Birlik, the original opposition party formed by intellectuals in 1989, was banned for allegedly subversive activities, establishing the Karimov regime's dominant rationalization for increased authoritarianism: Islamic fundamentalism threatened to overthrow the secular state and establish an Islamic regime similar to that in Iran. The constitution ratified in December 1992 reaffirmed that Uzbekistan was a secular state.
The early 1990s were characterized by arrests and beatings of opposition figures on fabricated charges.
The government of Uzbekistan has instead tightened its grip since independence (September 1, 1991), cracking down increasingly on opposition groups.
The nomenklatura defined the Soviet political leadership, and the people on the list invariably were members of the CPSU. Following the failure of the coup against the government of Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow in August 1991, Uzbekistan's Supreme Soviet declared the independence of the republic, henceforth to be known as the Republic of Uzbekistan.
Independence brought a series of institutional changes, but the substance of governance in Uzbekistan changed much less dramatically. On December 21, 1991, together with the leaders of ten other Soviet republics, Karimov agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union and form the Commonwealth of Independent States, of which Uzbekistan became a charter member according to the Alma-Ata Declaration.
The major opposition party, Birlik, had been refused registration in time for the election. In 1992 the PDPU retained the dominant position in the executive and legislative branches of government that the Communist Party of Uzbekistan had enjoyed.
Birlik, the original opposition party formed by intellectuals in 1989, was banned for allegedly subversive activities, establishing the Karimov regime's dominant rationalization for increased authoritarianism: Islamic fundamentalism threatened to overthrow the secular state and establish an Islamic regime similar to that in Iran. The constitution ratified in December 1992 reaffirmed that Uzbekistan was a secular state.
A new constitution was adopted by the legislature in December 1992.
For example, one prominent Uzbek, Ibrahim Bureyev, was arrested in 1994 after announcing plans to form a new opposition party. After reportedly being freed just before the March referendum, Bureyev shortly thereafter was arrested again on charges of possessing illegal firearms and drugs.
A few new parties were registered in 1995, although the degree of their opposition to the government was doubtful, and some imprisonments of opposition political figures continued. The parliamentary election, the first held under the new constitution's guarantee of universal suffrage to all citizens 18 years of age or older, excluded all parties except the PDPU and the pro-government Progress of the Fatherland Party, despite earlier promises that all parties would be free to participate.
In April 1995, fewer than two weeks after the referendum extending President Karimov's term, six dissidents were sentenced to prison for distributing the party newspaper of Erk/Liberty and inciting the overthrow of Karimov.
Under the terms of a December 1995 referendum, Islam Karimov's first term was extended.
As in the system of the Soviet era, the procurator general and his regional and local equivalents are both the state's chief prosecuting officials and the chief investigators of criminal cases, a configuration that limits the pretrial rights of defendants. ==Opposition parties and the media== Also passed in the 2002 referendum was a plan to create a bicameral parliament.
In 2002 and the beginning of 2003 the government arrested fewer suspected Islamic fundamentalists than in the past.
Another national referendum was held January 27, 2002 to again extend Karimov's term.
In 2002 and the beginning of 2003 the government arrested fewer suspected Islamic fundamentalists than in the past.
The referendum passed and Karimov's term was extended by act of the parliament to December 2007.
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