This summer in Uzbekistan has been a hot one – and not only because of the weather. Pressure has also been building in society: in July alone, two incidents demonstrated that people are fed up with the campaign of mass housing demolitions and evictions. First, there was an attempt to set a deputy mayor alight in Uzbekistan’s southeastern Kashkadarya region. Then, residents in the city of Urgench came out onto the streets demanding justice. Now it feels as if public dissatisfaction, growing in certain parts of Uzbekistan, only needs a spark for it to spread.
Housing demolition and evictions are nothing new – far from everyone is satisfied with the redevelopments that states carry out in the hope of making cities better. Yet different states tackle these projects differently, with compensation, negotiation, persuasion and compromise. But not in Uzbekistan.
The issue of housing demolitions and evictions - which has been ongoing for the past three years - is reaching a critical point, and, it seems, it’s time for the Uzbek state to solve it.
