Associated Press
November 9, 2005

A reporter for a Central Asian news Web site known for critical reports on the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan said Wednesday he was attacked outside his apartment by men he said were hired by Uzbek security forces.

Alexei Volosevich, a 38-year-old reporter for Ferghana.ru, said he received a phone call at home from a man promising to provide information on the May uprising in the eastern city of Andijan.

He said that upon leaving his apartment, five young men kicked him, threw paint on him and shouted "You can't sell your Motherland!" He also said anti-Semitic graffiti was scrawled on the walls outside his apartment door.

Khabibulo Kurbonov, a police officer who was investigating the incident, confirmed the attack but had no further comment.

Volosevich, who said he suffered minor injuries, extensively covered the Andijan uprising, in which rights groups say hundreds of civilians died when government troops brutally suppressed the demonstrations. The government says about 190 people died and that Islamic extremists instigated the uprising.

Volosevich blamed footage from the Andijan uprising that has played repeatedly on state-run newscasts. The footage shows him and another correspondent entering the mayor's office in Andijan, which at the time had been seized by participants in the uprising. The broadcasts were accompanied by a voice-over which called him a "hyena" and "jackal."

"I think (the attack) is an attempt to shut up the handful of local independent and foreign journalists covering the events in the country," he told The Associated Press. He has also had articles published in Russian newspapers.

The Interfax news agency later cited National Security Service spokesman Olimzhon Turakulov as saying that Volosevich may have staged the attack himself.

"It is known that he is striving to earn the halo of a martyr persecuted by the authorities and to emigrate to a Western country as a political refugee," Turakulov was quoted as saying.

In recent years - and particularly since the Andijan uprising - Uzbekistan's authoritarian regime has cracked down on foreign non-governmental organizations and tightened restrictions on independent journalists. Earlier this year, journalists from Radio Free Europe were threatened and arrested.

President Islam Karimov is regarded as one of the harshest leaders in the former Soviet Union states.

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