abdujalil

Apr 212009
 
Lola Karimova-Tillayeva
21.04.09 16:05
Uzbek president’s second daughter enters Paris’s beau monde
Uznews.net – Uzbek President Islam Karimov must be proud of his daughters who are Uzbekistan’s ambassadors to UN agencies in Europe where they have become friends of A-list cinema and show business stars.

The president’s youngest daughter, Lola Karimova-Tillayeva, Uzbekistan’s ambassador to UNESCO, has hosted a reception in Paris on 8 April to present her new Uzbekistan 2020 charity fund.

Her website reported that the former First Lady of France Bernadette Chirac and the incumbent French president’s elder brother, Guillaume Sarkozy, a textile producer, had attended the reception.

French actor Alain Delon even kissed her hand, flattering her self-esteem.

The Uzbek president’s daughter was all glamorous, wearing diamonds and carrying a little silver bag.

What is it about the Uzbekistan 2020 fund that makes it possible for it to gather France’s beau monde around the daughter of one of the world’s most brutal dictators?

Karimova-Tillayeva’s website says that the fund aims to hold cultural and intellectual exchange between Uzbekistan and Europe and support children’s education and development in Uzbekistan. These aims should be achieved by 2020, which is why the fund is called Uzbekistan 2020.

The successful advancement of Lola Karimova and her sister Gulnara Karimova, who is Uzbekistan’s ambassador to the UN Office at Geneva, in the European high society is thanks to Europeans’ unawareness about the situation in Uzbekistan, believes Uzbek human rights activist Mutabar Tajibayeva, who is now in Paris.

“The French people know almost nothing about our country and that Gulnara and Lola are the daughters of the dictator who is responsible for the massacre of people in Andijan in 2005 and for the terrible human rights and economic situation in the country,” Tajibayeva said. Continue reading »

Apr 032009
 
Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele and Gulnara Karimova
03.04.09 23:38                 gulnora-karimova
Chopard postpones cooperation with Uzbek presidential daughter
Uznews.net – The Swiss jewellery company Chopard has declined to hold the joint presentation of the new Guli brand, created by the Uzbek president’s daughter Gulnara Karimova, at a watch and jewellery tradeshow in Basel.

Despite the long-planned joint presentation of Gulnara’s jewellery collection at the Basel fair between 26 March and 2 April, Chopard suddenly backed away from its commitment, postponing the event indefinitely.

There was no joint presentation of the collection by Guli and Chopard in Basel, Annette Heuer, Chopard’s public relations officer, said.

She said that Chopard had not stopped cooperation with Karimova, who is Uzbekistan’s envoy to the UN Office at Geneva, but had suspended it until it found out what the money raised from the sales of the collection would be spent on. Karimova’s guli.uz website claims that it will be spent on children’s projects in Uzbekistan.

Realising that cooperation with Karimova, a daughter of one of the world’s most brutal dictators, will give rise to questions about Chopard’s policy and ethical standards, Heuer tried to reassure the press that this cooperation had nothing to do with politics. Continue reading »

Apr 022009
 

III
111TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION S. RES. 99
Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Government of Uzbekistan
should immediately enforce its existing domestic legislation and fulfill
its international commitments aimed at ending state-sponsored forced
and child labor.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
APRIL 2, 2009
Mr. HARKIN (for himself, Mr. SANDERS, and Mr. BINGAMAN) submitted the
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Government
of Uzbekistan should immediately enforce its existing
domestic legislation and fulfill its international commitments
aimed at ending state-sponsored forced and child
labor.
Whereas the United States has a growing strategic involvement
in Central Asia;
Whereas the interests of the United States in Central Asia,
including the operations in Afghanistan, can only be secured
by the presence in the region of viable, vigorous democracies
that fully guarantee the economic and social
rights of all people, including children;
VerDate Nov 24 2008 05:53 Apr 03, 2009 Jkt 079200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR99.IS SR99 rfrederick on PROD1PC67 with BILLS
2
•SRES 99 IS
Whereas the Government of Uzbekistan continues to commit
serious human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrest
and detention, torture in custody, and the severe restriction
of freedom of speech, the press, religion, independent
political activity, and nongovernmental organizations;
Whereas the Government of Uzbekistan detains thousands of
people for political or religious reasons;
Whereas Uzbekistan is the third largest exporter of cotton in
the world, and cotton is 1 of the largest sources of export
revenue for Uzbekistan; Continue reading »

Mar 272009
 
Chopard’s Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele with Karimova.
27.03.09 17:27
Chopard’s controversy over Guli blood diamonds
Uznews.net – Chopard representatives have denied their involvement in promoting the Uzbek president’s daughter Gulnara Karimova’s Guli jewellery collection at an international watch and jewellery tradeshow in Basel, while Guli representatives claim the opposite.

A German journalist who is covering the tradeshow from Basel said that Chopard representatives had claimed that the presentation of Guli was being held with Chopard’s involvement.

A Chopard representative told the journalist that certain issues should be solved in relations between her company and Guli.

In particular, Chopard wants to clarify the guli.uz website’s claim that money raised from selling Guli jewellery will be spent on children’s projects in Uzbekistan.

