Activist freed in Uzbekistan after 12 years in prison

TASHKENT: Uzbekistan has released an activist who was jailed for nearly 12 years after a bloody crackdown on protesters in the east of the country, rights groups said on Saturday.

Isroil Kholdarov, a human rights and political activist from Andijan, scene of a brutal crackdown on protesters, was freed from a jail in the capital Tashkent earlier this week, a member of the rights group Ezgulik said.

“He is well,” Ezgulik's Abdurakhmon Tashanov told AFP.

“He wants to rest a while and undergo some health checks,” he said, adding that Kholdarov planned to return to the eastern city of Andijan.

Kholdarov was a member of the Erk political party banned for its opposition to late Uzbek leader Islam Karimov and documented rights abuses in Andijan.

In 2005, the Uzbek government violently suppressed a popular uprising in Andijan, leaving hundreds dead, according to some estimates.

The bloody crackdown marked a watershed moment in the Central Asian country's descent into authoritarianism under Karimov.

Kholdarov initially escaped the country but was then brought back from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan in 2006 in circumstances his supporters likened to a kidnapping.

His six-year sentence was extended twice while he was in jail. — AFP