Sources in the Tashkent prosecutor's office maintain that criminal charges were pressed against Die Deutsche Welle journalist Natalia Bushuyeva. The matter concerns tax evasion and concealment of income.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office claims that Bushuyeva has never submitted her income declaration to tax structures in the five years of her work for Die Deutsche Welle. "Lacking official accreditation from the Foreign Ministry, she regularly introduced herself as a correspondent of the German broadcaster which is also a violation," the official said.

The authorities claim to have made numerous appeals to the German Embassy in Tashkent and Die Deutsche Welle management but "they have never been answered, for reasons known only to them."

"Viewed against the background of the criminal and corrupt regime, concealment of income by Bushuyeva is child's play that does not even deserve a mention in passing," free lance journalist Sergei Yezhkov said. "She should have been mildly rebuked for it, that's all. The authorities, however, think otherwise. Why? Probably because they are determined to intimidate and frighten whoever has the temerity to offer an independent opinion on what is happening in the country, and these opinions do not check with the official ones."

"There are practically no more journalists in Uzbekistan nowadays trying to make public the facts and episodes legal media outlets choose not to notice or comment on," Yezhkov wrote in his article posted on Uzmetronom web site. "Weary of resisting, some journalists decided to change sides and ended up working for the local propagandistic machine. Others left the republic and traded honesty and principles for financial well-being and personal safety. No, I wouldn't call Bushuyeva's reports (or her perception of the changes taking place in Uzbekistan, for that matter) entirely unbiased - but not because she has been working for any oppositionist or destructive forces aiming to disrupt the constitutional regime. Everything depends on one's abilities, knowledge, and professionalism. Persecuting somebody for these faults which are essentially shaped by this somebody's personal makeup is at least a stupid and shortsighted policy."