ALMATY (Reuters) - Uzbekistan jailed political opponents, routinely tortured prisoners and committed other serious rights violations last year, effectively making it Central Asia's most authoritarian state, the United States said. In its annual survey of human rights in 194 countries, the U.S. State Department used considerably stronger language to describe abuses in Uzbekistan than in reporting on other nations ...

A human rights group and a think-tank alleged Tuesday that Uzbekistan's government has instructed health workers to surgically sterilize women as part of a campaign to reduce the birth rate of the authoritarian ex-Soviet nation. Uzbek health officials did not answer repeated telephone calls from ...

An AIDS activist in Uzbekistan has been sentenced to seven years in prison for writing a brochure that authorities said would promote antisocial behaviour, activists said Thursday. Maxim Popov was convicted last September, his colleagues told AFP, but his case only came to light this week after US-based watchdog Human Rights Watch asked local activists to investigate his situation ...

U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke visited Kazakhstan on Sunday to drum up regional assistance in stabilizing Afghanistan, the last stop on his tour of former Soviet states in Central Asia. The recent surge in the U.S. military contingent in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a U ...