(Reuters) – Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed a decree to lift a state of emergency in the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, where deadly clashes took place earlier this month, his spokesman said on Wednesday.
Spokesman Sherzod Asadov said on Telegram that the emergency measures, which included a curfew, were being lifted earlier than planned, from Thursday morning, because order had been restored.
Mirziyoyev announced a month-long state of emergency on July 2 after protests erupted over a proposal to strip the republic of its autonomous status. The authorities said 18 people were killed in clashes, including four law enforcement officers.
Human rights activists and opposition politicians have challenged the government’s narrative that protesters were intoxicated with drugs and alcohol and the unrest was directed by unspecified “foreign forces”.
It was the deadliest outbreak of violence since 2005 in the former Soviet Central Asian state, which has a record of clamping down harshly on dissent.
Mirziyoyev quickly dropped the proposal to take away the autonomy of Karakalpakstan – a status that, at least on paper, gave it the right to secede on the basis of a referendum.
The republic, in the northwest of Uzbekistan, is blighted by health and environmental problems resulting from intensive Soviet-era farming methods and the drying-up of the Aral Sea.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
