Weekly news wrap

Another 33 people allegedly involved in a spate of violence that left almost 50 dead in Uzbekistan in March and April have gone on trial, AFP reported on Tuesday. Two separate trials began in the capital, Tashkent, one of 15 people including eight women and one involving two people. On Monday, another trial of 16 people on related charges got under way in the ancient city of Bukhara. Although the precise nature of the charges was not immediately clear, a state-appointed defence lawyer told AFP that they each faced up to 18 charges. Earlier in August, the country's Supreme Court sentenced the first 15 suspects in the attacks to jail terms ranging from six to 18 years. However, Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international rights watchdog, on Friday said Tashkent had resorted to torture, incommunicado detention and unfair trials in its response to violent attacks in March and April. "The fight against terrorism does not give the government free reign to violate human rights," said Rachel Denber, acting executive director of HRW's Europe and Central Asia division. "The state can’t simply dispense with core human rights even if it has legitimate security concerns." While the government blamed the attacks on "extremists," its response has broadly targeted "independent Muslims," who practice their faith outside government-controlled mosques and other religious institutions, HRW said, adding that fair trial standards had been violated at previous trials in August. "Uzbekistan has a terrible track record when it comes to trying terrorism cases," Denber said. "Unfair trials rob the judicial process of legitimacy, which only undermines the Uzbek government’s struggle against terrorism." Staying in Uzbekistan, relatives of inmates serving long prison terms held a rally to express their discontent with the activities of law-enforcement agencies in front of the Oltiariq district court in the eastern Ferghana province on Tuesday, the 'Muslim Uzbekistan' web site reported. The Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) noted that the protesters carried placards with slogans "We are against terrorism" and "We demand the resignation of law-enforcement staff who violate laws". However, the protest action was dispersed by the police on the basis that the action was not sanctioned by authorities. In Kazakhstan, a seven-year rehabilitation programme worth some US $515.3 million for the country's disabled had been developed by the government, local media reported on Monday. Kazakh labour and social protection minister Gulzhan Karagusova said that they would begin to implement the programme after parliament had adopted the law "On social protection of the disabled". A draft law to this effect is ready and the lower chamber of the Kazakh parliament is currently considering it, the minister said. Kazakhstan's population is some 15 million, of which over 400,000 people are disabled and one in three disabled is of working age with over 40,000 of them being children, many of whom have congenital disabilities. Kazakhstan has been one of the main nuclear testing grounds in the former Soviet Union and some areas, for example, Semipalatinsk, are still dealing with the consequences of those testing activities. International and local experts called upon law-makers to draft a special law to protect children's rights in Central Asia's largest country, local media reported on Wednesday. The participants of the meeting, organised at the United Nations office in the Kazakh commercial capital of Almaty, urged the Kazakh authorities to appoint a special presidential envoy on the rights of children, noting that special prosecutors and courts should deal with offences against minors. Going south to Tajikistan, six residents of Qurghonteppa city in the southern Tajik province of Khatlon Region had contracted malaria, the Tajik Avesta news agency reported on Monday. But the health officials had yet to clarify the situation on the ground. "We still do not have information about the last cases of malaria in Qurghonteppa," Saifiddin Karimov, director of the Tajik tropical diseases centre, said. According to the diseases centre, there had been 69 officially registered cases of malaria over the first six months of 2004, which is almost 35 percent lower than the same period last year. The Tajik health official said the main cause of malaria in the area was migration of the local population during the 1992-1997 civil war to Afghanistan and back home, claiming that a great number of carriers of the disease got infected while being in the neighbouring country. The visiting secretary-general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Jan Kubis, announced on Monday that the Vienna-based organisation may provide assistance to Dushanbe in the demining of its Uzbek border, the local media reported. "A number of OSCE member states are allocating funds and the OSCE is going to allocate funds from its budget for mine clearing activities, including sections of the Tajik-Uzbek border. I believe that such activity will be carried out," Kubis was quoted as saying. On Tuesday, the Avesta news agency reported that some 200 people had been under medical observation on suspicion of having contracted typhoid in the Rudaki district near the capital in Tajikistan. Davron Pirov, head of the country's epidemiological department, said that 42 Rudaki residents had been hospitalised with typhoid. The disease is believed to be caused by contaminated water as a result of a breakdown of the poorly maintained Soviet-built water supply system in the area. In Kyrgyzstan, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to provide Bishkek with loans worth over $120 million in 2004-2006, the Russian Interfax news agency reported on Monday. Muhammad Tusnim, director of ADB's East and Central Asia department, said that the Manilla-based bank was planning to give $32.8 million to Kyrgyzstan this year to build the Osh-Sarytash-Irkeshtam highway, joining Kyrgyzstan and China and $7.5 million to develop border customs posts and promote regional trade. The bank also plans to pay out $18 million in 2005 to develop education and $22 million to develop the financial sector, the report said. In 2006, the ADB plans to provide $30 million to develop agriculture and $10 million to support professional technical education.