Uzbekistan has expelled employees of Human Rights Watch after what the group calls years of government harassment. Human Rights Watch has recently criticized attempts by the United States and the European Union to repair relations with Uzbekistan, saying it should be held accountable for a human rights record that includes torture, the murder of unarmed civilians, and the arbitrary jailing of activists and journalists. Uzbekistan provides a key supply route for military shipments to Afghanistan. On Tuesday, Democracy Now! reached Steve Swerdlow, Human Rights Watch’s Uzbekistan Researcher.

Steve Swerdlow: “The government of Uzbekistan has expelled Human Rights Watch from the country. This is the first time that, in its 33-year history, Human Rights Watch has been forced to close any of its field offices, and this is a reflection of the increasingly dire human rights situation in Uzbekistan today. Uzbekistan has one of the worst human rights records in the world. It’s synonymous with torture in its criminal justice system. It’s known for forced child labor in the cotton sector. And it’s also known for the continued imprisonment of dozens of human rights activists, independent journalists and political figures. With our expulsion today, we’re extremely concerned about the impact our closure will have on the increasingly isolated and beleaguered civil society in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan, in the last several years, has played a much more increasingly strategic role with the United States in that it allows the U.S. to transit supplies to its troops, its NATO troops, to the south in Afghanistan. And for that reason, the United States, and also the E.U., have been turning a blind eye to a worsening human rights situation there. So, today, Human Rights Watch is calling on the United States and the European Union to publicly condemn the expulsion of Human Rights Watch and, more importantly, the crackdown on the remaining civil society activists.”