The Association for Human Rights in Central Asia expects that
Latvia will uphold, in its foreign policy, the principles of democracy and
humanity that it declared.
According to
information given by the Information Agency «UzReport», Heads of the States will
meet "to exchange views on the gradual development of Uzbek-Latvian
relations and international issues." The negotiations will be
concluded by signing a joint statement and the package of documents
to further strengthen bilateral political, trade and economic
cooperation and relations in the field of transport, communications,
environmental protection.
Who the Latvian President, Andris Berzins, will exchange views and discuss
bilateral relations with?
First of all we would like to remind that Mr Islam Karimov is in power for more than 23 years – since April 24, 1990. In 2007, in violation of the Article 90 of the Constitution of Uzbekistan, which states that "one and the same person cannot be President of the Republic of Uzbekistan for more than two consecutive terms", he remained for a third presidential term. You can read more on the subject in our press release of 20 January 2008 entitled "Theanti-constitutional Presidency оf Islam Karimov has begun".
Furthermore:
— On 13 May 2005 in
the city of Andijan, on the orders of
Islam Karimov, the government forces used indiscriminate
and disproportionate force to suppress demonstrations,
resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including women and children.
Up to this day, the regime keeps innocent people behind bars
just because they have witnessed the Andijan massacre and protest against humanrights violations;
— According to our sources, there
are more than 10,000 political prisoners in Uzbekistan. This
number includes 30 human rights activists, writers, independent
journalists, opposition party members, thousands of members of religious
communities and organisations. They are deprived of liberty
for the fact that their views differ from the officialposition;
— the convicted
prisoners are systematically tortured and sexually abused in
order to obtain false testimonies or to
break their personality. Statistics on victims of torture
and deaths in custody is blocked in every possible
way. According to only our
organisation, over the past 4 years, 28
people died under torture in custody. An
investigation of any of these cases proved impossible;
— Information about the mass
exploitation in the cotton sector of Uzbekistan has
caused a great public outcry. Many companies, which have well-known brands,
supported the call from human rights activists to boycott Uzbek cotton. Civil
society activists have documented many cases of deaths and
injuries during the cotton harvest in
Uzbekistan, there are children among the victims. No one has been
held accountable for the deaths and causing irreparable damage to the health of
the victims of slave labour;
— opposition parties are denied the
right to register and freedom to campaign;
— there is no freedom
of speech and freedom of assembly in the country.
The list of
the crimes against humanity committed by the regime
goes on. All of the violations of human rights are also reflected in the
reports of international observers and international human rights organisations.
Latvia is a
member of the European Union and its representatives take part in
the assessment, of Uzbekistan’s performance
of its obligations under international agreements in the
field of human rights, carried out by the UN Human Rights Council
and the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
In 2012, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to
the European Union. We hope that Latvia cares about its reputation and will
follow the EU mission – to play a "key role in the transformation of the
continent of Europe from
the continent of world wars into a continent of peace", into a continent
where there is no place for
dictators who are leading repressive policies against their own
people.
