Registan’s Uzbekistan News & Analysis Archive

Uzbekistan has been the most topic subject of coverage at Registan since our launch in 2003. Several Registan authors have lived, worked, and studied in Uzbekistan and have between them decades of experience in academia, government, and private industry dealing with topics related to Uzbekistan. We use that experience and expertise to report on, contextualize, and analyze current events in Uzbekistan. Our most current coverage of Central Asia news can be found on our front page. Inquiries about our Uzbekistan news and analysis, hiring Registan authors to consult on Uzbekistan, or any other topic, can be submitted via the contact form on our about page.

Uzbekistan Government’s Media Friend in Seoul

by Nathan Hamm
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The Korea Times has a long, strange history in its coverage of Uzbekistan. Back in 2004, the paper carried a story by Vitaly Fen, Uzbekistan’s ambassador to South Korea, on Uzbekistan’s imminent greatness. In 2005, Fen wrote a piece post-Andijon calling the events unfortunate, but trumpeting the government’s pursuit of stability and the benefits of [...]

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Thinking About Post-Karimov Uzbekistan

by Joshua Foust
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Scott Horton is absolutely right about this: NATO should be honest about Islam Karimov’s Uzbekistan—indeed, honesty presents cost-cutting opportunities… Islam Karimov won’t live forever—it would be surprising if he were still alive a decade from now, or if his family continued to cling to power. NATO’s operations in Uzbekistan will inevitably benefit him and the [...]

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The Boys From The Riverside

by Guest

Note: This is a guest post from AwarenessProjects.org 1998 Summer days of Samarkand countryside… A river that stretches like snake from one village to the other… It attracts many youngsters who like combining the fun of swimming with shepherding. Every morning, the village boys take their cows and sheep out to the fields and the [...]

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US Rep. Provides Fodder for Uzbek Media

by Nathan Hamm
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Last week, the Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Samoa’s Representative in the US House, celebrated 20 years of US-Uzbekistan relations (PDF), during the course of which, he sang Uzbekistan’s praises. Today, Uzbekistan has managed to make significant progress in every field including politics, economics, and international relations. Working to build a foundation based on established [...]

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Well-Known Uzbek Cleric Shot in Sweden

by Nathan Hamm
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Obidxon qori Nazarov, a well-known imam from Uzbekistan now living as a refugee in Sweden, was shot yesterday outside his home. (More at RFE/RL and UzNews.) Nazarov, various media outlets report, had been moving frequently after moving to Sweden in 2006 after living in hiding in Kazakhstan since 1998. Nazarov is an interesting religious figure. [...]

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Why Did Uzbekistan Ban Wikipedia?

by Sarah Kendzior
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Uzbekistan’s ban on Wikipedia is censorship as performance art. The ban, enacted late last month, blocks all articles written in Uzbek while leaving articles in other languages accessible. Unlike earlier acts of online censorship, the ban on Uzbek Wikipedia articles does not prevent citizens from accessing political information. On the contrary, it blocks a prime [...]

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Why Central Asia Isn’t Revolting

by Joshua Foust
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Scott Radnitz has a provocative take in Foreign Policy: On the surface, Central Asia would appear to be ripe for a popular uprising modeled on the Arab Spring. The “stans” are home to repressive governments, high unemployment, inequality, and widespread corruption. Over a year has passed since the wave of protests began to spread across [...]

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Where is Uzbekistan’s Gas?

by Nathan Hamm
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Gazeta.uz has a story trumpeting an increase in foreign trade turnover, rattling off a series of figures released by UzStat, the state statistics committee. Keeping in mind that Uzbekistan’s official economic’s figures should always be treated with extreme skepticism, there’s an interesting nugget in there. Heating gas and petrol shortages have become an annual affair [...]

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The Story That Wouldn’t Die

by Nathan Hamm
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The “Uzbekistan bans Valentine’s Day” story has been going on a slow burn through the western media for the last several weeks or so. (The amount of attention already seemed over the top to me a a couple weeks ago). With today being the big day, there has understandably been a minor explosion of articles [...]

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When Everyone’s a Spy: Talking About the SNB Online

by Sarah Kendzior
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“In a system of ubiquitous spying,” the philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote, “everybody may be a police agent and each individual feels himself under constant surveillance.” Arendt was writing about Stalin’s totalitarian regime, but her description is equally apt for authoritarian post-Soviet states like Uzbekistan, whose national security services (SNB) are the literal and figurative [...]

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