Majlis Podcast: Uzbekistan In The Spotlight For The Wrong Reasons

Since 2016, when Uzbekistan’s first president, Islam Karimov, died, the authorities have been working to change the image the country inherited from Karimov as a chronic rights abuser.

There have been some signs of progress but starting in late February, things began to fall apart.

A group trying to register as an opposition party was harassed and some of its members attacked; activists trying to form the country’s first independent labor union came under pressure; calls for changing laws against the LGBT community were flatly rejected and met with violence; and a new law was introduced making it a crime for bloggers and others to insult the honor of President Shavkat Mirziyoev on the Internet, less than half a year before he is due to run for reelection.

On this week’s Majlis Podcast, RFE/RL media-relations manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on the regression in Uzbekistan’s declared domestic reforms.

This week’s guests are: from Uzbekistan, Dilfuza Kurolova, human rights lawyer and founding curator of Global Shapers’ Tashkent Hub; also from Uzbekistan, Dilmira Matyakubowa, co-director of Uzinvestigations and a fellow at the London-based Foreign Policy Center; veteran Central Asia watcher Steve Swerdlow, who is a rights lawyer and currently associate professor of the practice of human rights at the University of Southern California; and Bruce Pannier, the author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.

Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts.