Bunyodjon Boboniyozov was given a five-year sentence under criminal charges related to insulting the president and posing a threat to the constitutional order.
Since Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev came to power in late 2016, he has often exhorted journalists to draw attention to corruption and other problems in the country. Mirziyoev has promised he would “stand behind” journalists and media outlets. However, the Uzbek president has been nowhere in sight recently as bloggers in the country have been arrested and given long prison sentences in some cases longer sentences than people in Uzbekistan convicted for violent crimes receive. Joining host Bruce Pannier to discuss are guests Umida Niyazova, director at the Germany-based Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, and Steve Swerdlow, a rights lawyer with many years of experience in Central Asia who is currently an associate professor of the practice of human rights at the University of Southern California.
A court in Nukus, Uzbekistan will consider an appeal on December 19, 2023 of a farmers cooperative that was closed in November under a court order, Human Rights Watch and Uzbek Forum said today. Closing the cooperative violated the internationally protected rights to freedom of association and to organize.