Government takes democracy NGO to court

Uzbek authorities have started criminal proceedings against the Tashkent office of Internews - an international media support NGO - the prosecutor general's office said on Tuesday. The announcement came as government stepped up scrutiny of foreign and local NGOs promoting democracy in the country in the wake of the fall of the government in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. Tashkent is charging the US-based NGO, under Article 20 of the Uzbek criminal code, with operating without a licence, an official for the prosecution said. “Investigations are under way, but at this stage nobody has been arrested,” Svetlana Artikova, spokeswoman of the general prosecutor’s office, told IRIN, adding that people and witnesses related to the case were being questioned. Kholida Anorboeva, head of Internews in Uzbekistan, told IRIN that they hadn’t seen or signed any document in relation to the opening of a case against them, but confirmed that their office was under investigation. Since the rose and orange revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine respectively, Uzbek opposition and human rights groups and international NGOs active in the country have been the target of a government clampdown, analysts said. “Now, following the popular uprising in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan last month, which toppled President Askar Akayev, the Uzbek government will take extra measures to prevent such an uprising in the country,” a local political analyst told IRIN, on condition of anonymity. IRIN learned recently that another US-based NGO active in Uzbekistan, the International Republican Institute (IRI), also faced problems renewing its registration. “We are working with the [interior] ministry to address their concerns and are hopeful that the situation will be resolved in the near future. IRI is confident it is complying with Uzbek law,” Lisa Gates, a Washington-based IRI spokeswoman, told IRIN. Last year, Uzbekistan closed down the office of billionaire philanthropist George Soros's Open Society Institute (OSI) - another democracy-promoting international NGO - for breaching the country's laws and warned two other US-funded international NGOs to refrain from supporting local opposition movements. It is the second time Uzbek authorities have targetted Internews, which fosters independent media in emerging democracies and uses the media to reduce conflict within and between countries. In September 2004, Tashkent halted the work of a local branch of Internews - set up in 2001 by local and international staff members - for six months for failing to follow internal regulations and for breaching the country's complicated laws on NGOs. “Last year’s case against the local Internews NGO and this criminal case against Internews were both instigated by the justice ministry, and therefore, we think the eventual aim is to deny Internews registration,” a well-informed lawyer told IRIN on condition of anonymity. Internews-Uzbekistan has conducted more than 50 seminars and other events which involved nearly 400 people working for independent TV and radio stations across the country. The participants of these seminars were journalists, cameramen, editors, managers, sales agents and those without a professional background.