Uzbekistan

In 1991, Uzbekistan emerged as a sovereign country after more than a century of Russian. President Islam Karimov has been at the head of the State since its independence.

The state maintains tight control of the media. Despite a constitutional ban on censorship and guarantees of press freedom, the media rights body Reporters Without Borders said in 2005 that the use of violence against journalists and disinformation by the authorities were commonplace.

Independent journalists were targets of systematic repression in 2005 in the wake of a state-conducted massacre in the town of Andijan in May. President Islam arbitrarily arrested many opposition journalists and hounded foreign media for supposedly provoking the uprising that led to the violence.

In the aftermath of Andijan events, journalists were expelled from the area and foreign TV news broadcasts were blocked. The BBC's coverage of the uprising led to the closure of the corporation's bureau in Tashkent some months later.

Pre-publication censorship of the press by the state was abolished in 2002, but self-censorship is pervasive.

Recent Developments: Since May 2005, the crackdown on the media, political opponents and civil society organisations has only intensified in Uzbekistan with increasing arrests, internments and internet restrictions. Local independent journalists face serious retribution in the form of harassment, legal action and imprisonment unless they break all ties with foreign-funded media. New regulations have also come into place restricting the rights of journalists by making it illegal for them to contribute to foreign media outlets unless these are accredited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The government often uses false charges of terrorism to imprison journalists that are critical of it. Recent regulations have given power to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to expulse foreign media, refuse visas and accreditations and have made it illegal for foreign journalists to interfere in Internal Uzbekistani affairs.

See English PEN's December 2006 Open Letter to President Karimov here.

Sources: For further information, based on primary research, see the annual reports from Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/), the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (http://www.cpj.org/), Reporters Without Borders (http://www.rsf.fr/) and the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (http://ifex.org/) . See also Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/). For more general information on Uzbekistan, see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office country profile (www.fco.gov.uk).