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 small number are on an allowed list). She also doesn’t mention the murder of the country’s leading theatre director, Mark Weill.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/09/murder_in_tashk.html
But what she does say is perfectly true, and needs airing. It is rather saddening that there are very few comments, and these are dominated by mainly US pro-Karimov supporters, putting forward the entirely false argument that the only alternative to Karimov’s dictatorship is a Taliban governmnent. They also claim Karimov is not totalitarian. If he is not, then the word cannot be applied to any government anywhere.