Islamic groups. Hundreds of young men have been arrested, and it is common to meet people in the city who have husbands, brothers and fathers in jail.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4543847.stm

MOSCOW/TASHKENT, May 13 (RIA Novosti) - Over 10,000 people have gathered on the square in front of the local administration office, reports the web site Fergana.ru.

"Approximately 10,000 people have gathered here and residents of Andizhan keep arriving," the agency said. A rostrum with a microphone was installed on the square to let everyone address people.

Some protesters demand to dismiss President Islam Karimov and the Uzbek government. However, the majority of people talk about the hard economic situation, unemployment and the lack of foodstuffs, the agency said.

The Uzbek leadership does not intend to impose the state of emergency in Andizhan because of the disorders, a representative of Islam Karimov's press service told RIA Novosti.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20050513/39977202.html

Galima Bukharbaeva, the country director in Uzbekistan for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, has witnessed the unfolding scene in Andijan. Here she tells the BBC News website about the situation:

"Almost all the roads to the city centre are now blocked, and the demonstrators control the area. (...) They also control the city's government offices.

I didn't see many troops around the city centre, but I was told that they were approaching

There were about 5,000 people there, some of them armed demonstrators but most of them ordinary people. They are holding meetings, and people are making speeches, and talking about injustice and respect for human rights. (...) It's actually quite a peaceful protest. Everyone's being very polite to each other and no one's doing anything violent.
Many of the people are just locals who are interested in what is happening. A lot of them are young."

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4544229.stm

Soldiers have fired on a crowd of some 2,000 protesters in the town of Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan.

At least one person has been killed, according to reporters at the scene.

Troops had sealed off Andijan after protesters took control of the town centre and a government building. (...)

Protesters are calling for "justice" and "freedom".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4544599.stm

Journalists said the shooting came from a tank and a truck full of soldiers which had sped to the center of Andijan where the protesters had gathered. A Reuters correspondent later said he saw one body lying on the ground.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/13/uzbekistan.violence/index.html

Sickening...
:cry:

http://us.news3.yimg.com/img.news.yahoo.com/util/anysize/380,http%3A%2F%2Fus.news2.yimg.com%2Fus.yimg.com%2Fp%2Fap%2F20050513%2Fcapt.mosb10905131026.uzbekistan_unrest_mosb109.jpg

General view of a rally in downtown Andijan on Friday, May 13, 2005. Armed protesters freed inmates from a prison and clashed with police and security forces Friday as protests over a trial of Muslim businessmen exploded into unrest in an eastern Uzbek city, leaving at least nine people killed and 34 wounded. (AP Photo/ Efrem Lukatsky)

"The nation has been tortured by the totalitarian regime of President Karimov and by corruption at all levels of the state," said one man, addressing the crowd with a loudspeaker. "The people demand justice, freedom and democracy."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L13175511.htm

During Friday, several thousand protesters gathered in Andijan's main square and took over several buildings, calling for "justice" and "freedom".

But troops moved in late on Friday afternoon, opening fire and prompting the crowd to flee.

People were screaming, saying their prayers and calling for help, according to the BBC's Monica Whitlock, in Tashkent.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4544599.stm

And the official reaction of the Bush administration? :eyes:

Islamists would never react in such a way. They always resort to such tactics as suicide bombings.

Uzbekistan may finally now have a third choice, rather than being forced to choose between the ruthless dictator Karimov or Islamist fanatics.

Time for Karimov to fall.

this is satire, not a stereotype you actually believe in.

Turkey is ruled by Islamic party, which has done more to protect human rights than all the previous governements together.

Islamists are the radical fanatics like al Qaeda and the Taliban.

I understand Islamist or Islamic political movement to be defined by their will to form state and society on the teaching of Koran, to a varieble degree and form - as everything, Islamist movement is not a monolithic mass but comes in many shades. There is little I agree with them, or their Xian counterpart, but I refuse to demonize and dehumanize them in my thoughts, to form a bigoted stereotype Islamist=suicide bomber. Stereotypal prejudice makes one stupid, and I try not to be - not allways succeeding :).

By BAGILA BUKHARBAYEVA
Associated Press Writer
May 13, 2005

Soldiers opened fire on thousands of protesters in eastern Uzbekistan on Friday after demonstrators stormed a jail to free 23 men accused of Islamic extremism. At least 50 people may have been killed in clashes with police and security forces, a protest leader said.

Protesters fell to the ground as the troops surrounded the crowd of some 4,000 and started shooting outside the city's administration building, which had been seized by the demonstrators. An Associated Press reporter saw 10 people who apparently had been hit, including at least one dead, and participants in the rally said two more had been killed.

As soldiers continued shooting with what sounded like large-caliber gunfire and automatic weapons, one man sobbed, "Oh, my son! He's dead!"

Uzbekistan is a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, providing an air base to support military operations in neighboring Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8A2BQ500

Please combine:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1468927#1469459

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1468023

Thanks.

Which seems reasonable from the scarce information I have, but you just never know.

US exhorts rebels to stay calm and peacefull while being shot at! :D

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1468927#1469807

If they concentrate, they can be like Neo in The Matix and just sort of dodge the bullets.

Karimov is a thug, and anything that leads to his ouster that doesn't involve a direct invasion from the US is fine by me. If Bush for whatever reason wants him gone as well, so be it, if a scumbag has a problem with another scumbag and one of the scumbags goes down, it's better than none.