TASHKENT - A dissident journalist and activist was severely beaten by an unknown assailant amid simmering tensions in a southern region of Uzbekistan, the journalist and witnesses said on Monday.
The attacker beat up Ulugbek Haidarov, 42, a journalist and district head of the Ezgulik (Kindness) human rights group late on Saturday, breaking one of his collar bones, Haidarov said from his hospital bed.
"I think the attack is directly related to my publications on the Internet about the situation in this region," he said by telephone from Jizzakh's central hospital. "I have several times been warned to leave or face reprisals."
Jizzakh's authorities have stepped up pressure on Haidarov recently, particularly over his publishing of comments made by Jizzakh's governor Ubadulla Yamankulov at a press conference referring to the United States as the globe's policeman, observers say.
Uzbekistan's relationship with the United States, deepened by hardline President Islam Karimov's decision to host a large US airbase near the Afghan border in 2001, is a sensitive topic here.
The mainly cotton-growing Jizzakh region has seen a number of disturbances in recent months, including one in which protestors burnt down a police station and set alight two police cars, according to witnesses.
Last month's ousting of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan's veteran leader Askar Akayev sent shock-waves through former Soviet Central Asia, raising doubts about the prospects of governments such as Karimov's, analysts have said.
04/25/2005 17:31 GMT