Category Archives: Uzbekistan

People smugglers recruiting skippers from central Asia on Turkey to Italy route

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Boat drivers from former Soviet republics often have very little experience and no idea what they are doing is illegal, say NGOs

People smugglers are increasingly recruiting people from former Soviet republics in central Asia to pilot boats carrying migrants from Turkey to Italy, say NGOs and lawyers.

The migrants are taken by sea from Turkey to Italy, often using sailing boats, as an alternative to the longer overland route through the Balkans where border guards in Croatia and Slovenia have engaged in illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers at the EU border.

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FBI agents reportedly search for Uzbeks helped into US by smuggler with IS ties

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Episode reported by CNN required emergency memo to senior officials and suggests agency does not know migrants’ location

Federal agents are reportedly trailing a group of more than a dozen Uzbek nationals who entered the US as asylum seekers aided by a smuggler with ties to Isis.

The extraordinary episode, which multiple US officials confirmed to CNN on Tuesday, was considered so serious that it required an emergency intelligence report to senior Biden administration figures.

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Tory donor accused of using bullying legal threats to suppress a report

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David Davis said Mohamed Amersi ‘silenced’ Margaret Hodge, chair of parliamentary anti-corruption group

A major Conservative donor has been accused of using bullying legal threats to suppress a report by the veteran Labour MP Margaret Hodge, which alleged he was “mired in an international corruption scandal”.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, the former Tory cabinet minister David Davis accused Mohamed Amersi of having “effectively silenced” Hodge, chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on anti-corruption and responsible tax.

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Uzbekistan president wins referendum on extending powers

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Shavkat Mirziyoyev will be able to remain in power until 2040 after Uzbeks backed changes in tightly controlled poll

Voters in Uzbekistan have overwhelmingly approved constitutional changes that will allow the president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, to remain in power until 2040.

Mirziyoyev, 65, became president in 2016 after the death of dictator Islam Karimov.

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Uzbekistan votes on clause that could extend president’s rule to 2040

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Overhaul of constitution would include allowing Shavkat Mirziyoyev to stay in power

Polls have closed across Uzbekistan, ending a day of voting in the central Asian nation in a constitutional referendum that could allow President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to remain in power until 2040.

Voting stations closed at 8pm (3pm GMT), after being open for 12 hours. The Election Commission has to announce the result within 10 days.

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WHO urges action after cough syrups linked to more than 300 child deaths

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Deaths in the Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan due to kidney injury associated with contaminated medicines, the WHO said

The World Health Organization has called for “immediate and concerted action” to protect children from contaminated medicines after a spate of child deaths linked to cough syrups last year.

In 2022, more than 300 children - mainly aged under 5 - in the Gambia, Indonesia and Uzbekistan died of acute kidney injury, in deaths that were associated with contaminated medicines, the WHO said in a statement on Monday.

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Putin and Xi ‘could meet in September’ at summit in Samarkand

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Wall Street Journal suggests Russian and Chinese leaders could hold discussions in Uzbek city

Xi Jinping could meet Vladimir Putin in mid-September at a regional summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, it has been reported.

According to the Wall Street Journal, preparations are being made for the Chinese president to travel to Samarkand on 15 September for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

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Uzbekistan imposes regional state of emergency after deadly unrest

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Government U-turns over plans to curtail autonomy of Karakalpakstan but fears rise tensions may escalate

Eighteen people were killed and 243 wounded during unrest in Uzbekistan’s autonomous province of Karakalpakstan over plans to curtail its autonomy, Uzbek authorities said.

Security forces detained 516 people while dispersing protesters on Friday but have released many of them, the national guard press office told a briefing.

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Afghanistan’s neighbours offered millions in aid to harbour refugees

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Bordering states such as Pakistan urged to temporarily take in Afghans bound for Europe and the US

Countries neighbouring Afghanistan have been offered millions in aid if they are prepared to temporarily harbour tens of thousands of refugees, prior to security checks clearing them for transit to Europe and the US, but Pakistan and other bordering states have warned they will not take more refugees permanently.

Iran could see a large influx of refugees – mainly Hazara Shias – reaching the country overland. Refugee specialists inside Iran have suggested as many as 7,000 people were crossing the border illegally a day, with no serious control over the entire 980km (608-mile) border, and very little international aid.

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‘Kill the bill’ and trans visibility: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China

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Anti-LGBTQ laws in Uzbekistan fuel hostility and violence

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Campaigners say widespread homophobia in the conservative Islamic country is being inflamed by calls to decriminalise same-sex unions

Uzbekistan’s LGBTQ+ community says it is facing increasing threats and repression after anti-LGBTQ+ protests turned violent and new laws were passed this week banning the publication of content deemed to show disrespect for society and the state.

Human rights groups say that the legislation, passed on Tuesday, will prevent media or online commentators arguing for the decriminalisation of sexual conduct between men, which is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison. Uzbekistan – along with Turkmenistan – are the only post-Soviet states that prohibit sexual relations between men.

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Metro life in post-Soviet countries – in pictures

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Photographer Tomer Ifrah travelled between six post-Soviet countries, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Russia, Belarus, Georgia and Armenia, documenting city life on the metro, beginning in Moscow in 2012 and continuing until 2019. The images reveal personal stories of everyday life, intimate portraits, and a background of grandiose architecture

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Drivers for Amazon contractor allege safety and wage abuses

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Exclusive: Testimony of HGV drivers from ex-Soviet countries raises fresh questions over supply chain

Haulage drivers delivering to Amazon distribution centres across Europe allege that safety records are being deliberately manipulated and wages withheld in a breach of the e-commerce multinational’s pledges about working conditions in its supply chain.

HGV drivers recruited from former Soviet-bloc countries have told the Guardian that they were instructed to cheat tachograph machines that log their working hours, so that they could drive illegally long and unsafe stints in western Europe.

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Lawyers challenge UK imports of ‘slavery-tainted’ Uzbek cotton

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Rights team argues preferential tariffs promote goods produced by hundreds of thousands of unpaid labourers in Uzbekistan

The government is facing legal action to try and stop the importation of cotton harvested with state-sponsored forced labour from Uzbekistan into the UK.

The Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights and the Global Legal Action Network (Glan), a team of human rights lawyers, are launching a judicial review of preferential tariffs applied to Uzbek cotton, arguing that it is promoting the importation of goods tainted with modern slavery. The country has faced sustained criticism over the mass enforced mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks to work as unpaid labourers during harvest and planting seasons.

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Uzbekistan: who is Gulnara Karimova? – video profile

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Gulnara Karimova is the eldest daughter of Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan for 27 years until his death in 2016. Karimova was one of the richest and most privileged people in post-Soviet Central Asia until her dramatic arrest in 2014. Now her daughter has released footage showing her mother being dragged to prison after violating the terms of her house arrest

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President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan dies at age 78

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Islam Karimov, who crushed all opposition in the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan as its only president in a quarter-century of independence from the Soviet Union, has died of a stroke at age 78, the Uzbek government announced Friday. His younger daughter, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, said in a social media post Monday that he had been hospitalized in the capital of Tashkent after a brain hemorrhage Aug. 27. On Friday, she posted again, saying: "He is gone."