The inordinately stupid Lola Karimova has just lost a libel case against a French newspaper for calling her a “Dictator’s daughter”. The French court decided that her father, Islam Karimov, undeniably is dictator of Uzbekistan. As the OSCE has ruled all of Uzbekistan’s elections as sham, and as Uzbekistan features in every list of the [...]

Today the European Union hosts Karimov in Brussels, which will be used to promote Karimov in his dictatorship, while western journalists will be given no access to the visit in Brussels. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/rights-groups-slate-european-union-for-hosting-uzbek-dictator-2192479.html Here is a short piece I have written for the Independent. I was allowed only 400 words, so kept it simple on Afghanistan [...]

British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Rupert Joy is vocal and effusive in his praises of the Uzbek regime. But he has gone all coy and refused to answer any questions from leading Uzbek journalist Galima Burkabaeva about his starring appearance at dictator’s daughter Gulnara Karimova’s Tashkent Fashion TV extravaganza. http://http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/10/the_poison_from.html#comments Galima put the same questions to [...]

Digital Memory and a Massacre, a beautifully written piece by Sarah Kendzior. http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/06/23/digital-memory-and-a-massacre-2/

Our complicity with torture in Karimov’s Uzbekistan is a startling example of Britain’s double standards. But where are Britain’s other most current disgraceful examples of immoral foreign policy, and in particular support of dictators? I want to consider perhaps five of the most egregious examples for a media project. I have my own ideas, but [...]

There is still no concerted international response to the violence on Kyrgyzstan, either in terms of peacekeeping or aid to refugees. Sporadic killings continue and much of Osh is burnt out. I have to confess at a grim humour in reading this morning articles in the British media by people who plainly know nothing about [...]

The sad fact is that any posting about Central Asia sees my visitor figures plummet. I can please myself and don’t make money from this webiste. But I can see why commercial media ignore Central Asia. And the harsh truth is that, even when a dramatic crisis is occuring and this blog is one of [...]

Osh lies in the heart of the Ferghana Valley. This extract from Murder in Samarkand gives essential backround: I was determined to set an early example to the staff of getting around the country and wanted to travel to the Ferghana Valley. This high valley, a fertile flood plain where tributaries from the great mountains [...]

Uzbek opposition sources are giving much higher totals of dead than the official 53 in the violence in the ethnically Uzbek city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan. Russia has refused the request to intervene from interim Kyrgyz leader Rosa Otunbayeva – a leader Putin would not be inclined to support. Rosa came to power after May’s [...]

This is a very important documentary from the ever excellent Michael Andersen. It requires some patience and concentration, but it is essential to get away from the banalities of the mainstream media and understand the sheer scale of the disaster to which a purblind concentration on the disastrous Afghan war is leading. Please watch.

There is much consternation at the apparent decline of Gulnara Karimova’s multi-billion dollar company, Zeromax – which owns Uzbekistan’s most valuable economic assets. http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61072 Gulnara is of course the daughter and favoured successor of dictator “President” Islam Karimov. Zeromax is, in addition to interests encompassing gold, uranium, coal, cement, cotton, hotels, night clubs and sex-trafficking, [...]

This is Maksim Popov, an Uzbek psychologist sentenced to seven years in Karimov’s notorious jails for running an AIDS charity which distributed needles, condoms and UN supplied literature. There is an excellent article about Maksim in Guardian CIF. As usual with web articles on Uzbekistan, many of the comments are from Karimov trolls. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/12/uzbekistan-aids-shame-maxim-popov The [...]

Many congratulations to The Times for giving us an article on the revitalised programme of compulsory sterilisation in Uzbekistan. Karimov is increasingly crazed. The only disagreement I have with the article is that the population of Uzbekistan is only increasing in official statistics. In fact, about a fifth of the population (including nearly all the [...]

A good article by Sonia Zilberman in yesterday’s Guardian cif about the Karimov regime’s destruction of Uzbekistan’s cultural base. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/15/uzbekistan-cultural-legacy-threatened This is greatly detailed in Murder in Samarkand. She rather understates the case, not mentioning for example the banning of books (actually in practice all books are banned – that is the default position. A [...]

I urge you to read the full text of this speech by the current British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Rupert Joy. http://ukinuzbekistan.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=Speech&id=21996817 Delivered in what is undoubtedly one of the most vicious and ruthless dictatorships in the world, there is not the slightest hint that Britain finds anything to criticise in Karimov’s Uzbekistan. This is of [...]

The UN Human Rights Committee is a body which routinely pulls its punches. It treats member states with respect, whether they deserve it or not. The UN is of course composed of nations many of which have much to hide on human rights, so the glass houses and stones argument is much applied. In that [...]

Happy Navruz, everybody!

The good news is that Alisher Khakimjanov was granted asylum by a judge yesterday after being refused by the Home Office and scheduled for deportation to Uzbekistan. http://shahidayakub.livejournal.com/4279.html One interesting facet of the original Home Office decision was that they explicitly stated that they would not accept evidence from opponents of the Uzbek regime – [...]

At 2pm today Alisher Khakimjanov faces a fast track asylum hearing and possible immediate deportation to Uzbekistan. Alisher’s father was arrested by police following the Andijan massacre by Uzbek troops of anti-regime demonstrators. The family’s home was confiscated by the State and militia have been looking for Alisher, who was a student in the UK. [...]

More invaluable work from the Environmental Justice Foundation, in collaboration with Anti-Slavery International. Their latest thoroughly researched report estimates that one million children were subjected to slave labout during the 2009 cotton harvest in Uzbekistan. This is essential work because it gives the lie to false UK, US and EU claims that the human rights [...]