VIENNA, May 19: Uzbek security forces may have gunned down up to 1,000 civilians in the recent unrest in Andijan, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan alleged on Thursday. The head of the Uzbek group, Talik Yabukov, said 700 died in Andijan, 200 in Pahkta and 100 near the border with Kyrgyzstan, and predicted an uprising against the government of President Islam Karimov.
“There will be an uprising in Uzbekistan, this is my intuition,” he told journalists at a press conference in Vienna. The Helsinki Federation, which groups 44 non-governmental rights groups, said 2,000 people were injured in the clampdown and others were being harassed by the authorities.
“The attacks on demonstrators have been followed in some cases by summary executions of the wounded, and by arbitrary arrests and detentions,” it said in a statement.
Mr Yabukov said President Karimov had exaggerated a terrorist threat to justify the use of force against anti-government protestors that saw soldiers fire indiscriminately into a crowd in Andijan last Friday.
“The degree of terrorism is far from being at the level made up by Karimov,” he added. The Helsinki Federation said: “No one can accept the claim that the crowd on Babur Square in Andijan posed a threat that would justify a massive armed assault on a crowd consisting mainly of women.
“The attack can be interpreted as an act of brutal repression aimed at further intimidating the Uzbek population in the face of democratic changes in Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Georgia.”
Labelling Uzbekistan one of the “most repressive countries in the world”, it said the use of force by the authorities was dangerous because it could trigger a terror backlash there and in neighbouring states.
Mr Yakubov said the West could help the Uzbek people, but accused it of not showing enough interest to do so.
“There are a lot positive examples where the West has made efforts to strengthen democracy, but maybe Uzbekistan is not important enough for the West.”
President Karimov’s government has said 169 people died in last week’s clashes, which it described as a battle between Islamic radicals bent on overthrowing the government and law enforcement officers.
KEY TOWN RETAKEN: Uzbek troops reclaimed control on Thursday over a key town on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border and reportedly arrested local religious leaders.
For the first time since angry protestors set fire to government buildings and chased government authorities from Kara-Suu over the weekend, Uzbek border guards appeared at the main border crossing point of the town, which straddles the frontier between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Residents from the Uzbek portion of the town, questioned in Kyrgyzstan, said that returning government forces had arrested Bakhtiyar Rakhimov, who is believed to head pro-Islamist forces on the Uzbek side of the town, along with two of his associates.
Residents said that Mr Rakhimov had led efforts to open a bridge over the canal running through the divided town, but it was not clear whether he had actually led the protests that erupted on the Uzbek side after the deadly crackdown in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan last Friday. —AFP
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