Private Driving Schools To Close in Uzbekistan

Tashkent City Street

According to the RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, the government of Uzbekistan made an order that all private driving schools to close and that as of April, 1, 2011, all driver education will be conducted by Defense Ministry’s Vatanparvar (Patriot) branches similarly to the ones that existed during the Soviet’s rule.

Now, more than 130 private driving schools exist in Uzbekistan and this measure will definitely leave many people unemployed.

One owner of a driving school, Svetlana Aleksandrova, noted that “if the decision is not withdrawn, 12 of my employees will lose their jobs and you may count yourself how many people out there working in such schools will be jobless."

Driving school owners gathered in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, on January 5 and filed a complaint about the government’s decision with the Union of Entrepreneurs of Uzbekistan. The owners noted that 2011 was proclaimed by the President Islam Karimov as the "year of small businesses and private entrepreneurship" and that such measures only hurt private businesses.

The government’s reason for closing private driving schools comes from the poor skills of graduates and an increase in road accidents. Many students do not regularly attend the driving lessons and pay bribes to receive their driver's licenses. So, the real issue might be with the Traffic Security Department of the Interior Ministry where a person goes for an exam, and often, pays the department employees through their driving school teachers to get through the exam. Consequently, the responsibility should be increased at the traffic security department so that only able students can pass the tests.

Accordingly, experts say that without eliminating corruption within the Traffic Security Department, the closure of private driving schools is meaningless as road accidents due to poor driving skills will continue to occur and the government's new plan will only worsen corruption.

U.S. - Central Asia Relations 2010

In 2010, the United States intensified its efforts to broaden relations with the five Central Asia countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Private U.S. companies are involved in oil and natural gas development in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

In 2010, the United States intensified its efforts to broaden relations with the five Central Asia countries:  Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. 

"The United States is seeking to expand its engagement with all of the Central Asian countries on all of the issues of concern to us," said U.S. Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Jr.  "That means not only our common interests in Afghanistan but also how to expand trade and investment, and also how to work to improve human rights and democracy throughout Central Asia."

The U.S. is working with these countries to help support democratization and respect for human rights, and to promote open trade and free markets while helping to establish strong East-West and Central Asia-South Asia trade links.  The U.S. is also helping to reduce trafficking in persons, arms and illegal drugs, and cooperating to combat terrorism and nuclear proliferation, all of which have a destabilizing effect on society. 

The United States has tailored U.S. policy in Central Asia to the varying characteristics of each state. In Kazakhstan, we have helped to secure and eliminate Soviet-era nuclear and biological weapons, materials and facilities, signed a bilateral science and technology cooperation agreement, and urged the government to implement its National Human Rights Action Plan.

Private U.S. companies are involved in oil and natural gas development in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.  We have significantly increased U.S. humanitarian, health, and education assistance to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, hard hit by the 2008 global economic down-turn.

The U.S. has strongly supported Kyrgyzstan’s recent transition to parliamentary democracy, and donated $100 million following the ethnic violence in the south last June to help to support stabilization, humanitarian needs, police reform and reconciliation as well as move the democratic processes forward.  

We also support the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline, or TAPI, because, as Assistant Secretary Blake said, "We believe there is a great strategic logic in trying to link the oil and gas reserves of Turkmenistan with the large and growing energy markets of South Asia," he said.  At the same time, we continue to press the government of Turkmenistan to improve its human rights record.

We have deepened our economic and security relationship with Uzbekistan, while continuing to urge the Government to make progress on human rights and democratic reforms.

The United States appreciates the Central Asia nations' support of the multinational mission in Afghanistan.


Link to the article: http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/US---Ce-ntral-Asia-Relations-2010-112791629.html

Uzbek human rights group claims 39 died of torture in prisons

MOSCOW (AP) — At least 39 people have died of torture in prisons of authoritarian Uzbekistan this year amid a spiraling crackdown on religious groups and government critics, a respected rights group said Thursday.

The Independent Human Rights Defenders Group said the figure was based on information from the victims' families and former inmates. It added that the actual number of such deaths could be higher, but many are not reported because the families fear official reprisals for contacting rights activists or reporters.

In 2009, the group registered 20 prison deaths by torture.

Prison authorities often return bodies to relatives in sealed coffins to conceal torture, the report said. Police officers force the families to ignore Muslim burial rites and bury the unopened coffins, it said.

"They bring the bodies late at night, tell the relatives to bury them at dawn and then patrol their houses for several days after the funeral," the group's chairman, Surat Ikramov, told The Associated Press.

Muslim law prescribes the washing of bodies and burials in a shroud.

Uzbek officials were not available for comment.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in 2007 that Uzbek authorities routinely beat prisoners and used electric shocks, asphyxiation and sexual humiliation to extract information and confessions. A forensic report commissioned by the British Embassy concluded that in 2002 two jailed rights activists were boiled to death.

Dozens of rights and opposition activists have been jailed in Uzbekistan in recent years.

Worried by the revival of Muslim traditions and the threat of radical Islamism from neighboring Afghanistan, the government of former Communist boss Islam Karimov has for years suppressed peaceful Muslims who practice their faith outside government-approved mosques.

Ikramov said the number of peaceful Muslims that serve time in Uzbek jails approaches 10,000. "The number is always rising," he said.

His group said this year alone 370 Uzbeks, including dozens of women, have been convicted and jailed on trumped-up charges of membership in radical Islamic groups. It said the defendants are routinely tortured before they face closed trials. Once in jail, they face beatings and abuse from other inmates encouraged by prison authorities, the group said.

Other religious groups such as Protestants also face constant pressure in Uzbekistan, and several pastors have been convicted and jailed in recent years for allegedly preaching hatred against Muslims.

Karimov has ruled the predominantly Muslim nation of 28 million since before the 1991 Soviet collapse. His government had a falling out with the U.S. and other Western countries after a brutal suppression of an uprising in the eastern town of Andijan in May 2005.

Witnesses and rights groups said government troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in Andijan. The government said 187 died and blamed Islamists for stoking the violence.