Another foreign non-government organization is to be closed in Uzbekistan - Counterpart International. On May 1, the republican Justice Ministry appealed to the Tashkent Municipal Court to close the mission of the organization in Uzbekistan.

Counterpart International is an American non-government organization with headquarters in Washington. Financed by the US Department of State and USAID, it was registered on the territory of Uzbekistan in 1995.

The organization handled humanitarian projects facilitating development of civil society, fighting AIDS, and carrying out health programs in Uzbekistan. Counterpart International mission also sponsored deliveries of drinking water to the population of problematic areas.

The Justice Ministry could not care less. Counterpart International is accused of regular violations of the acting legislation and its own charter. The authorities maintain that Counterpart International officials founded and headed local non-government organizations, circulated printed materials without license, and withheld financial documents from state power structures. In other words, the accusations are fairly standard. As with other foreign non-government organizations, formality of a trial will follow now and the mission will be closed.

Dismissal of Counterpart International mission is an element of the war Islam Karimov's regime is waging on foreign non-government organizations it views as a threat to itself. It may only be added that Uzbekistan is not the only CIS country ousting Counterpart International from its territory. Accreditation of the mission of the organization with the Foreign Ministry of Belarus (the last dictatorship in Europe) was annulled under a similar pretext in 2004.

Missions of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), Internews Network, IWPR, IREX, Freedom House, Eurasia Foundation, RL/RFE bureau, office of the UN High Commissar for Refugees, and most local non-government organizations were abolished in Uzbekistan in the last eighteen months. Human Rights Watch mission is about to be closed too. The Uzbek Justice Ministry denied its official Carlo Bohem accreditation on April 20 claiming that his activities "went beyond his authority".