UZBEKISTAN: New unrest has broken out in Uzbekistan, with demonstrators facing off against riot police at a round-the-clock rally outside the house of an arrested dissident. Norboy Kholjigitov, an official with the Human Rights Organisation of Uzbekistan, was arrested on Sunday and has been charged with corruption.
Protesters say the charges are fictitious and that he is being singled out after reporting on last month's blood bath when 500 protesters were reportedly killed by security forces in the town of Andijan.
Since the arrest, growing numbers of demonstrators, now standing at about 600, have held vigil around the house in the village of Babur.
Also arrested and jailed for 10 days was independent radio journalist Tulkin Karaev, who had reported on the Anijan massacre and the subsequent crackdown by security forces across the eastern part of the country.
He was jailed earlier this week on charges of hooliganism but human rights officials believe the arrest, like that of Kholjigitov, is politically motivated.
The protest comes as pressure builds for an international inquiry into last month's massacre, which the government has denied carrying out.
Earlier this week US-based Human Rights Watch released a report, based on interviews with refugees fleeing Uzbekistan, indicating that the Andijan massacre took place not just in the town square, but in surrounding streets with troops firing into crowds of fleeing civilians.
Human Rights Watch backed calls by the European Union to allow an international investigation team into the country, but President Islam Karimov has refused.
The Red Cross has complained that its officials are also being refused access to the town and the massacre survivors.
Unrest in Uzbekistan is expected to feature in talks when British prime minister Tony Blair meets Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.
Russia is an ally of Mr Karimov, and Mr Blair, soon to assume the chair of the European Union, will be anxious to persuade Mr Putin to support a call made yesterday by Brussels for an international inquiry into the Andijan killings.