"Uzbek President Islom Karimov has flown to the Eastern town of Andijan after a prison break overnight sparked clashes that left nine people dead and 34 others injured. In a separate incident in the capital, Tashkent, a security guard at the Israeli embassy has shot and killed a suspected suicide bomber.

Uzbek foreign ministry officials say negotiations are underway with rebels at the prison, who have taken at least ten policemen hostage, after earlier freeing some two-thousand prisoners.

Details are sketchy as the situation is still quite fluid. But latest reports say the rebels have asked for Russia to mediate.

In remarks broadcast on Russian television, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko says Moscow is monitoring the situation with concern.

In a separate incident in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, police have shot and killed a man who approached the Israeli embassy in a suspicious manner and ignored orders to stop.


The violence comes amid anger over a high-profile trial of more than 20 Muslim business owners for alleged Islamic extremism."

- Voice Of America

***

First Georia, then Ukraine, then Kyrgystan. Now Uzbeks are protesting. I am praying that people in my country get off their knees and follow the examples of recent "revolutions" in former Soviet Union republics.

Good luck to you my Uzbek brothers!

 

More news surfaced since the begining of the "green revolution".

"ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan (AP) - Soldiers loyal to Uzbekistan's authoritarian leader, a U.S. ally, opened fire on thousands of demonstrators Friday to put down an uprising that began when armed men freed 2,000 inmates from prison, including 23 businessmen on trial for alleged Islamic extremism.

The death toll from a day of violence in the eastern Uzbek city was not known. The government said nine died before the shootings in the square but gave no overall figure. Witnesses said dozens may have been killed by the troops, who rode into the square in a truck behind an armoured personnel carrier as helicopters hovered overhead.

As night fell, the gunfire died down, with most of Andijan's 350,000 people in their homes.

Authorities said security forces had regained control of the city administration building seized earlier in the day by armed protesters. Hostages taken by the demonstrators as human shields at the building were released, a high-ranking Uzbek official said on condition he not be named.

The prison raid and the soldiers' fusillades were in sharp contrast to the largely peaceful uprisings that sparked regime changes in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in the past 18 months. President Islam Karimov is regarded as one of the harshest leaders in the former Soviet Union and apparently favours quick and decisive action against any threats to his regime.

Uzbekistan is a key Washington ally in the war on terrorism and hosts a U.S. air base to support military operations in neighbouring Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But it also is frequently denounced by human rights groups and western governments for torture and repression of opposition.

On Friday, the White House urged restraint by the government and the demonstrators.

"The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government. But that should come through peaceful means, not through violence, and that's what our message is," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

"We have had concerns about human rights in Uzbekistan, but we are concerned about the outbreak of violence, particularly by some members of a terrorist organization that were freed from prison.

Primarily agricultural, the country of 26 million people is the world's third-largest exporter of cotton. The largely arid nation, which depends heavily on irrigation, also has gold and oil reserves.

Andijan is in the volatile, impoverished Fergana Valley, where Islamist sentiment is high, provoking tensions with the secular government that tolerates only officially approved Muslim observances.

The clashes broke out after supporters of the 23 businessmen stormed the prison where they were held. The prison was built to house 1,500 inmates but actually held up to 2,000 before the jailbreak freed them all, Zainabiddinov said. Protesters seized weapons after attacking a military unit and later clashed with police.

The businessmen who were on trial are members of Akramia - a group named for their founder, Akram Yuldashev, an Islamic dissident sentenced in 1999 to 17 years in prison for allegedly urging the overthrow of Uzbekistan's secular government in a pamphlet published in the late 1990s. He has proclaimed his innocence.

The trial has inspired one of the largest public shows of anger over alleged rights abuses by the government. Parpiyev said that the protesters' main demand was the release of Yuldashev.

There were varying reports about casualties amid the chaos. Protest leader Kabuljon Parpiyev told AP that as many as 50 people may have been killed during the course of the day.


Witnesses and officials put the toll from an earlier clash at nine dead and 34 injured. Two of the dead were children, Sharif Shakirov, a brother of one of the defendants said, adding that 30 soldiers who shot at demonstrators were being held hostage. An AP photographer saw a city prosecutor being led away by demonstrators.

Shakirov told AP the jailbreak was triggered by news that security services Thursday had started rounding up people involved in a sit-in outside the courthouse where the trial was taking place.

Uzbeks in recent weeks have shown increasing willingness to challenge their authoritarian leadership in protests, apparently bolstered by the March uprising in Kyrgyzstan that ousted President Askar Akayev and by similar revolts in Ukraine and Georgia.

Akramis are considered the backbone of Andijan's small business community, running a medical clinic and pharmacy, as well as working as furniture craftsmen, and providing employment to thousands in the Fergana Valley.

But authorities claim they are linked to the outlawed radical Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a group that seeks to create a worldwide Islamic state and has been forced underground throughout most of formerly Soviet Central Asia and Russia."

- Washington Post

 

P.S. I bet 70% of people here don't even know where Uzbekistan is...

 

:sits with hand sheepishly raised:

 

I know where it is.

I only laid over there, leaving Afghanistan. Been to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan as well.

It's sad that authoritarian polities can prosper since the spotlight has moved from their dark place in the world in order to shine on the terrorist harboring nations.

Suffering is suffering.

 

More info is available today...

From Chicago Sunday Herald:

"ISLAM Karimov, the hard-line president of Uzbekistan, was yesterday accused of presiding over a massacre of up to 500 civilians to quell what looked like yet another velvet revolution in a former Soviet state.
Karimov fiercely denied that he or anyone else had ordered the killings, however, and blamed the tragedy on Islamist extremists .

The massacre took place on Friday after troops loyal to the authoritarian Soviet-era president opened fire on a large crowd of protestors in the city of Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan, an area the authorities view as a hotbed of Islamist extremism.

Estimates of the number of dead vary wildly from “scores” to up to 500.

Demonstrators originally poured onto the streets after a group of armed men sprung some 2000 inmates from a local prison, including 23 prominent businessmen accused of being Islamist radicals. The ensuing rally quickly became a focal point of anti-government activity .

Yesterday president Karimov argued that he had tried to negotiate a peaceful solution but that his troops had been forced to open fire after some of the armed “insurgents” tried to break through advancing police and military lines. He also insisted that his troops did not deliberately target civilians but local residents tell a different story.

“Yesterday I came here to look for my children,” Azim Karimov told Russian media. “Soldiers were walking the streets killing children and the wounded lying on the ground Why do we have such a president who gives the order to shoot at his own people?”

Russia rushed to support him yesterday and the United States also sounded understanding, however, the reports from Andijan may prompt Washington to rethink. Both countries have airbases in Uzbekistan. Last night the situation remained tense. Some 6,000 refugees were camped out at the country’s border with Kyrgyzstan while fresh violence flared in a village near the border.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, called on president Karimov to show “restraint”."