READER ZUBAER MAHBOOB EMAILS:
As a concerned Muslim who wants to see democracy take root not just in Iraq but all across the Middle East and Central Asia, I despair of the stunning silence in the blogosphere regarding the terrible news from Uzbekistan, a massacre of civilians by the odious Karimov.
What is really depressing is that all the bloggers who made such a song and dance over the Iraqi elections cannot for the life of them be bothered to even MENTION this atrocity, not even in passing.
You are our last hope, Glenn. I believe in your innate decency and fairness. If you can, please draw some attention to this topic. No one else is saying a word about it, giving Karimov and his backers a free ride on this issue. You have great influence in the political blogosphere. I request you to use your power to shed a stronger light on the misdeeds of this ugly client regime, and to at least force people to acknowledge what is going on.
We will be eternally grateful.
Well, I don’t think that it’s fair to say that nobody’s talking about it. This rather long post from earlier today links quite a few bloggers who have been on the story for a while, and I’ve certainly been posting on it regularly. And Austin Bay has blogged about it as well, and is promising more, as has Winds of Change and Publius, among others.
Media coverage of events there has been rather thin, the government is doing its best to shut off communications, and unless — like me in the earlier post, or like Gateway Pundit or Registan — you’re getting emails from people there, it’s hard to find much to say. And I don’t generally like to criticize people for blogging about what they think is important, instead of what I think is important.
Nonetheless, I do hope that more bloggers — and more mainstream media outfits — will take up the call. I suspect, and hope, that there’s more going on than meets the eye at the moment. There usually is in these situations. But regardless, external pressure is almost always a good thing.
UPDATE: James Bennett (not the Anglosphere one) emails that he’s posted about it on his blog, here and here. He’s spent time there.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Brian Erst emails:
NPR had a very good piece on Uzbekistan today, featuring a reporter who was in the area where the massacre occurred.
The journalist was very clear that the official Uzbek government line is a lie. She personally witnessed Uzbek troops opening fire on demonstrators, including women and children, with no prior warning. She claimed the casualty figures were much, much higher than reported – at least 1000-1500 dead – and that did not include women and children, whose corpses the government gathered and “disappeared”.
It was a disturbing report by an eyewitness.
Good for them. I caught part of ATC this afternoon, but not that part.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Jay Reding has further thoughts.
MORE: A sum-up article by Nathan Hamm at OpenDemocracy.net.