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²⁹ An-Na’im, ‘Human Rights in the Arab World’, pp. 728 and 716 (respectively). As a result of this politicization, Carapico finds that in the Arab world ‘foreign funding in the name of things like human rights, civil society, and women's issues sparked controversies, competition and legal complications almost everywhere, as citizens, rival political factions, and ruling party elites questioned the new sorts of political intervention’ (see Carapico, ‘Foreign Aid for Promoting Democracy in the Arab World’, p. 391).Google Scholar

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⁵⁰ I attempted to locate members on several occasions, primarily asking my local contacts in the human rights, diplomatic and banned opposition communities who was still in Uzbekistan. None of my contacts could give me such information. Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir may or may not exist in significant numbers, but the threat of repression makes them inaccessible, at least to a foreign interviewer.Google Scholar

⁵¹ This research is based on elite interviews carried out in Tashkent in winter 2004, funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad award. Approximately 63 interviews were conducted with the heads of local political opposition parties and human rights organizations, international human rights and pro-democracy non-governmental organizations, as well as Western diplomats.Google Scholar

⁵² The political party Erk in numerical terms dominates the human rights movement. This is partly a result of internal party fragmentation, since one branch of Erk (under Atanazar Aripov) controls two organizations (‘Mazlum’ and ‘Mezon’), while another Erk splinter groups (under Abduhoshim Gaforov) controls the breakaway ‘Independent Human Rights Organization’ and the ‘Electoral Resource Centre’. The banned opposition party Birlik originally created the ‘Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan’ (which now claims to be apolitical) and, more recently, ‘Ezgulik’. The ‘Committee for the Defence of Human Rights’ is controlled by the leader of the unregistered Agrarian Party, Marat Zakhidov. Only ‘Mothers Against the Death Penalty and Torture’, the ‘Independent Human Rights Initiative Group’ and the registered ‘Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan’ are unconnected to any of the banned opposition movements. The only major political party without a human rights counterpart is the Free Peasant Party (Ozod Dekhkon), though this party had also forged an informal alliance with the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan by 2004.Google Scholar

⁵³ Author interview with Per Normark, OSCE Human Dimension Officer, 10 March 2004, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Author interview with Interviewee 1, member of the political opposition party Erk and high-ranking member of the breakaway human rights organization, Independent Human Rights Organization, 12 March 2004, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See Henderson, ‘Selling Civil Society’.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Author interview with Interviewee 2, member of Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, 11 March 2004, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Author interview with Interviewee 3, high-ranking member of political opposition party Birlik and human rights organization Ezgulik, 11 March 2004, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Author interview with Interviewee 1.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ According to Uzbek human rights activists, foreign donors (almost exclusively the United States and US-sponsored non-governmental organizations) are aware of the advantages opposition politicians receive from this funding, despite official stipulations forbidding use on expressly political enterprises. Interviewee 1 commented, ‘(Western donors) understand very well that we are part of the party. They know well who they are standing behind.’Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁶² Author interview with Interviewee 1.Google Scholar

⁶³ Human rights organization leaders justify their political activities as essential to and inseparable from the human movement, remarking that while human rights organizations can defend people on an individual level, ‘political parties defend the rights of the entire society’ (author interview with Interviewee 3). ‘To make these [violations] stop we have to change the regime’, A high-ranking member of Mazlum (Interviewee 4) agreed. ‘To do this you need a political party’. Even organizations claiming to be apolitical either have (Independent Human Rights Initiative Group) or have had (HRSU) political aspirations. The result is often a lack of differentiation between political and human rights activities. One ‘dual elite’, asked ‘Could human rights organizations cooperate on some particular goal?’, responded, ‘You mean, for example, create a coalition to enter parliament?’ (author interview with Interviewee 5, high-ranking member of the opposition Agrarian Party and human rights organization Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, 4 March 2004, Tashkent, Uzbekistan).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Author interviews with Interviewees 3 and 5.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ This process was ultimately thwarted by the government, which did not allow opposition candidates to run for seats.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Author interview with Interviewee 6, high-ranking member of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, 2 March 2004, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Author interview with Ele Pawelski, Freedom House senior programme officer, rights programme, Uzbekistan, 10 March 2004, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Author interview with Interviewee 7, high-ranking member of the government-recognized ‘Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan’, 9 March 2004, Tashkent, Uzbekistan; see also author interview with Interviewee 5.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ I chose three towns in the most densely populated part of Uzbekistan, the Ferghana Valley (Ferghana, Namangan and Andijon). I then selected other high-population centres in a broader geographical area, including Samarqand, Bukhara, Khiva and Nukus.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Author interview with high-ranking member of IHRSU Bukhara Oblast and Erk Bukhara Oblast, 25 September 2004, Vopkent, Uzbekistan.Google Scholar

⁷¹ While Adolat was officially transformed into a pro-government party with parliamentary representatives, the fate of its opposition core is unclear. It seems likely that many members of the Islamic Renaissance Party may have been the victims of political persecution. Human rights advocates claim that more than 5,000 prisoners of conscience remain in Uzbek prisons.Google Scholar

⁷² Author interview with Interviewee 6.Google Scholar

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