Population of the Bukhara region of Uzbekistan keeps up protests against deterioration of living standards. Information on protest actions, however, is kept under the lid until much later.

Ferghana.Ru correspondent was informed the other day of the protest action that had taken place on December 6, 2006, when vendors from the Gijuvan district of the Bukhara region cut off the road connecting Bukhara and Tashkent. The protest action was sparked by distribution of stalls at the Gijuvan bazaar where District Hokim Talib Kudratov had sold every stall to several vendors at once. Moreover, it was not local vendors who were thus tricked, it was men from Bukhara.

Uznews.Net reports that vendors of the fish market in the town of Chinaz, Tashkent region, organized a mass protest action on the night on November 28, 2006, against the authorities' attempts to close the market. The protesters cut off the local thoroughfare at 3 a.m. and dispersed two hours later with a solemn promise from the administration to leave the fish market alone.

The road the protesters cut off connects the Bukhara and Horezm regions and the Republic of Karakalpakstan with other parts of Uzbekistan. Trucks en route form Iran to Turkmenistan use the thoroughfare every day. Appearance of the protesters on the road resulted in a colossal traffic jam. Truck drivers tried to persuade the protesters to let them through but eventually got down to a fight seeing the futility of their efforts. Fight or no fight, protesting vendors wouldn't clear the road. They finally had Bukhara Regional Hokim Samoiiddin Husenov come to them.

Husenov promised an investigation and fair distribution of stalls at the bazaar. According to what information this news agency has compiled, the process is already under way.

The Gijuvan district is known as the best prosperous in all of the Bukhara region. Living standards there are higher than the average throughout the region, and goods and commodities cheaper. That is probably why its residents do not hesitate to protest or demand what is due them. This is not the first time the population of the Gijuvan district closes the highway in question. The previous such episode occurred in March 2005 but the regional administration did not deign to meet with the protesters then.

In the meantime, Bukhara hokim also met with protesters from the Jondor district, another area located between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Uzbekistan is an exporter of gas, but some of its own regions regularly find themselves without gas - particularly in winter. The Bukhara region is one of them. Enraged by absence of gas, residents of the Jondor district cut off the highway and dispersed again only an hour and a half later, after a meeting with Husenov. The hokim promised the protesters gas and kept his word. One of the aksakals of the mahallja whose residents had decided to stage the protest action was arrested. The Jondor district is living without gas again now, but its population has learned the lesson and is not in a hurry to protest.

A foreigner may find these two protest actions insignificant but this is a wrong assumption. It should be noted that the massacre in Andijan in May 2005 has instilled fear in the population of Uzbekistan which is now afraid of staging protest actions and hesitates to criticize the regime even within the family circle. That the population of the Bukhara region is protesting is actually hopeful. There are people in Uzbekistan capable of expressing their discontent and active defense of their own rights.