Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995 reports that Russians make up approximately 8 per cent of Uzbekistan's total population of 23 million (Mar. 1996). According to the same source,

Since independence, a significant number of non-Uzbeks, including Russians, Jews, Ukrainians, and others have emigrated, although no exact figures are available. These people have left due to fear of limited future economic and social prospects for non-Uzbeks (ibid.).

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995 also states that

The citizenship law, passed in 1992, does not impose language requirements for citizenship. Nonetheless, the language issue remains very sensitive. Uzbek has been declared the state language, and the Constitution requires that the President must speak Uzbek. However, the language law provides for Russian as the "language of interethnic communication." Russian is widely spoken in the main cities, and Tajik is widely spoken in Samarkand and Bukhara Oblasts (ibid.).

For further information relating to the treatment of Russians in Uzbekistan and the availability of state protection for Russian speakers since November 1992, please see the attachments from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Resource Information Center and from Obshchaya Gazeta. For information on Uzbek-Russian relations and the status of Russians in the southern newly independent states, please refer to the attachments from The New Geopolitics of Central Asia and Its Borderlands and from Russia and the New States of Eurasia. Finally, for information on Russian emigration from Uzbekistan, please refer to the two attached articles from the OMRI Daily Digest.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in 1995. March 1996. United States Department of State. Washington, D.C. (Electronic version received from Resource Information Centre, US Imigration and Naturalization Service)

Dawisha, Karen and Bruce Parrott. 1994. Russia and the New States of Eurasia. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 80-89.

Hale, Henry. 1994. "Islam, State-building and Uzbekistan Foreign Policy." The New Geopolitics of Central Asia and Its Borderlands. Edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, pp. 136-137, 150-172.

Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Resource Information Center. September 1994. Profile Series: Uzbekistan: Political Conditions in the Post-Soviet Era. Washington, DC: United States INS Resource Information Center, pp. 7-11.

Obshchaya Gazeta [Moscow]. 3 December 1993. No. 20/22. Alexander Trushin. "Situation is Getting Ever Worse for Russians in Uzbekistan." (Russian Press Digest 3 Dec. 1993/NEXIS).

Open Media Research Institute (OMRI) Daily Digest [Prague]. 22 February 1996. Roger Kangas. "Russian Emigration from Uzbekistan Continues." (INTERNET: OMRI Daily Digest full-text search. http://solar.rtd.utk.edu:81/cgi-bin/friends/omri/select-rec.pl)

_____. 8 December 1995. Constantine Dmitriev. "More Refugees Flee to Russia from CIS Countries." (INTERNET: OMRI Daily Digest full-text search. http://solar.rtd.utk.edu:81/cgi-bin/friends/omri/select-rec.pl)
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