[inspic=80,left,,100] Recently, all leading state-controlled TV companies in Uzbekistan had broadcast an about hour long program about the Radio Ozodlik (RFE/RL Uzbek service), where they accused the RFE/RL Uzbek service staff of being “traitors� who bring “unfriendly� messages into the country and thus attempt to destabilize the situation in Uzbekistan. The program was broadcast at prime-time in the evening, when families get together to have a dinner and watch TV at the same time (Uzbek culture). It is also a time when Korean/Turkish made soap operas, much beloved by Uzbeks, begin. So, I guess the program had a really big audience. The program was broadcast in the beginning of June and recently was rebroadcast again.

I had a chance to talk with a person, who had watched the program on the First Channel (‘Uzbekistan’). According to him, the program was neatly prepared and it was obvious that a lot of effort was put in it. It began discussing about the RFE/RL in general and ended showing pictures of each RFE/RL Uzbek service staff and telling home addresses of their relatives, and names of their schools and works. He remembers the narrator of the program saying:

… These people [RFE/RL Uzbek service staff] say that Uzbekistan is not a democratic country, where human rights are being constantly violated. What an obvious lie they are trying to convey to us! And even if you don’t believe, they keep repeating it…

Personally, I could not keep from smiling when heard this from my interlocutor, who watched the program on state-controlled TV channel. However, he also said that most people already do not believe in such “programs� by the government, as people lost their trust in the Uzbek mainstream media that is controlled by the government.

RFE/RL expressed their concern about the security of their staff and their relatives in Uzbekistan. The reason for that is that back in 2007, few weeks before Alisher Saipov, ethnic Uzbek journalist from Kyrgyzstan, was fatally shot in front of his office, the state-controlled Namangan TV broadcast a program that smeared him. Now, there is a great possibility that relatives of RFE/RL Uzbek service staff could be somehow oppressed by the Uzbek government.

Many international human rights watchdogs expressed their solidarity with RFE/RL staff. RFE/RL website quotes Andrew Stroehlein, media director for the International Crisis Group (ICG).

These television stations are known to have close links with the security services, and it’s very well known that last year, when they vilified another journalist by the name of Alisher Saipov, he was murdered very shortly after.

Jeffrey Gedmin, RFE/RL president, called the program “a direct and deliberate attempt to endanger our journalists.” I guess it was. Otherwise why to give all that journalists’’ private information? Jeffrey Gedman also wrote in a written statement that: “The Uzbek government has produced these broadcasts to portray our journalists as criminals, and therefore either to incite attacks against them or to condition viewers for attacks it may seek to perpetrate itself. These are the acts of an outlaw regime, not of a respectable government.”

Today, Uzbekistan is trying to meet EU standards on human rights to prepare grounds for mutual cooperation on security and energy issues. Recently, Tashkent hosted an international media conference, the quality and validity of which, however, is still under question. Several human rights activists were released. If the Uzbek government really wants to cooperate with EU and/or US, it should now take the relatives and close people of RFE/RL staff under its patronage, as any incident that may happen to them, even if the Uzbek government is not involved in it, may be speculated in western media as an act prepared by the Uzbek security services to assault RFE/RL Uzbek service workers.