"The economic situation is getting worse," said Surat Ikramov, a human rights campaigner who says he has been beaten, threatened and poisoned because he opposes the government.
From his cramped Soviet-style apartment, he monitors rights abuses and meticulously documents each one. On his desk lie photographs of him with a disfigured face after an occasion when he says four masked agents abducted him, beat him, tied him in his car and tried to set fire to it.
His life was saved because the fuel tank was empty.He says Karimov "will stay to the end. He has usurped so much power that nobody can challenge him. He is like Stalin, maybe stronger."
Nigora Khidoyatova, an opposition leader, knows what it is to feel the anger of Karimov's government. Her husband was shot dead in 2005 in an attack she blames on the government. Her sister Nodira was locked up for several months in 2006.
She warns against trusting official economic data. "The government numbers are not true," she said. "Every year the president gives Soviet-style figures on the cotton harvest and says the latest plan has been fulfilled."
Two-thirds of Uzbekistan's people are rural and the economy depends on cotton, which human rights bodies allege is harvested with forced child labour. The government says it has eliminated the use of children.
Karimov has said Islamist militancy is on the rise and is a threat, but rights groups say he is using it as an excuse to eliminate dissent and religious freedom.
The most notable example was when troops fired on protesters in the eastern city of Andizhan in May 2005, killing hundreds.
Reuters Artiklen.
