Report: Kyrgyz Police Continue Intimidation, Abuse of Uzbeks

A new report issued today by Human Rights Watch suggests that while the massive ethnic violence against Kyrgyzstan’s Uzbek minority has mostly quieted down, government police continue to persecute the group with intimidation, beatings, and occasional suffocations.

The report also shows that while the government officials blamed their political opponents for the violence against the Uzbeks, government forces contributed to the violence in a number of cases.

Notably, officials were said to have disarmed Uzbek neighborhoods and then failed to provide any sort of protection. In other cases government troops reportedly removed barricades that were supposed to keep mobs out of the neighborhoods when the rioters showed up.

The violence against the Uzbeks killed hundreds and drove large numbers across the border into Uzbekistan. The violence came just two months after the Kyrgyz “interim” government came to power in a series of violent protests.