Weekly news wrap

Pressure on the Uzbek leadership for an independent international probe into the recent unrest in the east of the country continued this week, with a group of US senators urging Tashkent to move in that direction. The group led by senator John McCain visited Uzbekistan on Saturday, but was unable to meet senior Uzbek officials. McCain said an international inquiry into the killings at Andijan must take place at once, led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He was backed by the US ambassador in Tashkent, Jon Purnell, who said he had continued to urge the Uzbek government to allow an inquiry, even though President Karimov rejected the idea, the BBC reported on Sunday. On Tuesday, US President George W Bush said he wanted a full inquiry into the government's bloody crackdown on protesters in Andijan and the US expected Uzbekistan to honour human rights, Reuters reported. "We want to know fully what took place there in Uzbekistan and that's why we've asked the International Red Cross to go in," Bush reportedly said. Earlier, local rights activists told IRIN that upwards of 1,000 people may have been killed, while the office of the Uzbek Prosecutor General's reported only 173 dead, with many of them being 'alleged' terrorists. The UK-based academician, Shirin Akiner, reportedly endorsed that official statement following a recent visit to Andijan, the Uzbek state media reported on Sunday. Akiner, a London University academic, cast doubt on international media reports over the number of deaths during the 13 May unrest in Andijan, saying that interviews she had had with imams and local people had corroborated the official death toll of around 170. Meanwhile, Uzbek opposition and rights activists urged the UN and the European Union (EU) on Tuesday to help stop Tashkent's crackdown on dissent, saying dozens of people had been illegally arrested or beaten since 13 May, AP reported. "We ask your help in stopping illegal detentions and persecution of rights defenders, opposition parties and other politically active citizens of Uzbekistan," 10 activists said in a statement, which was also addressed to the OSCE. One of the activists, Surat Ikramov, head of Uzbekistan's Initiative Group of Human Rights Defenders, said law enforcement authorities had unleashed a mass persecution of dissenters, with more than 100 people detained, beaten or placed under house arrest. The activists' statement was sent via the Internet since all 10 signatories were under house arrest, Ikramov maintained. On Thursday, the US State Department warned of possible attacks against US interests in Uzbekistan, urging Americans to avoid all non-essential travel there. Washington also authorised the departure of non-emergency personnel and all eligible family members of the US Embassy personnel. Children in residential care throughout Europe and central Asia are at a high risk of violence, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, warning that a lack of data might mask the full scale of the problem. Research collected by the UN's children agency ahead of conference in Slovenia in July on violence against children indicated that youngsters placed in institutions because they were orphaned, suffered disability or illness, for welfare or correctional reasons, were desperately vulnerable, UNICEF regional director Maria Calivis said. In a study, UNICEF said child care watchdogs in the two regions voiced frequent concern at the level of violence in residential facilities, while the response of authorities was allegedly insufficient. "There is a serious and fundamental knowledge gap on the numbers which makes the issue invisible and undermines the chance of an effective response," Calivis explained. A report by a non-governmental organisation in Kazakhstan indicated that 80 percent of children in residential schools were treated "cruelly", according to the agency. A UN child rights committee has expressed concern at the lack of a clear ban on corporal punishment in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. In Kyrgyzstan, dozens of angry, stone-throwing protesters stormed the Kyrgyz Supreme Court on Wednesday, evicting several dozen activists who seized the building a month earlier in support of five candidates who had lost in the recent parliamentary election, AP reported. In the most serious unrest in the Central Asian nation since a March uprising ousted its long-time president, police were forced to rush to the court to separate the two scuffling groups. Witnesses said the crowd moved to evict the activists because they had blocked court proceedings since their protest began 22 April. Supporters of the defeated parliamentary candidates had vowed to occupy the building until the Supreme Court judges resigned, but the parliament has not dealt with the demand. In Tajikistan, construction of a bridge linking Tajikistan and Afghanistan, supported by the US, was delayed for security reasons, AFP reported on Wednesday citing the Tajik foreign ministry. The work on the bridge, which was supposed to begin on Thursday, would now start around 12 June due to the need to boost security measures on the frontier with Afghanistan, Tajik officials said. The 670 metres long bridge will cross the Pyanj River, which separates the two Central Asian states. The US is expected to cover the cost now estimated at about US $50 million and the work will be done by the American army. The bridge, which is scheduled to be completed in April 2007, is expected to carry more than 1,000 vehicles a day across the river border.