UZBEKISTAN

TOM MALINOWSKI, Human Rights Watch Advocacy Director, March 12, 2002
CZIKOWSKY: What are opposition groups in Uzbekistan like? Are they strong and viable or weak and disorganized?
MALINOWSKI: President Karimov has worked very hard for the last ten years to ensure that opposition groups are very weak. Opposition parties have been outlawed; their leaders imprisoned or driven into exile. There are human rights groups, but they have been functioning illegally; their members are constantly harassed and often jailed. The leadership is profoundly afraid of any organized activity independent of its control---that goes for political activity as well as religious worship.
One important concession that the Bush Administration has obtained from Karimov is the legalization of one of the country’s previously banned human rights group. We need to see more of that, because ultimately, change cannot be imposed on Uzbekistan (or any country) from the outside. It must arise from the efforts of people on the inside.

JOSH MACHLEDER, Internews Uzbekistan Director, March 13, 2002
CZIKOWSKY: How much freedom does the press have in Uzbekistan? Are political opponents provided coverage?
MACHLEDER: Let me first say there are no political opponents in Uzbekistan. When Presidential elections were held in January, 2000, for example, the “opponent” to incumbent President Karimov, previously an unknown, was reported as telling journalists that he himself was voting for President Karimov.
The Uzbek President has created an environment that essentially stifles all opposition. All political parties that emerged during the Soviet Union’s Perestroika period have their leaders living in exile and former members have gone mostly silent.
As for freedom of press, printing houses are owned by the state and the state keeps an in-house censor there. So there is pre-publication censorship. The main TV station in the Republic is state owned, and serves primarily as the mouthpiece of the government. There are, however, several local, regional, privately owned TV stations that are able to do some critical journalism on local issues.