Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-15-Speech-4-207-000"
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"en.20111215.23.4-207-000"2
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"Madam President, it is nice to see you in the chair and I hope, like other colleagues, to see a bit more of you.
It is difficult to think of a more textbook case of a repressive regime than that in Uzbekistan. That beautiful country with the ancient cities of the Silk Road is being treated more or less as the personal property of the president’s family and of some of their cronies. There is an almost Caligulan tyranny there, and a regime which is involved in drug running and repression – two opponents of the regime were boiled to death while in prison.
And yet the West has tended to hold back from criticism because in the uncertain days immediately after 9/11 the Karimov dictatorship had the wit to declare itself an ally in the war on terror and to make its bases available for use in the Afghan campaign.
This is the error we make again and again in Muslim countries. We made it with the Shah in Iran, we made it in Egypt and we are making it in Saudi Arabia. There is no, or very little, fundamentalism in Uzbekistan. A traveller there does not see beards, does not perceive headscarves and does not hear the call to prayer. However, if we define every opponent of the Karimov tyranny as a fundamentalist, we will eventually make that prediction come true and we will create the very thing we purport to fear."@en1
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