Uzbek Activist 'In Mental Home'

[buzzsaw_23]

Uzbek activist 'in mental home'

By Ian MacWilliam
BBC News in Tashkent

A human rights worker arrested and held in an Uzbekistan psychiatric hospital has said authorities are trying to make her declare herself mentally ill.

<snip>

Ms Urlayeva was arrested in late August for distributing a cartoon in which Uzbekistan was depicted as a cow, with corrupt bureaucrats sucking milk from its udder.

<snip>

They want to transfer her to another part of the hospital where she said there were many political prisoners. And she said that if she was caught talking to anyone she feared she would be beaten again.

<snip>

After her arrest, Ms Urlayeva was sent for psychiatric tests, but was declared to be in good mental health. The state prosecutor's office then used its prerogative to send her to the more severe Hospital Number Two, for further psychiatric tests. Hospital Number Two, for severe and dangerous psychiatric cases, is run like a prison, with little or no access to patients.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4301340.stm

[bonito]

1. That shit dosen't fly anymore

The world will be watching this one.

[cire4]

2. Islam Karimov is arguably the worst dictator in the world...

...but we never hear Uzbekistan as being part of the "axis of evil" or as an "outpost of tyranny." And his name is never mentioned in the same breath as dictators that Americans have been trained to hate like Hussein, Castro, or Kim Jong Il....

Gee...I wonder why not :eyes:

[buzzsaw_23]

3. US Support for Repression in Uzbekistan Belies Pro-Democracy Rhetoric

US Support for Repression in Uzbekistan Belies Pro-Democracy Rhetoric


by Stephen Zunes

Recent revelations that the United States successfully blocked a call by NATO for an international investigation of the May 13 massacre of hundreds of civilians by the government of the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan serves as yet another reminder of the insincerity of the Bush administration's claims for supporting freedom and democracy in the Islamic world and the former Soviet Union.

<snip>

A recent report from Human Rights Watch, based on interviews with scores of eyewitnesses, determined that government troops in the city of Andijan used ''indiscriminate use of lethal force against unarmed people,'' killing more than 500 people. And, while HRW noted that a small number of armed men were apparently present among the demonstrators, the report asserted that the Uzbek government's use of force against the crowd was ''neither proportionate nor appropriate to the danger they posed.''

<snip>

Uzbekistan is the largest country in Central Asia in population and its capital Tashkent is the region's largest city, with a subway system and an international airport built during the Soviet era. As an independent state under Karimov's rule, Uzbekistan remains one of the poorest of the former Soviet republics despite its generous natural resources, including one of the world's largest sources of natural gas and sizable but largely untapped oil reserves. Karimov pockets virtually all of the revenue generated by the country's natural endowments. Corruption is rampant and his brutal militsia routinely engage in robbery and extortion. Businessmen who refuse to pay bribes are frequently labeled as Islamic extremists and then jailed, tortured and murdered.

Uzbekistan's jails hold more than 7000 political prisoners, where torture is widespread and systematic. Not long after the Bush administration provided Uzbek police with $79 million worth in assistance in 2002, two prominent political prisoners were found to have been boiled to death. The elderly mother of one of the victims was sentenced six years of hard labor when she protested.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/zunes.php?articleid=6438

[Giant Robot]

4. And this is why I say we need to watch what our lawmakers

decide that we can be hospitalized for, or for what reasons we can be forced to take meds.