Government U-turns over plans to curtail autonomy of Karakalpakstan but fears rise tensions may escalate
\n Uzbekistan
\nEighteen people were killed and 243 wounded during unrest in Uzbekistan\u2019s autonomous province of Karakalpakstan over plans to curtail its autonomy, Uzbek authorities said.
\nSecurity forces detained 516 people while dispersing protesters on Friday but have released many of them, the national guard press office told a briefing.
\nOn Saturday, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev dropped plans to amend articles of the constitution concerning Karakalpakstan\u2019s autonomy and its right to secede. He also declared a month-long state of emergency in the north-western province.
\nAccording to official reports, protesters marched through the provincial capital of Nukus last Friday and tried to seize local government buildings.
\nPhotographs from Nukus, published on Sunday by the news website Kun.uz, showed street barricades, burnt out trucks and a heavy military presence including armoured personnel carriers.
\nVideos shared on social media showed at least two severely wounded people being carried away by their arms and legs. One was bleeding from the abdomen, while the other was screaming.
\nAnother showed a young man crouching by an apparently lifeless body in the street, screaming \u201ca man is dying\u201d, and running for cover as shots rang out.
\nAn exiled opposition politician, Pulat Ahunov, told Reuters over the weekend that people were unable to move around or obtain more information because of a state of emergency imposed by the authorities.
\nUzbekistan is a tightly controlled former Soviet republic where the government clamps down hard on any form of dissent. It was the second outbreak of unrest in central Asia this year, after Kazakhstan crushed mass protests in January and Russia and other former Soviet republics sent in troops to help restore order.
\nThe protests in Uzbekistan were prompted by planned constitutional changes that would have stripped Karakalpakstan of its autonomous status. In a U-turn, the president dropped those plans on Saturday.
\nAhunov, the chair of the opposition Berlik party, told Reuters from Sweden that he condemned the use of lethal force. \u201cThe authorities, from the start, should have opted for dialogue and negotiations,\u201d he said. He said he feared the potential for the situation to escalate into an ethnic conflict between Uzbeks and Karakalpaks, a minority group with their own language.
\nAuthorities had called a public meeting for Tuesday to discuss the situation, he added.
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\nKazakhstan said it was concerned by the events in Uzbekistan and welcomed moves by the authorities to stabilise the situation.
\nSteve Swerdlow, associate professor of human rights at the University of Southern California and an expert on the region, said Uzbekistan should engage as transparently as possible in declaring casualties and the use of force and over the longer term look at what concerns were at the heart of the protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Government U-turns over plans to curtail autonomy of Karakalpakstan but fears rise tensions may escalate Uzbekistan Eighteen people were killed and 243 wounded during unrest in Uzbekistan\u2019s autonomous province of Karakalpakstan over plans to curtail its autonomy, Uzbek authorities said. Security forces detained 516 people while dispersing protesters on Friday but have released many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-269785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n