Alisher Saipov was only 26 years old, when, according to Vikipedia, he was shot three times at close range on October 24, 2007 at around 7 pm outside his office in downtown Osh, a city bordering Uzbekistan, by an unknown gunman using a silencer. He, sadly, died at the scene.
Saipov was a Kyrgyzstani journalist of Uzbek ethnic origin and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Siyosat. The newspaper covered human rights abuses in neighboring Uzbekistan. According to Commitee to Protect Journalists, he also covered Uzbekistan's political and social landscape for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and the Central Asia news Web site Ferghana. Saipov has interviewed members of the banned Islamic Groups Hizb-ut Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Saipov was also a huge critic of Uzbek President Islam Karimov and covered the aftermath of mass killings in Andijan in May 2005, when troops of the government shot at crowds of civilians protesting against President‘s regime. The Uzbek government put the Andijan death toll at 187; human rights groups say more than 700 were killed.
After the Andijan killings, Uzbekistan started to aggressively expel, drive into exile, imprison, an harass independent journalists, opposition activists, human rights defenders, representatives of international nongovernmental groups, and witnesses. Many of them had found refuge in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, but they weren’t safe there after the Uzbek security infiltrated the area and the harassment was still going on. Saipov had helped scores of Uzbek refugees in southern Kyrgyzstan, assisting them with lodging and linking them with resettlement agencies and also reported on the fate of Uzbek refugees in Iran for Ferghana.
Before his murder, Saipov had received threats to stop his press and political activity. After his critics for Islam Karimov, a state television channel in the city of Namangan had aired a program smearing Saipov as a provocateur who tried to destabilize Ubekistan with his reporting.
As Natalia Antelava from BBC News once reported, "At twenty-six, Alisher Saipov was one of the most outspoken journalists in Central Asia."
Saipov was a Kyrgyzstani journalist of Uzbek ethnic origin and editor-in-chief of the newspaper Siyosat. The newspaper covered human rights abuses in neighboring Uzbekistan. According to Commitee to Protect Journalists, he also covered Uzbekistan's political and social landscape for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and the Central Asia news Web site Ferghana. Saipov has interviewed members of the banned Islamic Groups Hizb-ut Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Saipov was also a huge critic of Uzbek President Islam Karimov and covered the aftermath of mass killings in Andijan in May 2005, when troops of the government shot at crowds of civilians protesting against President‘s regime. The Uzbek government put the Andijan death toll at 187; human rights groups say more than 700 were killed.
After the Andijan killings, Uzbekistan started to aggressively expel, drive into exile, imprison, an harass independent journalists, opposition activists, human rights defenders, representatives of international nongovernmental groups, and witnesses. Many of them had found refuge in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, but they weren’t safe there after the Uzbek security infiltrated the area and the harassment was still going on. Saipov had helped scores of Uzbek refugees in southern Kyrgyzstan, assisting them with lodging and linking them with resettlement agencies and also reported on the fate of Uzbek refugees in Iran for Ferghana.
Before his murder, Saipov had received threats to stop his press and political activity. After his critics for Islam Karimov, a state television channel in the city of Namangan had aired a program smearing Saipov as a provocateur who tried to destabilize Ubekistan with his reporting.
As Natalia Antelava from BBC News once reported, "At twenty-six, Alisher Saipov was one of the most outspoken journalists in Central Asia."