Weekly news wrap

The week in Central Asia started with a new clampdown on dissent in Uzbekistan, with an opposition leader arrested in the capital, Tashkent, following his repeated demands for reforms. Sanjar Umarov, head of the Sunshine Coalition opposition group, was arrested on Sunday on charges of embezzlement and economic crimes, but rights activists say his arrest was politically motivated. "They charge me with absurd accusations, exert psychological pressure and threaten to inject me with psychotropic drugs," Umarov, a wealthy businessman-turned-politician, said in his note from jail posted on his group's Website on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Valery Krasilovsky, Umarov's lawyer, suggested that the opposition leader had been drugged, saying he behaved erratically during his visit. Krasilovsky said that when he visited Umarov in prison on Tuesday, the jailed man was naked in his cell and was swaying back and forth. “He threw all his clothes out into the feeding slot and didn't react to my words,” said Krasilovsky, who demanded that medical experts evaluate Umarov's condition. The Sunshine Coalition was formed in April in the wake of a popular uprising in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan that ousted its long-time leader. The group gained prominence in May for denouncing the violent crackdown on a popular uprising in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, in which upwards of 1,000 people may have been killed, according to rights groups. Tashkent said that the death toll was only 187. Also on Wednesday, the BBC suspended its operations in Uzbekistan due to harassment of its staff and security concerns. All local staff were being withdrawn and the office in Tashkent would close for at least six months pending a decision on its long term future, a report from the BBC said. The BBC's regional head Behrouz Afagh said staff had been under official pressure for some time, making it difficult for them to do their job. But he said the BBC remained committed to covering events in Uzbekistan. "Over the past four months since the unrest in Andijan, BBC staff in Uzbekistan have been subjected to a campaign of harassment and intimidation which has made it very difficult for them to report on events in the country," Afagh said. In June, BBC World Service correspondent, Monica Whitlock, was forced to leave Tashkent under pressure from the government. Two local members of staff have since been granted refugee status by the UN's refugee agency. The Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based group media freedom advocacy group, on Wednesday criticised what it described as government harassment of foreign media in Uzbekistan, after the BBC closed its Tashkent office, AFP reported. "The Committee to protect journalists condemns the government harassment of foreign media in Uzbekistan, which today prompted the BBC to close its Tashkent bureau," CPJ said in a statement. According to CPJ, in recent weeks Tashkent has initiated a smear campaign in the state media accusing journalists from the BBC, Deutsche Welle (German international radio), the Associated Press (AP) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) of organising propaganda attacks against Uzbekistan and trying to use the protest in Andijan to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state. The US has not decided whether to impose sanctions on Uzbekistan over human rights abuses including the violent suppression of the Andijan uprising in May, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a senior US State Department official. Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, told lawmakers the US "will consult with our European friends and evaluate whether what we are doing is sufficient". The European Union (EU) in September imposed an arms embargo and visa bans on Uzbek officials because of what it said was disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Andijan. In Turkmenistan, President Saparmurat Niyazov announced on Monday that he had signed a decree ordering the amnesty of more than 8,000 of some 12,000 common prisoners held in the energy-rich country. "They should spend the holiday at home," Niyazov announced at the annual session of the People's Council, the country's main legislative body comprising 2,500 officials hand-picked by Niyazov. He was referring to the country's two-day independence day holiday on Thursday and Friday. The prisoners amnestied include 259 foreign nationals from Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and former Soviet republics. Niyazov regularly announces amnesties for prisoners, but Monday's release was the largest of its kind that he has ordered. The measure however does not apply to political prisoners in Central Asia's most reclusive state. In Kazakhstan, the presidential election campaigned took off on Tuesday, with five candidates running for the country's top job. The campaign will end on 2 December, two days before polling. Incumbent President Nursultan Nazarbayev is among the five candidates confirmed by the country's Central Election Committee (CEC), while Zharmakhan Tuyakbay, his former ally and currently opposition leader, is expected to be his main challenger. Nazarbayev has led Central Asia's largest country since 1991 when it became independent from the former Soviet Union. The US would help oil-rich Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have free and fair elections, the US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs said on Tuesday. "We must speak clearly about the need for both countries to have free elections and we must help these countries find their way forward," said Fried, who recently travelled to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. International observers aiming to monitor the election process have started arriving in Kazakhstan, the Kazakh Kazinform news agency reported on Friday. More than 600 international election observers are expected to monitor the presidential poll, with the majority of them set to arrive two weeks before polling day, according to the Kazakh foreign ministry. In Kyrgyzstan, protesters demanding the prime minister’s resignation who has been demonstrating for more than five days, dispersed on Thursday after meeting President Kurmanbek Bakiev, the Russian RIA-Novosti news agency reported. The demonstrators were demanding that the premier step down in connection with the 20 October killing of Tynychbek Aktambayev, head of the parliamentary committee on defence and law-enforcement, during an inspection of a penal colony. But they decided to disperse after some of them met with Bakiev, who reportedly said that an investigation would find those guilty and they would face justice. A top US diplomat in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday urged President Bakiev to investigate efforts to force the resignation of the former Soviet republic's prime minister, news agencies reported. During a meeting with investors and diplomats, acting US Ambassador Donald Lu told Bakiev that his country's reputation was suffering because criminal gang leaders appeared to be intimidating the government - a situation he called scandalous. "Nothing is more damaging to investor and donor confidence than a perception that the government is turning a blind eye to the activities of organised crime," Lu reportedly said, adding that Bakiev and his government should "transparently investigate and prosecute organised crime figures".