court in eastern Uzbek Andizhan Region has sentenced a man to death for killing three young girls. after killing them he took a TV set and a video tape recorder from the house and sold them, however he was soon detained by the police.

Top

The International Thomson Financial Bank Watch rating company, which regularly analyses the activity of more than 1,000 banking and financial institutions in over 95 countries of the world, has recognized the joint-stock commercial Pakhta-Bank as Uzbekistan's major and financially stable bank.

Pakhta-Bank has 13 Regional and 184 District branches, and over 40 mini-branches all over the country.

Top

woman attempting to transit nearly three kilograms of heroin to Russia has been detained in the Uzbek capital. Analysis of crimes connected with the smuggling of narcotics by means of air and rail transport shows that 82 out of 100 drug traffickers are women with children, quite often divorced, aged between 23 and 38.

Experts of the rail transport police have prevented 47 cases of drug smuggling since the beginning of the year.

Top

hose Uzbek citizens who have joined terrorist groups by mistake can be exempted from prosecution under the decree issued by the Uzbek president Islam Karimov on 6 September this year. This decree gives such people one more chance to return to their homeland and parents and lead a quiet life.

The decree exempts from prosecution those people who have gone abroad, influenced by various extremist movements, but who do not have blood on their hands and who have repented their actions. In connection with the aforementioned decree some citizens have contacted republican prosecutors' offices to present their applications.

A resident of Tashkent, Farhod Mirhamidov, who is only 22 years old, is the youngest in the family and studied at music school for seven years. He fell under the influence of a Wahhabi extremist movement. Farhod took part in three-month training exercises in a military training camp in Chechnya after he was deceived by the leader of the movement.

Farhod Mirhamidov: "The leader of the movement said that we would go and get some education for one or two months and then come back. But following our arrival there we were forced to undergo military training. We were told that those who leave without permission would be shot dead. I suffered so much, experienced difficulties and missed my parents but they would not let us go even if we wanted to. I would like to thank our president for issuing this decree. I said we should take this chance and return. Now we are back here and have been pardoned."

Jorayev, senior investigator for especially important cases of the Republican Prosecutor's Office: "After considering Mirhamidov's criminal case on the basis of his application and taking into account the fact that Farhod did not take part in any military actions, his sincere repentance and his age and in line with the Uzbek president's September decree, the decision to search for and imprison him has been changed."

Following the decree by our country's president, 38-year-old Muhammadjon Akbarov from Quva [District in eastern Fergana Region], who also fell under the influence of the Hezb-e Tahrir movement by mistake and was on the run in Russia, repented what he had done and came to the prosecutor's office to submit his application. The criminal case brought against him has been examined thoroughly and dropped in line with the decree.

Akbarov: "I left Uzbekistan and went to Kyrgyzstan, then to Russia, where I spent over a year. I did not know how to come back and thought that I would remain a disgrace to the homeland. Then I heard that the president had issued a decree exempting from criminal prosecution those who had joined terrorist groups by mistake. I was very glad because I knew that there would be an opportunity to vindicate myself. Then I returned and submitted my application. I was pardoned."

Top

he Ijtimoiy Fikr nongovernmental centre for public opinion studies has conducted another sociological survey. This time, it was dedicated to one of the most pressing issues - the public-spiritedness of our country's younger generation.

The aim of the poll was to determine, by means of monitoring, the current state and major trends of development of young people's public-spiritedness, their stance in life, outlook and career aspirations in the context of radical and deep transformations in Uzbekistan's society.

The results of the survey confirmed that the sense of patriotism is highly developed among the country's young people. An absolute majority of young men and women (85.6 per cent) say they are patriots and hold stable patriotic views. According to the poll, young workers have the highest self-assessment of their patriotism. In general those saying "I am a true patriot" and "I am a patriot" account for 93.1 per cent of this group.

The poll indicates specific manifestations of young people's moral and patriotic qualities. For example, when answering the question "What is your national self-consciousness associated with?" every second respondent (50.5 per cent) said "with national independence" while more than one third (38.1 per cent) said "with national customs and traditions".

Answers to the question "Would you like to live in another country?" add considerably to the image of modern youth. It is interesting that almost every second young man or woman (45.3 per cent) say: "Yes, I want to go to another country to study"; 15 per cent of respondents would like to go to another country to work and 5.6 per cent expressed a desire to go to live in another country permanently.

The survey revealed a certain level of enthusiasm among young people for politics. Quite a large group (59.2 per cent) among those polled want to take an active part in the country's politics. Unfortunately, young people's level of legal awareness is inadequate.

Top