Uzbek voters 'offered no choice'
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Foreign monitors accuse Uzbekistan of holding a presidential election without any genuine choice.
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BRUSSELS, Feb 20 (IPS) - With the attention of the world's media rarely  turned towards Central Asia, it is easy to forget about the  Andijan massacre of May 2005. Several hundred demonstrators died  when Uzbek government forces opened fire on a demonstration, in  what is believed to be the worst mass killing since the 1989  Tiananmen Square massacre in China.
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ASTANA/ALMATY  - Oil-rich Kazakhstan failed to  meet a pledge to hold its first free and fair election,  international monitors said Monday, casting doubt over an  apparent victory for pro-presidential parties.
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An outlawed Uzbek opposition party made a new attempt to get formal recognition Thursday, as Uzbekistan prepared for parliamentary elections that can only be contested by the country's five legal parties, which ...
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TASHKENT  - Uzbekistan held parliamentary polls that critics have slammed as a farce and which have been overshadowed by recent unrest in the strategic Central Asian country.
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BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, Jan 17 (IPS) - The abolition of the death penalty in Uzbekistan --  the 135th state to abandon state-sanctioned killing --  effectively means the entire central Asian region has now  consigned to history a punishment that was strongly associated  with the days of the Soviet empire.
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Uzbekistan is to vote in a presidential election widely expected to be won by incumbent Islam Karimov.
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Uzbekistan has voted in an election that featured only parties loyal to autocratic President Islam Karimov, who said he would not tolerate "revolutions" such as those which shook Ukraine and Georgia.
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Uzbekistan's parliamentary election on  Sunday fell significantly short of international standards  because it featured only parties loyal to President Islam  Karimov, Europe's main human rights body said on Monday.
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TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- President Islam Karimov slammed Europe&#39;s top election watchdog for criticizing Sunday&#39;s parliamentary vote in this Central Asian nation, where all opposition groups were barred from running for office.
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Uzbeks voted in a parliamentary election Sunday in which opposition groups were barred from running, sparking criticism from Europe's top election watchdog and a fierce defense from the country's authoritarian president, who insisted Uzbekistan has no "real" opposition.
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The main Kazakh opposition party on Friday abandoned its efforts to get a court ruling on the legitimacy of recent parliamentary polls that were internationally criticized as flawed.
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A referendum by Macedonian nationalists that would have eroded the rights of Albanians has been defeated by a voter boycott, The Independent said Monday.
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PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro  - Serbs shunned a  general election in the U.N. protectorate of Kosovo on  Saturday, but an overwhelming Albanian majority bent on winning  independence next year shrugged off the minority boycott.
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Nationalist parties in Macedonia yesterday failed in their attempt to limit the rights of ethnic Albanians, after voters failed to turn out for a referendum on the issue.
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An international group of intellectuals urged the president of Uzbekistan on Thursday to release three women jailed for their human rights advocacy amid a sweeping crackdown on government critics.
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TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- Uzbeks voted yesterday in a parliamentary election in which opposition groups were barred from running, sparking criticism from Europe's top election watchdog and a fierce defense from the country's authoritarian president, who insisted that Uzbekistan has no "real" opposition.