In its ongoing crackdown on pro-democracy reformists, the Uzbek government has arrested Sanjar Umarov, the leader of Sunshine Uzbekistan and a potential challenger to President Karimov. The New York Times has more, though a lot of the information seems to come from the Sunshine Uzbekistan website.

MOSCOW, Oct. 23 ???????? The leader of an Uzbek opposition coalition that has criticized the nation????????s authoritarian government was arrested Saturday night and accused of corruption, his family and an international human rights organization said.

The office of the coalition, Sunshine Uzbekistan, was raided, and records and at least one computer were seized.

The coalition leader, Sanjar Umarov, was still in custody Sunday night, said his son Gulam Umarov and Allison Gill, who leads the Uzbek office of Human Rights Watch.

Gulam Umarov said via telephone that a prosecutor????????s decree stated that his father had been ???????arrested due to economic wrongdoings in very large amounts.??????? No further details were given, he said, and his father????????s physical condition was unknown.

Sanjar Umarov, 49, a physicist and Uzbek businessman with interests in energy, cotton and telecommunications, has spent months warning that Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, is headed to economic and social ruin.

He has been critical of the government of President Islam A. Karimov, the former Communist Party official who has ruled Uzbekistan since it became independent in 1991, and whose security forces fired on demonstrators in May in Andijon.

Presumed to have presidential ambitions, Mr. Umarov has tried to cast his coalition as moderate, pro-Western and change-minded. He met last month with American officials, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

Although the depth of his popularity is virtually impossible to measure, given the dearth of political freedom or reliable polling in Uzbekistan, his political activities earned him attention from the state.

Attention of the state indeed. He is being charged with “corruption,” a charge so absolutely vague and baseless that, in a regime as corrupt as Karimov’s, will easily have him in prison. Even stranger since most of his business is done abroad. This is entirely typical of the Uzbek government — especially since Andijon — to simply make political dissenters disappear. What’s even more telling is that the government arrested him following his big trip to the United States, which sends a message abroad that they are willing to do anything, despite western pressure, to maintain power.

Here is the end of the story according Sunshine Coalition Coordinator Nodira Khidoyatova, but I suggest you follow the link and read the whole thing.

???????I opened the office and gave them the documents. In half an hour, they brought me the prosecutor????????s search warrant. This was so fast ???????? at 5pm they bring me the note about launch of the criminal case, and at 7pm they have the search warrant.

???????There were about 40 people searching the office. They were wearing civilian clothes. Only 11 people signed the list of confiscated documents, although the full investigation department of the prosecutor????????s office was present. Among them was deputy city prosecutor and deputy head of anti-corruption department Furkat Sattarov. They brought no attesting witnesses with them,

???????The search started at 7pm and ended at 3.30am. They fully searched the office and broke everything that could be broken. Then they made a list of confiscated documents. Looking at this list, I can say that they were not interested in my economic affairs. For example, they confiscated ???????copies from Internet, 33 pages????????, ???????draft poem, 4 pages????????, ???????letter to Hillary Clinton????????, ???????program of Nigara Hidoyatova????????, ???????list of members of Sunshine Coalition????????, various things related to politics. Phone books, business cards ???????? they took away literally everything.

???????We don????????t know how Sanjar Umarov was arrested. At about 1am, Sanjar came here to find out what was going on. He could not enter, he knocked on the door, then went out and disappeared. We searched him on the phone for the whole night and just found out that he was arrested.

???????We were told he was not at the prosecutor????????s office, then they said he was at the interior department, which is very easy to check, because he ahs to be registered. When a person arrives at interior department, he or she is registered there first. But when we learnt that he had not been registered, they told us that it was not important at all ???????? ???????here????????s the arrest warrant, and the prosecutor has already given the sanction????????.

???????The note says he has been arrested in connection with economic crimes. But Sanjar Umarov has never been brought to justice on any case, even as a witness. He has no business in Uzbekistan. The only thing he could do here is be a founder of some company.

???????This is a total lawlessness: they always hide behind the law, but they open criminal cases in half an hour, and get prosecutor????????s sanctions in one hour. This is unbelievable ???????? I think nothing similar happens in any other country. There always should be some investigative process. In this case, there was no investigation in relation to Sanjar Umarov. It is clear that the arrest is politically motivated.???????

It looks to me like the regime is simply digging in its heels now. The problem is that there isn’t much we can do about it, especially with the Russians and Chinese backing Karimov up. Perhaps it is naive at this point to think that western support for opposition candidates in Uzbekistan will help them escape arrest, but it can certainly raise their profile in the international community. Hopefully we’ll see some outrage over this, but I don’t expect to see anything more than pithy condemnations — if that.