UZBEKISTAN: New reports on Andijan human rights abuses as trial begins

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

TASHKENT, 20 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Two new reports reveal clear instances of human rights abuses in the southern Uzbek city of Andijan as the trial of 15 men accused of plotting the May rebellion began in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, on Tuesday.

"The government has been laying siege to the truth of what happened in Andijan," Maisy Weicherdi, Central Asia researcher for Amnesty International (AI), said from London, calling for such efforts to cease and the truth to be heard.

"There must be justice and reparation for all the victims," Weicherdi stressed.

No relatives or supporters of the 15 accused could be seen outside the court, but relatives of those government and security force personnel who lost their lives were present, lobbying for the death penalty for the defendants.

Prosecutor Anvar Nabiyev said Western aid groups, human rights organisations and foreign media had launched an information war against the Uzbek government, accusing them of bias and of having planned the events in Andijan, along with militant Islamic groups.

Upwards of 1,000 civilians may have been killed in Andijan on 13 May, according to some rights groups, when Uzbek forces opened fired on protesters demonstrating against the authoritarian regime of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who has ruled Central Asia's most populous state since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.

Likened to China's Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, Tashkent has vehemently denied all requests for an independent international inquiry, placing the official death toll at 187.

But London-based Amnesty accuses the Uzbek authorities of working to conceal the truth. In its latest report: ‘Uzbekistan: Lifting the siege on the truth about Andijan’, the watchdog group cites a number of instances in which human rights were abused on 12 and 13 May.

According to eyewitness testimony, security forces fired indiscriminately into crowds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the city centre and as they fled. Tashkent has adamantly refuted these reports, claiming security forces did not kill any civilians and that those who did lose their lives were killed by armed ‘terrorists’, the report said.

Thousands of people had been arbitrarily detained, witnesses harassed and relevant records and documents destroyed in a concerted effort to conceal the truth, it added.

"This is well documented. We have talked to a number of eyewitnesses," Weicherdi said, citing examples in which officials have demanded that relatives hand over the identity papers of victims either killed or missing.

"It's going to be very difficult to prove that your relative was killed or missing if you can't prove they exist," the activist maintained.

Moreover, international organisations, journalists and human rights defenders have been unable to access the city, while websites that offered opposing accounts of what happened had been blocked, the watchdog group claimed.

As the trial was about to commence, reporters were searched before entering the building and obliged to hand over their mobile phones.

The 15 men face multiple charges, including terrorism, shooting of hostages and membership of banned Islamic groups, the BBC reported.

Meanwhile, in a separate, but similar report also released on Tuesday, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Uzbek authorities of using acts of coercion on people to confess to crimes they did not commit, including threats of and acts of violence.

“We’ve been following political repression in Uzbekistan for many years, but we’ve never seen anything as extensive as the crackdown post-Andijan,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director of HRW. “Instead of going after the perpetrators of the massacre, the Uzbek government is trying to deny responsibility and silence the witnesses.”

[ENDS]