Gubalhor Turayeva, a prominent human rights activist from the Andijan region, was sentenced to six years imprisonment by the regional court on April 24.

Autopsist Turayeva, 40, the mother of four, was arrested on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border on January 14 when she was returning to Uzbekistan with books published by the opposition party Erk in her luggage. Turayeva spent three months in a detention cell of the local office of the National Security Service. Charges pressed against her included encroachment on the constitutional regime, slander, and proliferation of materials posing a threat to society.

EU foreign ministers met in Luxembourg on April 23 and adopted a resolution on Central Asia. The document urged the Uzbek authorities to initiate a dialogue over human rights with the European Union as soon as possible.