ODIHR Director Link renews call for international investigation on 10th anniversary of Andijan killings

WARSAW, 13 May 2015 – On the 10th anniversary of deaths of hundreds of largely unarmed civilians, shot by security forces in Andijan, Uzbekistan, Michael Georg Link, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), repeated the Office’s call for an international investigation of the killings.

“We must, on this day, not only remember those who lost their lives in the massacre, or their families, still waiting for justice,” Director Link said. “Most importantly, we must renew our call for the establishment of an independent, credible, international investigation into the events in Andijan on 13 May, 2005.”

Although ODIHR officials were not allowed to visit Andijan after the shootings, a report of preliminary findings released by the Office, based on interviews in Kyrgyzstan with refugees from Uzbekistan, put the number killed at from 300 to 500. It also found that Uzbekistan’s security forces fired indiscriminately at unarmed protesters in the town’s Babur Square and that extrajudicial executions may have occurred during and in the wake of the protests at the square.

“Our report established strong grounds from which to conclude that the security forces committed gross human rights violations, including to the most basic right to life, through the unnecessary use of lethal force against the protesters,” the ODIHR Director said. “Until these violations are addressed and the full truth of what happened is established, the shadow of events a decade ago still hangs over the human rights and, as a result, the security situation today.”

The events in Andijan began with protests at the trials of 23 local businessmen. These were followed by the storming of the prison where the businessmen were being held by armed gunmen in the early hours of 13 May. This drew much larger crowds into the square, with the focus of the protest broadening to include issues such as economic policy and poverty. The deaths occurred as security forces reportedly fired indiscriminately on the crowds either in the square or trying to leave it, without warning, on numerous occasions through the day.

Uzbekistan officials put the death toll at 187, with 60 of these listed as protesters killed by the gunmen who stormed the prison and the rest as gunmen killed by government forces. These figures have been contradicted by most other reports of the events, including those by ODIHR and international human rights organizations, which put the number of deaths much higher.