Anna Neistat, a senior director of research at Amnesty, was part of the emergencies programmme at Human Rights Watch at the time of the Andijan investigation. All the names of witnesses have been changed.
In May 2005, in the city of Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan, 23 local businessmen were on trial, accused of being Islamic extremists. There had been a peaceful protest outside the court building for the duration of the trial, but on 12 May the verdict was postponed. In the early hours of the following morning, armed supporters of the men stormed the prison where they were being held and took...
Twenty-year-old Nasta Polozhanka was detained by the Belarusian KGB for more than two months. One of the leaders of the youth movement Molodoi Front, she is accused of organising ‘mass disturbances’. If convicted, she faces up to 15 years in prison. The ‘mass disturbances’ in question were a largely peaceful protest against last year’s rigged presidential elections. As soon as polling stations closed on 19 December, the Election Commission announced yet another landslide victory for Aleskandr Lukashenko, ‘Europe’s last dictator’, who has been in power for 16 years.
Wherever you look in Grozny there are gaping shell-holes in the walls, crumbling balconies, empty window frames, and doors so pockmarked by bullets that you can see right through them. When I went back this spring, however, the central avenue in the city, called Prospect Pobedy, looked strikingly different. The pavement had been mended, the buildings were freshly painted and new windows had been put in. Here at last was tangible backing for Russia’s claim that the situation in Chechnya is returning to normal, and that reconstruction is underway.
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