Borneo Bulleti
October 2

The British government refused to respond to speculation in the Times Wednesday that the ambassador to Uzbekistan had been unofficially recalled after criticising the government in Tashkent on its human rights record. Craig Murray, 45, was in London for "medical treatment", a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

"He remains our ambassador in Tashkent, and the government is 100 per cent behind his views on human rights," she said, adding that excerpts from a recent speech by Murray had been reprinted in an official human rights report published last week.

The spokeswoman would not speculate on the claims in the Times report that Murray had returned to London after angering Foreign Office colleagues and the US administration through his remarks.

The Times said Murray, 45, who has served little more than a year in the post, had come back to London 'quietly'.

"It is thought that the pressure got to him, and he is now recovering in hospital," it said.

The newspaper noted that Washington had muted criticism of Uzbek President Islam Karimov's repression since it established a military base in the former Soviet republic before the Afghan war.

Murray has criticised Uzbekistan for making "very disappointing progress in moving away from the dictatorship of the Soviet Union."

"Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy, nor does it appear to be moving in the direction of democracy," he told an audience in Tahskent, adding there were believed to be "between 7,000 to 10,000 people in detention who we would consider as political and/or religious prisoners".

Despite criticism, according to the Times, Murray referred in May to "the intense repression here combined with the inequality of wealth and absence of reform", adding in August that there was "no freedom of speech, mass media, movement and so forth".

The Times said that while Uzbekistan's human rights record was not in dispute, Murray's approach was causing alarm in London and Washington and a charge d'affaires had been appointed to take over his duties.

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