March 15. Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights met Shavkat Mirziyoyev during his working visit to Uzbekistan and shared his thoughts about recent reforms.
He said that he met President Mirziyoyev and spoke in detail about the current reforms noting the positive changes in the country. High Commissioner highly appreciated the President’s commitment to keeping human rights at the centre of attention in future efforts.
He also said that he came here after the independence of Uzbekistan, and now the country had completely changed just by observing the city of Tashkent.
Volker Turk underpinned that the USSR political system inherited by Uzbekistan ignored human rights. However, over the past six years, that had changed dramatically. The reforms initiated by the President included important legal reforms in a wide range of areas: abolition of forced labour in the cotton fields; Granting citizenship to more than 76,000 previously stateless persons; Ensuring the return, repatriation and reintegration of more than 500 women and children from camps in Syria and elsewhere.
