Uzbek Independence
On June 20, 1990, the Supreme Soviet issued Uzbekistan's Declaration of Independence. Mamatov was one of the authors of this historic document.
Mamatov organized an investigative group in the parliament regarding violence in Bekobod, Boka, Parkent and concluded that those incidents were masterminded by the Uzbek government. He reported evidence that the KGB stood behind the terror acts among the ethnic Uzbeks and Meskhet Turks in the Parkent district of Tashkent province. After those events Mamatov was pursued by the Uzbek government. The central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan accused Mamatov of criticizing the Chairman of the Party, Islam Karimov, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court on his TV program asked the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet for permission to arrest him, but the attempt was rejected for lack of parliamentary support.
On August 17, 1991, as his protest against the attempted coup in Moscow aimed at opposing Gorbachev's reform program and the new union treaty that he decentralised power to the republics, Mamatov went to demonstrate with some of his friends in front of the Parliament building and publicly burned his Party member certificate. He later stood for election as chairman of the Uzbek Journalists Association, and claimed that the government falsified the election results.
The Glasnost Committee in the Supreme Soviet was eventually shut down by Karimov and his suuporters; once Mamatov resigned, the committee was re-instated.
In 1991 in the 7th session of Uzbek Parliament, Mamatov along with his fellow-deputies, put forward measures before Parliament to limit Karimov’s attempts to absolute dictatorship. Under pressure from democratic deputies, the Uzbek government had to permit the organization of a committee, regulating the relations between the President of Uzbekistan and Parliament. Mamatov became the Presidential Advisor for Parliamentary Relations in that committee, and subsequently was appointed as a Chief of Uzbek State Television-Deputy of the State Radio and Television Committee.
Read more about this topic: Jahangir Mamatov
Famous quotes containing the word independence:
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)