A court in Uzbekistan sentenced 22 people to various prison terms on Tuesday over the deadly unrest in the autonomous Karakalpakstan republic last July, the country’s Supreme Court said.
Twenty-one people were killed in the unrest triggered by plans to curtail the province's autonomy; Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the president of the Central Asian nation, scrapped the plan amid the protests.
The aftermath of the violence presented a dilemma to Mirziyoyev about whether to reinforce the authority of his government or to soften its stance in line with the more liberal image he has long sought to present to the West.