There will be no joint presentation of the collection until this issue is clarified, she said, adding that even then it would be done no earlier than April or May.

However, those manning the Guli stand in Basel told the journalist that the presentation of their collection was being held jointly with Chopard and that the entire collection had been designed for this company. Continue reading »

Mar 252009
 
Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele and Gulnara Karimova
25.03.09 10:54
Chopard and Guli blood diamonds
Uznews.net – Uzbek human rights activist Abdujalil Boymatov has urged Chopard jewellery and watch company to reconsider its relations with Gulnara Karimova and plans to promote the Guli brand in order to avoid association with blood diamonds.

Boimatov said he sent a letter to the company in which he expressed his bewilderment about its cooperation with the Uzbek president’s daughter Gulnara Karimova. Continue reading »

Mar 192009
 
gulnora-karimova1
Chopard’s Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele
19.03.09 20:02
Chopard refuses to comment on links with Uzbek presidential daughter
Uznews.net – Chopard, a Swiss jewellery and watch company that is promoting the Uzbek president’s eldest daughter Gulnara Karimova’s Guli goldsmith collection, has refused to comment on its controversial cooperation with the Uzbek dictator’s daughter.

The company’s spokeswoman, Daphne Secretan, has confirmed that she has received Uznews.net’s questions and has promised to answer them within the next few days. Meanwhile, she said she had nothing to say about new cooperation and the company’s new partner.

Chopard will exhibit Karimova’s Guli jewelleries as part of its collection in Basel between 26 March and 2 April, and will afterwards sell them in its 150 boutiques worldwide.

Chopard’s cooperation with the daughter of President Islam Karimov who has claimed notoriety in the world after massacring a rally in Andijan on 13 May 2005 and imprisoning thousands of dissidents has caused negative reaction from people who observe the situation in Uzbekistan. Continue reading »

Feb 192009
 

Appeal

Independent HRDs from Uzbekistan are worried and anxious about the news they are receiving about the dreadful situation in which prisoners of conscience find themselves in their places of detention. Many of them are being bullied by fanatical staff from penal colonies, and the tyrannical supervisors in the prisons subject them to all sorts of provocations. They do not receive medical assistance in time, and on many occasions their relatives have been denied permission to see them for various far-fetched reasons. Continue reading »

Feb 062009
 
People and the State
Alisher Karamatov; photo: HRSU
06.02.09 11:49
Human Rights Watch calls for release of Uzbek activist
Uznews.net – Human Rights Watch has urged Uzbekistan to immediately release convicted human rights activist Alisher Karamatov who is facing torture in prison.

It also demanded that the authorities investigate an incident when prison officers tortured him in freezing conditions on 30 December 2008.

His wife Namuna Karamatova said that prison guards had tortured him to confess to a disciplinary violation – attending prayers.

She complained that because of tuberculosis he was transferred from the Karshi prison to the Tashkent prison’s hospital in autumn 2008 and now he spat blood. Continue reading »

Nov 202008
 

forced-child-laboruzbekistanautumn2008

t 202 347-4100 f 202 347-4885 laborrights@ilrf.org www.laborrights.org
Uzbekistan update: Government still forcing young children to harvest
cotton despite pledges to ban the practice

A group of human rights defenders in Uzbekistan
International Labor Rights Forum
November 2008
This report is based on information gathered by human rights defenders within Uzbekistan in
September/October 2008. Contrary to the government of Uzbekistan’s assertions that it has
banned forced child labor, recent information suggests it continues to compel children as young
as 11 and 12 to pick cotton, closing schools and using other coercive measures to enforce
compliance. Although Uzbekistan has recently signed two ILO conventions against forced and
child labor, and issued a new decree ostensibly prohibiting the practice, information from
around the country shows that the government continues to rely on the state?orchestrated
mass mobilization of children to bring in the 2008 cotton harvest. Uzbekistan is the world’s
third largest exporter of cotton, and cotton is that country’s largest source of export revenue.
Children already in the fields for weeks
According to reports from nine of Uzbekistan’s twelve territorial units, (Jizzakh, Fergana,
Namangan, Syr Daria, Surkhandaria, Bukhara, Khorezm, Tashkent and Samarkand provinces) by
the third week of of September local governments and school administrators had already sent
children as young as the seventh grade (ages 13?14), and in some cases as young as fifth grade
(11?12) out to the fields to pick cotton. By the end of September, pressure to bring in the
harvest before rains began near the end of the month led local officials to order the smallest
schoolchildren, from first grade on, to labor on the harvest.
In Fergana, schools were closed and children were sent out from September 22, though a week
earlier those same schools forced children to sign statements that they would remain in school
over the fall semester. Journalists on the scene suggested that these statements were intended
to give local government officials plausible deniability if the children’s presence in the fields was
challenged.
In one Namangan district, journalists and human rights defenders observed children from
several schools, some as young as eleven, picking cotton. The children reported that each day
local government officials and bureaucrats from the local education department would visit the
fields to check up on the number of pupils out picking, and to make sure that harvest targets
were being met.
The Samarkand provincial government also sent its schoolchildren out to pick cotton on
September 22. Children as young as 13 were forced from their classrooms on that date, though
International Labor Rights Forum Continue reading »