Human Rights Watch calls Uzbek government crackdown a massacre

[bemildred]

MOSCOW (AP) - The Uzbek government's crackdown on protesters can only be described as a massacre, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday, appealing to the United States to suspend co-operation with the Central Asian country until it permits an independent international investigation.

The New York-based group said it interviewed 50 victims and witnesses who testified that government troops fired repeatedly on protesters gathered in a square, killing many as they fled into surrounding streets. It did not attempt to estimate the number killed, but the accounts were in line with estimates in the high hundreds.

"The scale of this killing was so extensive, and its nature was so indiscriminate and disproportionate, that it can best be described as a massacre," the group said in its report on the May 13 unrest in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, presented at a news conference in Moscow.

The international Red Cross said Tuesday that Uzbekistan's government is denying it access to people injured or arrested in the unrest. The agency also has been unable to establish contact with regional authorities in the eastern city of Andijan, the Red Cross said in a statement.

myTelus

[cire4]

1. BUSH SUPPORTS THIS FASCIST GOVERNMENT.....

Just want to make sure everybody knows....including the lurking freepers...

[struggle4progress]

2. Rights Group: Uzbek Crackdown Was a "Massacre" (longer version / WP)

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 7, 2005; 3:09 PM

... Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth, who presented the report, also urged the European Union to suspend cooperation with Uzbekistan.

"I hope that the Bush administration recognizes that Karimov is no longer an asset; he has turned into a deep liability," Roth said ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700281.html

[Vladimir]

3. Ah, Islam Karimov,

our man in Central Asia. I suppose they should be grateful he didn't boil them alive this time around.

Freedom is on the march!

Democracy will prevail!

Protestors will be shot!

All hail the chimp!

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Part of the "new europe"

Welcome to the new millennium.