Uzbek Students In Distress
Culture and History, Uzbekistan5 Comments
University students throughout the country now have to seek permission from university administration before participating in international conferences or getting involved in projects/initiatives funded by foreign NGOs. Given that there are only a handful of those left, Tashkent offices of OSCE, UNDP and ABA are definitely at the very top of the blacklist.
To bring a simple example: ABA was set to conduct a student moot court competition in August. The first days of training went just fine when suddenly the rector of Tashkent State Institute of Law showed up and commanded that his students withdraw their teams from the competition. The students naturally obeyed for fear of being expelled from the institute. He has consequently passed an internal memo spelling out orders to impose “serious disciplinary measures” on those who dare participate in similar events without informing the administration in the first place.
In some cases students of certain universities are still allowed to go. However, they have to closely watch their words and actions and are never to criticize the regime. Instead they are expected to emphasize the positive aspects of economic, social and political reforms taken by the Uzbek government and give out favourable answers when asked about their personal opinion on post-Andijon situation.
From all I know it seems like the government will eventually succeed in generating public accord with regards to the said events. Now that it has become equally problematic to get in or out of the country or access foreign media the majority of Uzbeks are likely to give in to the mounting government pressure exerted through propaganda and pathetic patriotic slogans like “Uzbekistan is a country with great future” or “The Uzbek people shall not depend on anyone”. I have noticed quite a few people already show signs of approval for gov’t actions by blaming some external forces for all the problems. At least that’s the impression I get when listening to people discuss the Andijon crisis and the trial these days.
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Uzbekistan: Students in Distress
neweurasia has launched its Uzbekistan blog, where Olesya reports on the difficulties Uzbek students who want to study abroad face
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Hi Olesya!
Excellent posts, you’re a good reporter and your perspective is appreciated. You are here in Uzbekistan somewhere? I never post my email publicly, because some of the things I say would not be appreciated here, but if you want to get my email from Nathan Hamm (at Registan) I would be interested in talking to you.
Good work!
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[...] —Olesya, neweurasia/Thinking-East, 05.10.2005 [...]
[...] —Olesya, neweurasia/Thinking-East, 05.10.2005 [...]
[...] —Olesya, neweurasia/Thinking-East, 05.10.2005 [...]