Torture of Uzbeks may lead to more conflict

Human Rights Watch said that Uzbeks are being “disproportionately” arrested — and at times choked and burned with cigarette butts — as part of a government drive to investigate and punish those responsible for deadly ethnic riots last month. “Coercing confessions through torture discredits the investigation and fans the flames of the ethnic conflict,” said Anna Neistat, a researcher with the New York-based group in Kyrgyzstan.

Hundreds of people, mainly minority Uzbeks, were killed in rampages by ethnic Kyrgyz through their neighborhoods in June. Kyrgyz authorities have yet to agree to growing demands for an international inquiry into the violence, which is thought to have been deliberately provoked.

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