A Bishkek-based human rights activist working in violence-plagued Osh, who was interrogated over a false media report, has expressed concern that the authorities are seeking to hush up the real circumstances surrounding ethnic violence that has left up to 2,000 dead.

The Osh prosecutor’s office summoned Tolekan Ismailova and fellow activist Aziza Abdurasulova after media reports quoting them said 20 people had died during a security sweep in the mainly Uzbek-populated village of Nariman on June 21. 
Ismailova acknowledged the reports were false – the official death toll was two – and put it down to a “technical mistake, which distorted data about the situation in Nariman.”
The two activists spent several hours on June 28 under interrogation at the Osh prosecutor’s office in an episode Ismailova described as “strange and alarming.” 
In remarks quoted by the 24.kg news agency, she suggested the authorities may be seeking to hush up the truth. “The impression is forming that they want us [rights activists] ‘sent out’ of here to cover up the scale of crimes committed with the connivance of bodies of power,” she said.
A commission of inquiry is investigating the circumstances of the violence, which mainly targeted Uzbek neighborhoods. That includes investigating as yet unproven allegations that the military was involved in some attacks and establishing why local authorities did not manage to contain the violence for days. Many ethnic Uzbeks in Osh have told EurasiaNet.org that they do not trust the official inquiry to be impartial and would like to see international involvement. They question why security sweeps are mainly targeting Uzbek areas and have expressed concern that the authorities plan to blame the Uzbek community for inciting the violence.
The interrogation of the rights activists at a time when law-enforcement bodies have urgent priorities to tackle (including arresting those responsible for the unrest and ensuring law and order in the tense city) certainly raises questions about the prosecutors’ motives, and looks at the very least like a misplaced use of resources.