Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirsiyoyev. (Archive image from 2019)
(dpa) After violent protests in Central Asian Uzbekistan, President Shawkat Mirziyoyev has shown that he is willing to negotiate to calm the situation. In the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan in the west, there have been riots since Friday because people were angry about plans for constitutional reforms that no longer explicitly mentioned Karakalpakstan’s sovereignty. It was a rare protest in the authoritarian former Soviet republic, which borders Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, among other places.
President Mirsiyoyev then traveled to Karakalpakstan’s capital Nukus on Saturday. According to Uzbek media, he sent word through his spokesman that the relevant clauses of the constitution should be retained. It later became known that Mirsiyoyev declared a state of emergency in Karakalpakstan for a month. Karakalpakstan is home to, among others, the Karakalpak ethnic minority.
After the death of dictator Islam Karimov in 2016, Mirsiyoev opened Uzbekistan internationally. After his re-election last autumn, he promised to promote a “free civil society. In the past, however, human rights activists have repeatedly complained that despite reforms in Uzbekistan, fundamental freedom rights are still being violated.