Mick Hartley

What's wrong with this picture?

As reported by the Special Commission appointed by the General Prosecutor's Office to look into the photographs of Umida Akhmedova, it's "interesting to note that the author likes taking images of women sweeping streets. It suggests that there are no other jobs than cleaning in our city". They've accused her of defamation and insulting Uzbek traditions for her 2007 book Men and Women fron Dawn to Dusk, which has over 100 images of Uzbek customs and traditions.

Ms Akhmedova has been banned from leaving the country, and is awaiting trial.

More details from Global Voices here, and again here giving the reaction of local bloggers:

Many believe that the main reason for prosecution of photographer Umida Akhmedova is her active civil position. Albatrossdoc writes (ru) that Umida Akhmedova and her husband Oleg Karpov (director of Tashkent Film Museum) were way too active for Uzbekistan – making films, photos and showing social topical movies in the Film Museum.

Albatrossdoc guesses that there could be people, who didn’t like it. The Museum has been closed for the last three months and no official explanation was given.

Having a look at Umida’s pictures one can see that she makes photos of the ordinary Uzbek people. Many of them live in poverty – and many are in desperate poverty. Blogger kambodjaa says this was the main reason for persecution of the photographer (ru):

Great photos. But on some of them one can see what exactly is the most disturbing thing for the patriarchal-authoritarian society. It is clear why they charge her.

 There's a petition here, and more photos here at Fergana (Russian).