Transitional justice As the Government of Uzbekistan becomes more self-confident about the progress of the reforms
and the country’s place in the world, it needs to show a more self-confident approach towards
discussing its own past. As Steve Swerdlow argues ‘President Mirziyoyev and the Uzbek government
should acknowledge past abuses officially, provide concrete avenues for redress, and send a clear
message that peaceful criticism of government policies and scrutiny of the past will be genuinely
valued in Uzbekistan’. This has to be part of a national conversation involving those who suffered,
human rights defenders, international experts and all relevant organs of the state. As Swerdlow
suggests this should involve the creation of an inclusive national commission and a new law on
Rehabilitation that builds on but goes further than Article 83 of Uzbekistan’s Criminal Procedure
Code.
Part of this historical reckoning should include the coming to a new accommodation with its critics in
exile. There needs to be a pathway back for and reconciliation with human rights and political
activists who left under Karimov. Allowing their safe return and softening the Government’s
reactions to jabs from these activists, such as Nadejda Atayeva who in this collection gives a more
critical assessment of the current situation than the other authors, would be a clear sign that the
Government is in the reform process for the long haul. This in turn might help mollify some of the
understandable cynicism about the state of the reform process by exile groups who have been
persecuted for years by the Government of Uzbekistan. In turn, those who have so far been rejected
by the new system may come to view some of the changes more positively, knowing that not
everything is a fraud. The internal logic of a reform process that accepts Uzbekistan needs urgent
and radical change implies that those who raised concerns about how it was before had a point and
they should not be beyond the political pale today. The government’s current focus on supporting
new independent journalists, state backed civil society initiatives and possibly in time more
independent political figures and NGOs to grow organically in the ‘new’ Uzbekistan may have a
forward looking dimension, but it creates the clear risk (both real and perceived) that they lack the
freedom to fully hold the Government to account on all issues.