It’s been 20 years since Uzbekistan’s security forces opened fire on a largely peaceful crowd of protesters and curious onlookers, including women and children, on May 13, 2005 in Andijan, a city in eastern Uzbekistan, killing hundreds of civilians and wounding many others. Hundreds of people fled Andijan that day, pouring into neighboring Kyrgyzstan, their lives upended in an instant.
Uzbekistan’s late President Islam Karimov and his administration blamed “religious fundamentalists” for organizing the protests. Authorities were relentless in pursuing people suspected of participating in the protest – or more to the point, who may have witnessed the massacre. For years, Uzbek authorities tyrannized the families of those who fled, demanding their loved ones’ return.
In the years following the Andijan Massacre a political crackdown ensued in Uzbekistan, and over a dozen human rights defenders and journalists were wrongfully imprisoned.
International intergovernmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations alike carried out investigations to document the massacre and its aftermath. The European Union and the United States initially condemned the killings and called on the Uzbek government to allow an independent investigation, but eventually they stopped calling publicly for accountability for Andijan.
The Uzbekistan government never commissioned an independent investigation into the massacre, and no one has been held accountable for the grave human rights crimes that occurred during and after it.
A new government came to power after Karimov’s death in 2016. While Uzbekistan has changed over the last nine years, patterns of abuse persist.
In July 2022, large scale protests swept the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan after the government proposed changes to the constitution that would have stripped the republic of its autonomous status and its right to hold a referendum on independence.
The proposals were quickly withdrawn in response to the protests, but security forces resorted to unjustified lethal force and other forms of excessive force, including discharging small arms and grenades, to disperse mainly peaceful protesters. At least 21 people died, including four law enforcement officers. Over 270 were injured.
While the circumstances that compelled people to take to the streets in Andijan in 2005 and in Karakalpakstan in 2022 were different and the use of lethal force by security forces resulted in significantly fewer deaths of protesters in the latter case, the government’s response to the two large-scale protests was largely the same: Use lethal force to quell the protests, and then blame and punish the alleged organizers.
Dauletmurat Tajimuratov, a blogger and lawyer, was accused of masterminding the Karakalpakstan protests. He now languishes in prison, serving an unfounded 16-year prison sentence. The authorities have repeatedly ignored his allegations of ill-treatment and torture. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recently concluded that Uzbekistan violated international human rights law in detaining him and urged authorities to “release Mr. Tazhimuratov immediately.”
The parliament’s decision in July 2022 to create a commission to investigate the Karakalpakstan events was a step in the right direction. But it was deeply flawed from the start. After two-and-a-half years, the commission presented its findings in December 2024 to parliament, but has not made the report public.
In August 2023, an Uzbekistan court sentenced two police officers to seven years in prison for torture and another to three years in prison for perjury and leaving a person in danger resulting in his death in connection with the Karakalpakstan events. No other officials have been held accountable for the deaths and serious injuries that occurred due to the lethal use of force there.
Addressing the lack of accountability for past abuses in Andijan has not been high on the current administration’s agenda, nor has addressing the lack of accountability for more recent rights abuses in Karakalpakstan.
Yet the government’s responsibility to ensure accountability for abuses – past or recent – is as salient today as it was three or 20 years ago. On this 20th anniversary, let’s not forget the hundreds of people who were massacred in Andijan. Let’s not forget the nearly two dozen people who were killed in Karakalpakstan either.
The government should finally commission an independent investigation into the grave crimes that took place on May 13, 2005 and the human rights abuses that followed. The parliamentary commission’s report on Karakalpakstan should be made public and the authorities should hold accountable those responsible for the deaths of protesters in Karakalpakstan.
Uzbekistan’s international partners have an important role to play too. On this anniversary of such a dark moment in Uzbekistan’s history, the European Union, the United States, and other international partners should all renew their calls for accountability for past atrocities committed in Andijan and for the more recent killings in Karakalpakstan.
