‘Dozens’ killed as troops open fire on protesters

SOLDIERS opened fire on thousands of protesters in eastern Uzbekistan yesterday after demonstrators stormed a jail to free 23 men accused of Islamic extremism.

At least 50 people may have been killed in clashes with police and security forces, a protest leader said.

Protesters fell to the ground as the troops surrounded the crowd of some 4,000 and started shooting outside the city’s administration building, which had been seized by the demonstrators. One journalist saw 10 people who apparently had been hit, including at least one dead, and participants in the rally said two more had been killed.

As soldiers continued shooting with what sounded like large-calibre gunfire and automatic weapons, one man sobbed: “Oh, my son! He’s dead!”

Uzbekistan is a key US ally in the war on terrorism, providing an air base to support military operations in neighbouring Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

But the closer ties with Washington have drawn increased international attention to widespread human rights abuses in the former Soviet republic, whose authoritarian government is seen as one of the most repressive in the region.

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.

President Islam Karimov rushed to Andijan, where the government said it remained in control despite the chaos, although it blocked foreign news reports of the clashes for its domestic audience.

Neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which share the Fergana Valley, sealed their borders.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the situation in eastern Uzbekistan was stabilizing.

He described the situation as “an internal matter for Uzbekistan”.

The shootings by the soldiers followed an overnight jailbreak of the 23 Islamic businessmen, whose supporters stormed the prison where they were held.

Their supporters, who seized weapons after attacking a military unit, later clashed with police.

There were varying reports about casualties amid the chaos. Protest leader Kabuljon Parpiyev said as many as 50 people may have been killed during 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.

Shakirov said the jailbreak was triggered by news that security services on 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 drove out President Askar Akayev and by similar revolts in Ukraine and Georgia.