Uznews.net – About 200 people bade the last farewell to independent journalist Alisher Saipov in Osh today, while hundreds, if not thousands, more people were with Alisher in spirit.

From the early morning, people started to gather in the house of Alisher Saipov’s father in Osh, where his body pierced with bullets was taken for a funeral service. Shock and horror were read on people’s faces, while it was hard for each of us to realise that Alisher was not among us anymore.

He was still alive yesterday: some of his neighbours saw him walk along the street; in the morning, some of his colleagues chatted to him in Internet chat rooms; later some colleagues saw him enter the office; while others saw him 30 minutes before his death when they parted for a short time, agreeing to meet up later.

Heartbroken relatives of Alisher could not find strength to greet people: Alisher’s father, prostrate with grief, could not speak, and it was painful to see the state of his wife and two-month-old daughter.

Only when arrived for the funeral service, Alisher’s colleagues realised that they had forgotten after the shock they experienced to take the tools of their trade – cameras and tape recorders – and that despite the sorrow fallen upon them they have to continue their work. The only thing they could do for Alisher now is to remain journalists and write.

Alisher was murdered by a professional killer, violently and cold-bloodedly after 1900 in the evening in the centre of Osh. Approaching him from the back, the killer first shot Alisher in the leg, then killed his victims with two more shots in the nape. Officers from the Osh police department found three Makarov pistol shells on the spot of the crime. Three bullets pierced through Alisher’s body.

The Osh law-enforcement agencies launched a criminal case into the murder and they are considering his professional activities as the main theory of the attempt on the journalist.

Alisher was a well-known journalist in Kyrgyzstan, who despite his young age – he was only 26 – claimed the reputation of a professional who covered the most controversial and complicated political, economic and human rights issues.

An ethnic Uzbek, born and grown up in Osh Region in southern Kyrgyzstan, Alisher regarded neighbouring Uzbekistan, which was only a couple of dozens of kilometres from his house, as his homeland.

The complicated socio-political situation in Uzbekistan which is deteriorating every year because of anti-people policies pursued by the dictatorial regime of Islam Karimov made this Uzbek topic one of the main priorities of the journalist’s work.

Perhaps, this happened largely against the will of Alisher himself. Could he remain indifferent when on 13 May 2005 hundreds of Uzbeks who miraculously escaped the massacre unleashed by government troops in the Uzbek town of Andijan stormed into his native Kyrgyzstan?

People, who ran to the Kyrgyz border from Andijan a whole night, appeared before Alisher, driven by the massacre to extreme horror, thrilling from fear, torn and in blood.

Alisher then was first journalist to write about the arrival of the Andijan refugees in Kyrgyzstan and how the massacre reached the threshold and entered the neighbouring country.

Long before the Andijan massacre the bordering Osh was turned into a “Casablanca” by Uzbek refugees – political, religious ones and then those leaving Uzbekistan because of the Andijan events: this flow of people fleeing from Uzbekistan is continuing even now.

Many Uzbeks who ended up in Osh knew that there was a journalist called Alisher Saipov, who sympathised with many victims of Karimov’s dictatorship.

Many refugees who had become friends of Alisher had been kidnapped by Uzbek security services, while others went missing. Alisher wrote about all this.

His articles about Uzbekistan, published on the Internet and later in his own Uzbek-language Siyesat (Politics) newspaper, angered official Tashkent.

In recent months, no independent journalist from Uzbekistan had come under such slander and criticism in the Uzbek government-controlled media, as had Alisher Saipov.

The Namangan Region TV channel devoted a whole programme, prepared according to the best Soviet propaganda practices, to his personality about two months ago.

In many articles published about him by the gazeta.uz and press-uz.info websites, Alisher was slandered as a US agent, an agent of the Kyrgyz intelligence services, a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizb-ut Tahrir Islamic party, and a representative of Uzbekistan’s opposition Erk party in southern Kyrgyzstan.

For example, Assistant Prof of the Namangan State University Obidhon Mamatov published on gazeta.uz on 12 September an article entitled “Saipov: the treacherous stab in Uzbekistan’s back from our Kyrgyz partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the CIS”.

In the article, Alisher was charged with distributing extremist literature in southern Kyrgyzstan, calling for overthrowing the constitutional system in Uzbekistan.

“Osh has started to be associated among Uzbek intellectuals with a source of lies. It is precisely from there every other day, if not every day, spits, insults and all kinds of false accusations are flowing towards Uzbekistan,” the article says.

“All this dirty game is directed by an ordinary young man called Alisher Saipov who has a little undermined self-esteem,” Mamatov wrote.

Many, including the journalist himself, knew that the professional activities of Saipov were extremely irritating to the Uzbek authorities.

His friends said that he had received threats by telephone. Strangers told him that he would soon be killed.

His female colleague said two days before his death they started to notice unidentified people around their office, but Alisher was just a fearless person.

We lost this brave, strong and kind person yesterday.

He was buried today in the Kayerma cemetery which is 10 km from Osh. His relatives and friends rendered the last salute to him and read off the prayer for the dead before burying him.

May you rest in peace, our dear Alisher.