Uzbekistan continues NGO closures
July 14, 2006; CCD Staff Review of June 15th Event

Andrew Wilson, President of Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia, told a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty audience on June 15th that the Uzbek Ministry of Justice continues to shut down not only international NGOs, but local ones as well. The ministry began by bringing civil charges against international NGOs to shut them down, while heavily regulating local ones, often requiring up to a dozen lengthy reports each month. International NGOs that contested these spurious civil charges usually found themselves faced with criminal charges, leading several organizations to shut down in order to protect their employees.

In August 2005, the Ministry of Justice began resorting to scare tactics to get the local NGOs to shut down. For example, the Ministry began requiring organizations’ employees to provide a comprehensive list of family members and their pictures. The Ministry would then suggest the NGOs shut down if the employees cared about their families. Those that didn’t close were taken brought before the courts and subjected to attacks from the state-controlled press. One woman was even tricked out of her house and tried in her bathrobe and slippers.

Perhaps most worrisome is the fact that the majority of domestic NGOs under attack in Uzbekistan engage in civic and not political work. They do things such as promote exports, assist artisans and bee keepers, and reduce drug demand among high risk-youth, in many cases providing a service the government itself is unable to provide. By closing these organizations, the government is in effect dismantling Uzbekistan’s civil society, resulting in what Wilson calls “the Putnam effect”(in reference to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone). Since a healthy civil society is necessary for a democracy to function, the dissolution of Uzbek civic engagement takes the country even closer to totalitarianism.

For more information on NGO closures and democracy, read our piece on the “Assault on Democracy” resolution, presented by the International Steering Committee to the Community of Democracies Convening Group members for their consideration. In addition, the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy has joined the nongovernmental International Steering Committee of the Community of Democracies in expressing its hope that the Convening Group of the Community of Democracies will recommend the adoption of this Resolution by the UN Democracy Caucus, and that the UN Democracy Caucus will seek to protect the rights of NGO as an international norm.