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> Protests grip Uzbek border town. 21/05/2005. ABC News Online
> [This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1373983.htm]
> Last Update: Saturday, May 21, 2005. 9:34pm (AEST)

> # Protests grip Uzbek border town

> Protests have rocked Karasuv, on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border, as Tashkent struggled to quell unrest in the wake of a deadly crackdown that has sparked unprecedented Western criticism of the authoritarian Uzbek regime.

> Some 200 demonstrators, mostly women, carried banners demanding freedom for a self-proclaimed Islamist leader as well as a popular local wrestler in the town of Karasuv, which straddles the border between the Central Asian former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

> Several hundred soldiers and riot police stood by as the protesters blocked the road leading to a bridge to the Kyrgyz side of the town, over the Sharikh Khansai canal.

> The protesters tried to persuade traders crossing the bridge to join them, one young man throwing a rock at a car and smashing a window, witnesses said.

> They held placards proclaiming the innocence of the Islamist leader, a local cattle farmer called Bakhtiyor Rakhimov, and the wrestler, Dilmorod Mamajanov.

> "We don't want anything but the freedom of these two - we have no other demands," said one of Mr Rakhimov's relatives, named Anakhan.

> "They are suffering for you so you can cross, why don't you stand here with us?" another woman shouted at a passer-by.

> Mr Rakhimov and Mr Mamajanov were among several people arrested two days earlier when Uzbek troops reclaimed the town from protesters who had chased them out last weekend, following several days of clashes in the eastern city of Andijan.

> Hundreds of people are feared to have been killed in the bloodshed which started in Andijan on May 13, sparking strong calls, including from the United States, for President Islam Karimov to allow an independent investigation.

> The situation in Karasuv eased towards the middle of the day, as Uzbek forces allowed traders to cross the bridge, which was rebuilt amid the chaos earlier this week, to reach the area's largest bazaar, on the Kyrgyz side.

> Several protesters entered into negotiations in Karasuv's mayor's office.

> Residents crossing from Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan said they feared Uzbek authorities were using harsh methods to deal with those blamed for the recent days' unrest.

> "There are many rumours of arrests - people are complaining, they are fed up," a local farmer said.

> "We want more money and more work, but the authorities send us more soldiers and more police."

> Western officials, led by the United Nations and the European Union, have stepped up the pressure on Uzbekistan's hardline regime for a thorough inquiry into the Andijan events.

> In Washington on Friday US Secretary of State Secretary Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed earlier US calls for a transparent, international inquiry.

> "We're urging the Karimov Government to allow inquiry into the events that took place there," Dr Rice said, warning that Tashkent could face international isolation should it fail to comply.

> The Uzbek authorities have refused to say whether they will let foreign experts look into the Andijan events, while criticising foreign media coverage, which with a few exceptions has not toed the Government line.

> "Many foreign media are not covering the Andijan events objectively... they're trying to turn a small flame into a big fire," the pro-Government Uzbekistan Ovozy paper quoted a local correspondent for Germany's Deutsche Welle as saying.

> Tashkent has said 169 people died when it deployed military force in response to violence by armed Islamic extremists seeking to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state in Central Asia.

> However witnesses, human rights groups and Uzbek opposition activists said that Uzbek soldiers indiscriminately slaughtered 500 to 1,000 people in and around Andijan.

> -AFP

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