Former Novaya Gazeta columnist Victoria Ivleva was deported from Uzbekistan in an incident the journalist says is connected with her professional activities.
Ivleva flew to Tashkent for a photo workshop Friday, but was not allowed to leave the airport, she told Gazeta.ru. She was refused a meeting with the Russian consul and put on a flight back to Russia.
Ivleva said she was confident the deportation was connected to an article she wrote about Uzbekistan called "The Country of Fish," which was published in Novaya Gazeta nearly five years ago.
She thought another reason for her deportation could have been her participation in a picket of the Uzbek Embassy in support of photographer Umida Akhmedova, who was persecuted by the authorities for a photo album called "Women and Men: From Dawn to Dusk," which the photographer used to draw attention to gender inequality in Uzbek traditions. The authorities felt the album created a negative image of Uzbekistan.
