Having experienced fifteen years of independence, plenty of reforms on democratization and rule of law, Uzbekistan has never had any single day of real parliamentarism. Oliy Majlis is like a theater where deputy-actors play their important roles in the development of the state. Platforms of political parties are almost identical. Being not known to […]
The fact that Berlin’s Humboldt University is one of the only university with a Central Asia and Caucasus faculty is relatively little-known. This might be due to the fact that the “Zentralasien Seminar” is focusing mainly on culture, languages and history and doesn’t have the in-house experts that speak at prominent Anglo-Saxon research events.
While […]
Dr. Andrea Berg of Human Rights Watch recently spoke at a SOAS conference in London. Unsurprisingly, her topic was “In the Name of Combating Terrorism: Human Rights and Security in Uzbekistan”. It’s always interesting to recall that HRW does actually still have an office in Tashkent. Most of her insights have been published elsewhere […]
It seems as if the recent Uzbek PR campaign didn’t pay off. The EU’s decision to extend the sanctions in place since November last year has led to disappointment and surprise among Uzbek government officials, reports Eurasianet:
The EU’s move appeared to catch Uzbek officials off guard. “We are very surprised,” an Uzbek government official […]
I know what you were thinking: “It’s about time for another post about Craig Murray, because we haven’t had enough of those.” Well you are in luck, because I just read his new book, Murder in Samarkand, and am about to — somewhat reluctantly — share my thoughts on it.
But first I should […]
Last week on the Russian language blog I reported that the EU sent a delegation lead by Finnish diplomat Anti Turunen to Tashkent in order to investigate to which extent Uzbekistan is ready for dialogue. It seems like the result of that visit was positive and Uzbek side is willing to diversify the circle […]
