More on the persecution of journalists continued from the previous post ...

Speaking of Reporters Without Borders, that organization that strives to protect journalists from persecution, imprisonment and murder is not happy with the UN. A report titled, "UN Human Rights Council misses chance to condemn Tashkent’s abuses" illustrates why:

Reporters Without Borders today joined Human Rights Watch in expressing deep disappointment at the United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision this week to examine the human rights situation in Uzbekistan in private instead of in open session.

“We condemn the UN Human Rights Council’s decision to conduct a confidential investigation into the events in Andijan in May 2005, since when Uzbekistan has been in the grip of repression and the local correspondents of the BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have been forced to leave the country,” the press freedom organisation said.

Despite resorting to authoritarian measures, the government refuses to acknowledge that human rights are flouted in Uzbekistan. It sent a memo to the Human Rights Council in June of this year describing the international community’s concerns as baseless.

And that, apparently, is good enough for the UN, even though presented with this:

An “appalling, Soviet-style crackdown on journalists” is under way in Uzbekistan, Reporters Without Borders said today after learning that an independent journalist, Ulugbek Khaidarov, was sentenced yesterday to six years in prison and another one, Jamshid Karimov, who happens to be President Islam Karimov’s nephew, is to be kept against his will in a psychiatric hospital for six months.

“The Uzbek government has launched a war on foreign and Uzbek journalists in a situation that has not stopped deteriorating since the Andijan uprising,” the press freedom organisation said, calling for the release of both detained journalists.

... Both Khaidarov and Karimov are former Uzbekistan correspondents of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, freelance contributors to the independent news websites fergana.ru and centrasia.ru and opposition supporters. And both have long been the targets of harassment by President Karimov’s government.

Since May 2005 and the Andijan uprising, the authorities have been working overtime to get foreign media out and local media to shut up.

If Uzbekistan is allowed carte blanche and Russia gets away with murder and foreign reporters are barred from Zimbabwe, and all this happens while 131 journalists have been imprisoned this year ... along with 59 cyberdissidents ... shouldn't we all be more than a bit worried? And shouldn't there be action from an organization that calls itself the United Nations Human Rights Council?