Dear Gulnara,
Following our Twitter conversation last week, I am sending below the details of some human rights issues in Uzbekistan which can and should be addressed. All these matters fall under your purview as Uzbekistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva.
Given the nature and scale of the problem, it is difficult to know where to begin with this, but what I’ve tried to do below is highlight some general issues, provide lists of some individuals and then go into greater detail for a few of their cases. I hope you will look into these matters and the specific cases mentioned and respond appropriately as you promised to do.
Of course, these are just a few examples of human rights abuses in Uzbekistan that are all too common and that that deserve to be addressed. If we start with these and make some progress, perhaps you would look in to other cases as well.
In preparing this text, I have relied on detailed reporting from United Nations bodies, government reports on human rights practices, and the reports of leading human rights groups. I have quoted from them extensively and linked to the original materials.
I hope this conversation and dialogue leads to some concrete improvements for the individual victims below.
Regards,
Andrew
(emailed to Gulnara Karimova on 12 December 2012. Other readers can find out more about the Twitter conversation between Gulnara Karimova and me in this RFE/RL article and this New Europe interview.)