Uznews.net – On the fifth anniversary of the Andijan events some human rights activists managed to pay tribute to the victims of the massacre despite police attempts to prevent this.

Activists laid flowers at Tashkent’s Monument of Courage which has become a place to commemorate the Andijan events when government troops killed hundreds of protesters on 13 May 2005. Only few activists managed to get to the monument at 1000 this morning.

Activist Abdullo Tojiboy-ugli said that police demanded this morning that he not leave his home, but he managed to go to the monument and lay flowers at 1000 sharp.

Activist of the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan Viktoriya Bazhenova managed to join Tojiboy-ugli after she stayed two nights with her friends knowing that police would try to force her stay at home today.

Despite many police officers around the monument, no-one prevented Bazhenova from laying flowers. She even managed to talk to foreign tourists at the monument and explained her action and told them about the Andijan killings.

“After that I went to talk to the chief

	Viktoriya Bazhenova

of the Tashkent city department for fighting terrorism who was hiding behind a fir tree and asked whether I would be able to get home back safely,” she told Uznews.net. “He quite friendly replied that I would not have problems as I came without placards.”

Both Tojiboy-ugli and Bazhenova were able to get home back safely.

Many activists did not manage to lay flowers at the monument despite their plans to do so because police intimidated them.

“Two police officers approached me yesterday,” the alliance’s activist Tatyana Dovlatova said. “They talked to me and warned against trying to walk around with flowers tomorrow.”

Another activist Vladimir Husainov said he had decided to go out of town to avoid problems after police had made similar warnings.

Those activists who were not warned found police outside their homes this morning. They said that they managed to pay tribute to the victims of the Andijan killings only in 2006 when 15 of them laid flowers at the Monument of Courage and held a rally, which was dispersed by police.

Since them the authorities prevented activists from staging similar actions every single year.

“On this year’s anniversary of the Andijan events there have not been incidents at the Monument of Courage so far. However, the Forum of Culture and Art fund, run by Gulnara Karimova, organised a marathon devoted to women suffering from cancer near the monument precisely on this day,” Bazhenova said. “The measure is good but that it was held on 13 May openly shows that the authorities are trying their best to erase people’s memories about the Andijan events.”