Article from: St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) | May 8, 2005 | Copyright
Byline: PHILLIP O’CONNOR Of the Post-Dispatch
Bakhodir Choriyev never set out to bring down his country’s cruel regime. In the beginning, he just wanted his farm back.
But anger over his treatment by local politicians led Choriyev in recent years to organize protests against the government of his native Uzbekistan in central Asia. His increased activism led to threats, arrests and beatings. In January, he landed in St. Louis as a political refugee.
Late Tuesday night in Uzbekistan’s capital city of Tashkent, state security police rousted, beat and bloodied some of about 70 demonstrators who had gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy. Many in the crowd were relatives and friends of Choriyev.
They had gathered there to protest the 2001 state seizure of Choriyev’s profitable farm. They also complained about the country’s poor economic conditions and called for the removal of President Islam Karimov.
Some demonstrators vowed to remain until Choriyev’s farm was returned to him. Others said they would stay until they were granted asylum in the United States.
Fourteen were arrested and taken away, including his parents. He talked by telephone to relatives after the melee. He said he was told that several were badly injured, and that no one had been able to make contact with those who had been arrested.
«Their destiny is not clear,» Choriyev said Friday through an interpreter.
Protests against Karimov’s hard-line government in the tightly controlled ex-Soviet republic have grown in recent months.
An expert on the region said Tuesday’s harsh government crackdown on the demonstrators might be aimed at quashing growing popular dissent for fear it could lead to a revolution similar to the one that occurred in March in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.
«This government really fears that,» said Allison Gill, Tashkent office director for Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental organization that investigates such abuses. «They really do fear even a small number of people on the streets and that has intensified.»
Choriyev, 35, said he had no aspirations to ignite a rebellion. He said he simply grew angry with local government officials. This was in 2000, not long after he and his family paid $8,000 for 61 percent ownership in what had been a 3,000-acre Soviet collective farm.
Soon, the government reneged on the deal and sought to take back the land. Choriyev found himself in court, then in prison, then facing criminal charges as he fought for control of the farm. Despite court rulings in his favor, a government minister in August 2003 ordered the land returned to state control.
Within months, Choriyev helped organize a movement called «Birdamlik,» which he said translates to «solidarity.» The movement’s goals were to defend and unite people whose rights had been violated by the government, win state recognition of opposition political groups and seek the removal of Karimov by peaceful, democratic means.
«There are many people who feel like me in Uzbekistan,» Choriyev said. «It’s the regime. It’s the tyranny. The only way to fight against it is politics.»
Abducted and beaten
He began making plans for a political meeting to be held June 1, 2004, in Tashkent, where he planned to call for Karimov’s resignation. He hoped that 500 people would show.
Choriyev applied three times to the mayor’s office for a permit but said he received no reply. He picketed outside the office for several days wearing a T-shirt that demanded Karimov’s resignation.
Then on May 21, several unknown men grabbed Choriyev from his car. They bound his hands and feet, tied a hood over his head and drove him to an abandoned house outside town. There, they beat him and left him stripped to his underwear.
When he made it known that he planned to still continue with the meeting, he received two threatening phone calls.
On the morning of the meeting, police took Choriyev’s 9-year-old son into custody and held him for eight hours. Plainclothes and uniformed police surrounded the family’s apartment building. They and other authorities prevented the family from leaving the building.
Later, police forced Choriyev and about 18 of his relatives onto a bus and again drove them outside the city. The women were released right away, but the men were held for two days, interrogated, beaten and forced to sign a letter saying they wouldn’t protest anymore. Authorities burned Choriyev’s car.
A few days later he was put under arrest and told not to leave Tashkent.
When he made plans to attend another protest, he again was beaten, a criminal case was opened against him and state agents threatened the life of his wife and children. This time, he fled with the family to Moscow. There, he approached a U.N. mission and asked for political asylum. The United States granted refugee status to Choriyev, his wife and four children. Seven months after reaching Moscow, they arrived in St. Louis, one of several cities in the country where refugees are resettled.
News from home
Most days, Choriyev, who has thick shoulders, a round face, high cheeks and dark hair, works hard to improve his English and learn a job skill. Almost every day he goes to the Carpenter Branch of the St. Louis Public Library to search the Internet for news from home.
When asked how it felt to be so far removed from a revolution he may have helped start, Choriyev offers a short answer.
«It’s difficult for me,» he said.
He thinks he would have organized last week’s protest differently. He would have tried to avoid the bloodshed and arrests.
«So many were hurt. So many were imprisoned,» he said.
A statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent criticized the actions of Uzbek authorities in removing the protesters, which it said were exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly.
«They posed no threat to embassy security, nor did they interfere with the embassy’s operations in any way,» the statement said. «We regret that government authorities overnight removed them and resorted to force to do so.»
The Uzbek Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite the efforts by him and others to bring about peaceful change in his homeland, Choriyev thinks the Uzbek government is still a long way from falling. Opposition is still too fragmented. The population is still too cowed by the threats of the state security police.
«To be honest with you, the majority of the people in Uzbekistan wish to have a revolution, but they also know there is a small chance of this happening,» he said.
But he dreams.
«If we will have democracy some day in my country, then I hope to get back the farm,» he said.
CAPTION(S):
POST-DISPATCH GRAPHIC / MAP – UZBEKISTAN PHOTO BY GABRIEL B. TAIT / POST-DISPATCH – Bakhodir Choriyev, 35, of Uzbekistan, reads news reports from back home at the Carpenter Branch of the St. Louis Public Library. He and his family arrived here in February as he sought to regain the farm the government seized.