Myra Ritman of the US, the last of the Human Rights Watch personnel, is leaving Uzbekistan this Sunday. Andrea Berg has already left the country (her accreditation issued in autumn 2005 expired and the authorities refused to extend it).

Human Rights Watch sent Ritman as a replacement for Berg but she was denied accreditation too. Formally, the Human Rights Watch office in Uzbekistan remains open. It will be nevertheless closed because of the lack of personnel.

Denial of accreditation is the Uzbek authorities' proven technique in dealing with Human Rights Watch that monitors all crimes committed by the state from torture to unlawful imprisonment to demonstration trials that are supposed to teach a lesson to out-of-court punishment.