The recent antigan -government demonstrations in the Karakalpakistan region have prompted the Uzbek president to reverse his constitutional amendment project.
Le Monde with AFP
President Uzbek, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, said on Sunday July 3, that recent anti-government demonstrations in the Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakistan, located in the northwest of the country, had made “victims”.
“Unfortunately, there are victims in civilians and in the police”, he said , during a speech from the Karakalpakistan region. He did not specify the number of victims or confirmed if they were dead or injured.
Two residents of Noukous, the capital of Karakalpakstan, told the France-Presse (AFP) agency that a small group trying to protest on Saturday evening, for the second consecutive night, had been dispersed by the forces of the ‘order. According to these witnesses, who requested anonymity, the police seem to have used tear gas and smoke grenades.
Noukous seemed calm on Sunday morning, and was grid by the police, witnesses told AFP.
Uzbekistan, a country where the opposition is violently repressed, decreed, on Saturday, the state of emergency for a month in Karakalpakistan, shaken Friday by a rare antigan demonstration which pushed President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to renounce to a constitutional amendment project. This amendment would have diminished the degree of autonomy of the Republic populated by two million people, one of the poorest in the country.
Arrived in power in 2016 at the death of his predecessor, the ruthless Islam Karimov, Shavkat Mirziyoyev led significant economic and social reforms. Re -elected last year, he is now accused of taking a new authoritarian round in the country. With the revision of the projected constitution, the presidential mandate would go from five to seven years, for the benefit of the current Head of State.
In 2005, hundreds of Uzbeks civilians had been killed in the city of Andijan (in the east of the country), during the repression of a dispute movement.