Activists Nadezhda Atayeva, Shahida Yakub and Yadgor Obid…

Uznews.net – Uzbek activists living in European countries have threatened the UK-based Environmental Justice Foundation for defaming the Uzbek people by titling its report on forced child labour in the Uzbek cotton industry “Slave Nation”.

Activists Nadezhda Atayeva, Shahida Yakub and Yadgor Obid said in a statement on Thursday that the title of the report is “inappropriate and insulting to the Uzbek people” and demanded that the foundation change the title and offer public apologies.

“This is a slap. They painted everything in black. Slaves do not revolt, but we are fighting,” Shahida Yakub told Uznews.net.

The statement came as surprise to the foundation. Spokeswoman for organisation, Juliet Williams who worked on the report, said that the report’s title did reflect the situation in the country where the government forced millions to work in cotton fields without chance to refuse it.

She said that the report aimed to expose the Uzbek government that it used free labour, including child labour, to enrich itself. The foundation refused to change the title and Williams said that she apologised if the report hurt anyone.

Umida

	The cover of the report \”Slave Nation\”

Niyazova, the head of the Uzbek-German forum for human rights in Berlin, supported the foundation position saying that the government did not ask people far from agriculture whether they wanted to pick cotton or use their time as their wished.

She equated child labour in cotton fields to slave labour and the state of Uzbek farmers to that of mediaeval serfs.

The title “Slave Nation” very well reflects the reality in Uzbekistan, Abdujalil Boymatov, the head of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, said. The only difference is that today’s slavery does not imply the sale of people on slave markets, he noted.

“They are forced to work against their will and they are not paid for this, while some people are enriching themselves using them as nothing but slaves. This is unpleasant to recognise, but we have to face the truth,” he said.

Shahida Yakub admitted that the use of labour of millions of children was a new form of slavery and agreed with the content of the report, but she thinks the foundation should have picked a different title for its report.

The signatories forgot that they had not been living in Uzbekistan for a long time and the reason for this was the government’s persecution which means jail terms if one does not agree with it.

Their threats to sue the foundation are reminiscent of the trial of photographer and documentary filmmaker Umida Ahmedova in February for defaming the Uzbek people in her works. No-one knows who filed this case but someone felt that her photographs and documentaries that showed the reality defamed the nation.

This shows that not only may the Uzbek government feel this or that, but also self-styled democrats and human rights activists living abroad.