Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia, a prominent pro-opposition journalist was attacked in Uzbekistan in an alleged attempt to silence independent media in the former Soviet republic, Reuters reported. Aleksei Volosevich, a reporter for the Russian-based news and information site www.ferghana.ru, was beaten and doused with paint by unknown assailants near his apartment on Wednesday after he had received a call from a person asking to meet him and promising "interesting material from Andijan". Volosevich covered a violent government crack down on protests in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan in May, in which upwards of 1,000 were killed, according to rights groups. Tashkent says the death toll is 187. Following the killings in Andijan, Tashkent has clamped down on foreign media and local journalists, accusing them of bias. "I believe that the Uzbek secret services were behind this. I believe it is directly linked to my professional activity," Volosevich said. Uzbek authorities reacted on Thursday, accusing Volosevich of staging an attack to portray himself as a martyr persecuted by the authorities. "In such cases, various motives are being considered, including hooliganism and in particular we cannot exclude that he could have staged this," said Olimjon Turakulov, a spokesman for the Uzbek National Security Services (NSS), said. Human Rights First (HRF), a US-based rights group known formerly as The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said on Wednesday that the world was letting Uzbekistan get away with the killings in Andijan, adding that Tashkent continued to reject calls for an independent, international probe, claiming that the violence was part of a counter-terrorism operation. In its new report entitled 'Karimov's War: Human Rights Defenders and Counter terrorism in Uzbekistan', HRF placed the violence in context, describing how over the last decade President Islam Karimov has misused concerns over security to undermine respect for basic rights and freedoms. "The Karimov government's suppression of human rights defenders is one of the most extreme case studies of the misuse of legitimate concerns over security to undermine respect for basic rights and freedoms and to persecute those who promote human rights," said Neil Hicks, HRF's director of international programmes. Their statement came one day after the European Union (EU) demanded Tashkent stop its "harassment and detention" of human rights activists, including jailed opposition leader Sanjar Umarov, head of the Sunshine Uzbekistan opposition group, AP reported. The 25-nation bloc said it was "alarmed at reports of the unacceptable conditions in which Mr. Umarov ... is being held." They called on Uzbek authorities to allow an "independent assessment" of Umarov's medical condition. Umarov, an Uzbek businessman living in the United States, was detained on 22 October on allegations of embezzlement. It is believed he was arrested as part of a government crackdown against dissidents after the Andijan events. The EU imposed an arms embargo on the ex-Soviet republic in October because of the events in Andijan and suspended a cooperation pact with the country. The EU also banned Uzbek officials from travelling to EU nations. Meanwhile in Kazakhstan, the EU on Thursday urged Astana to let opposition candidates and media operate freely in the run-up to the upcoming presidential election in December, saying it was worried by attacks on opposition parties and journalists. "The European Union is particularly concerned about reported harassment of opposition parties and violent disruption of their meetings," the EU said in a statement issued by its British presidency. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the Central Asian state since 1989 and is seeking another seven-year term, has vowed to hold a free vote and says there is no media censorship in the oil-rich republic. Kazakhstan, five times the size of France, has never held an election judged free and fair by the West. Bishkek and Washington will review the financial terms of an agreement on the air base in the former Soviet republic that US-led forces use for operations in Afghanistan, AP reported on Tuesday, citing the Kyrgyz foreign ministry. Foreign Minister Alikbek Jekshenkulov told a visiting US military delegation on 4 November that Bishkek wanted to charge more for the use of the country's main airport, near the capital Bishkek, as well as land outside the airport and flight navigation equipment, according to the ministry. Kyrgyzstan has hosted the air base, which supports combat operations in Afghanistan, since December 2001. The new Kyrgyz leadership, which came to power after the long-time president's ouster in March, has sought to increase revenues from the base. The base has become increasingly important for Washington since neighbouring Uzbekistan ordered the US to vacate a base there. Kyrgyzstan also hosts a Russian air base near the capital. In Tajikistan, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved on Tuesday a US $1.8 million grant from its Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR), financed by Tokyo, to help improve rural roads in the former Soviet republic and provide jobs to rural people. The grant will cover a new community-based road maintenance system that mobilises rural communities to participate in all stages of maintenance and minor repair of local roads. It will directly target the rural poor by using labour-intensive methods to generate jobs in the poorest areas, the bank said. Tajikistan is the poorest country among the five Central Asian republics and one of the poorest in the world. As a landlocked country, Tajikistan is highly dependent on its road system. However, the condition of its roads has deteriorated since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 due to inadequate funding.