Tashkent Denies Role In Disappearance Of Asylum Seekers

This camp on the Kyrgyz border was the first staging post for many of the Uzbek refugees from Andijon; hundreds are now dispersed across the globe. (RFE/RL) PRAGUE, August 22, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Uzbekistan today denied any involvement in the disappearance of two of its nationals who went missing from their homes in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh on August 16.

The chairwoman of the Kyrgyz rights group Adilet on August 19 told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service that the two -- Valijon Bobojonov and Saidullo Shokirov -- are being held in detention in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijon.

A Tashkent-based pro-government website, press-uz.info, today quotes unidentified security officials as saying that "Uzbekistan has nothing to do" with the disappearance of the two men, both of whom were seeking asylum in Kyrgyzstan.

The officials also said that neither man is wanted in Uzbekistan and that Tashkent has never sought their extradition from Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan on August 9 extradited four UN-recognized refugees and one asylum-seeker to Uzbekistan, where they were wanted for their alleged participation in antigovernment protests that triggered a bloody government crackdown in Andijon in May 2005.