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Briefing on Prospects for Political Change in Uzbekistan
Helsinki Commission
Presented on July 25, 2006
Dr. Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today.
It is always a privilege to appear before the Commission, whether at a hearing or at a briefing. It is a particular honor today, as I am sharing the platform with a number of individuals, who have made great personal sacrifices in the cause of building democracy in Uzbekistan.
As each of the preceding speakers has through their own life stories clearly attested, the challenge of building democracy in Uzbekistan is a daunting and frustrating one. Democracy activists operating inside the country put themselves, and their families, at great risk, and the risk continues for those who leave their Uzbek homeland to work for this cause abroad. While those in U.S. and other western funded NGOs working toward the goal of a democratic Uzbekistan find, at best, a frustrating situation when they try and set up work inside the country, and increasingly they are finding it effectively impossible to do so.
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