By Exec Edge Editorial Staff
Assailants on a motorcycle fired five shots into the car carrying Uzbekistan’s former press secretary Komil Allamjonov early Saturday morning near his home outside of the country’s capital of Tashkent. Both Allamjonov and his driver were uninjured. Four men have been detained in connection with the incident, which authorities are investigating as attempted murder.
It is a multi-jurisdictional investigation that includes the prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Tashkent region police department and Tashkent city police department and the Customs Committee, reflecting the seriousness of the incident. Homicide is rare in Uzbekistan and homicide by gun even less so; with exceptions for hunting and sport guns, it is illegal to own firearms in Uzbekistan.
Though authorities have not determined a motive for the assassination attempt, the act is reflective of the internal struggle between the reformers, such as Allamjonov, and hardliners who occupy positions of power in the country, which won its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991 and retained much of the communist-style bureaucracy of governance, which President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been trying hard to shakeup.
Allamjonov left the government last month and no longer has a security detail. The attack came the day before Uzbekistan’s parliamentary election.
Some observers of the country speculated the attack was designed to have a chilling effect on the government’s reform movement.
The attempt on Allamjonov’s life “will certainly be seen as a bid to halt the pace of progress toward international norms, and a lesson to others,” according to a recent Forbes article.
The current reforms, which include a sweeping 2023 overhaul of Uzbekistan’s constitution that replaced restrictive Soviet-era laws with new ones that enshrine democracy, transparency and individual rights, began in earnest with the election of President Mirziyoyev in 2016. He appointed young reformers, such as Allamjonov, 40, who held several high-ranking communications positions in the presidential administrations. Allamjonov served as head of the Information Policy Department since last year.
In Mirziyoyev’s inner circle, Allamjonov worked closely with the president’s daughter, Saida Mirziyoyeva, first assistant to the president. Allamjonov became known as a person who could break roadblocks on the road to reform.
“He is considered the most influential person in Uzbekistan’s media space,” The Diplomat recently wrote.
Allamjonov, who founded Uzbekistan’s privately owned Milliy TV channel in 2016, left government service to return to the private sector. He said he will focus on bringing technology and investment to Uzbekistan.
