Uzbekistan Erupts

[David]

AP


Outrage over the terror trial of 23 Muslims exploded into broader unrest in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan Friday as thousands of protesters swarmed the streets, clashed with police and stormed a jail, freeing 23 inmates. According to officials and witnesses, at least nine people are dead and at least 34 have been injured.

One protester, who said the death toll could be as high as 20, said 30 soldiers are being held hostage because they were shooting at demonstrators. Two of the dead were children, according to Sharif Shakirov, a brother of one of the freed inmates - who are all defendants being tried for links to an outlawed radical group.

Armed crowds have surrounded police officers in parts of Andijan, and negotiations are under way to free them, according to a spokesman for Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who rushed from the capital of Tashkent to Andijan, along with other top government officials.

The 23 inmates freed by protesters Friday were being tried on charges of anti-constitutional activity and forming a criminal and extremist organization, but supporters say the case is part of a broad government crackdown on religious dissent. All of the defendants pleaded not guilty at their trial, which opened Feb. 10.

"We are not going to overthrow the government. We demand economic freedom," of the freed inmates, Abduvosid Egomov, 33. "If the army is going to storm, if they're going to shoot, we are ready to die instead of living as we are living now. The Uzbek people have been reduced to living like dirt," Egomov said.

"The people have risen," said Valijon Atakhonjonov, the brother of another one of the freed inmates, saying several thousand people rallied outside the local administration building, demanding more jobs and a general improvement in the regional and national economy.

Several hours after Uzbekistan appeared to plunge into chaos, the government - which says it remains in control of Andijan - blocked all foreign news broadcasts.

The block remains in effect. Authorities have cut all foreign TV news programming, including CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp., replacing them with Uzbek and foreign entertainment channels.

Uzbekistan, a landlocked Central Asian nation which gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, is home to a U.S. military base, shares a border with five countries including Afghanistan, is the world's second largest exporter of cotton and is a large producer of gold and oil.

Friday morning, before foreign news channels were cut off, Andijan was surrounded by new police checkpoints and parked trucks filled with sand blocked all approaches. By midmorning, the streets were largely empty outside the city center except for soldiers and armored personnel carriers.

The unrest has prompted neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan to seal their borders.

In the capital, Tashkent, a man described as a suicide bomber was shot and killed outside the Israeli Embassy on Friday morning, according to the U.S. Embassy. However, an Uzbek police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, later said the man was carrying only wooden objects that appeared to be explosives. No other casualties were reported in that incident.

The trial against the 23 now-freed inmates has inspired one of the largest public shows of anger over alleged human rights abuses by the ex-Soviet republic's government.

Several thousand demonstrated on Wednesday, demanding that the 23 men be freed in one of the largest recent public shows of mounting anger over alleged rights abuses by the ex-Soviet republic's government.

The men, arrested in June, are accused of being members of the Akramia religious group and having contacts with the outlawed radical Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Authorities accuse Hizb-ut-Tahrir of inspiring terror attacks in Uzbekistan last year that killed more than 50. The group, which claims to eschew violence, denied responsibility.

Akramia unites followers of jailed Uzbek Islamic dissident Akram Yuldashev, who was accused of calling for the overthrow of the predominantly Muslim country's secular government - an accusation he denies.

The group's members are considered the backbone of Andijan's small business community, giving employment to thousands of people in the impoverished and densely populated Fergana Valley.




People walk outside burning movie theater in downtown Andijan.