Human Rights Watch still seeks accreditation in Uzbekistan

Executive director Kenneth Roth of international organization Human Rights Watch visited Tashkent last week.

As info agency “Ferghana.Ru” informs the purpose of the HRW head's visit were talks with Uzbek authorities on possible registration of new organization representative, Igor Vorontsov.

“I arrived in Tashkent from New York to solve the problem of accreditation of Human Rights Watch representative in Central Asia . Officials has not made a final decision but asked us to offer another representative due to dissatisfactions with the proceedings. The government states they would like to see on this post a person well familiar with the Uzbek culture and traditions. However we have reminded the authorities many of the previous representatives Human Rights Watch possessed wide knowledge in the field of Uzbek culture and traditions, but immediately ceased to be liked by Uzbek authorities after they start subjecting to criticism. So eventually the problem is on fairness and impartiality.

I have arrived here personally to assure the authorities that from the HRW side the lightening situations in UR will be just and unbiased. I explained the authorities that we are interested in building dialogue with the government, and would like to inform the government about observation and research results before publishing them; in order to include authorities' point of view in our reports” – said Kenneth Roth.

“Ferghana.Ru” reminds the office Human Rights Watch in Uzbekistan is inactive since June 2007 when for the far-fetched reason the director Andrea Berg was disaccredited. And Igor Vorontsov who arrived on replacement was forced to wait for several months while Uzbek authorities were considering his registration. Eventually he was denied due to his lack of knowledge about Uzbek mentality and is not able to evaluate reforms held by country leader.