40 Problems of Post-Communism January/February 2010 Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 57, no. 1, January/February 2010, pp. 40–50. © 2010 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1075–8216 / 2010 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/PPC1075-8216570104 A Reporter Without Borders Internet Politics and State Violence in Uzbekistan Sarah Kendzior SARAH KENDZIOR is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. An earlier version of this article was pre- sented at the Social Science Research Council Dissertation Development Workshop “Times of Trouble: Violence in Eurasia, from Past to Present,” New York, 2008. She thanks the SSRC and workshop colleagues for comments and suggestions. The murder of Alisher Saipov, an Uzbek journalist living in Kyrgyzstan, removed a vocal Internet critic of Uzbek president Islam Karimov. O N April 23, 2007, Alisher Saipov, a journalist cover- ing political and social issues in Central Asia, com- mented on the role of the Internet in Uzbekistan. “Internet censorship in Uzbekistan is being strengthened,” he stated. “The Internet is full of calls for revolution and is full of information that casts doubt on the country’s ‘great future’ as well as over the leader of the country’s wisdom, power, and abilities. The Uzbek government would not want to lose its credibility in front of its people.” 1 Six months later, Alisher Saipov was shot to death out- side his office by unknown assailants in his hometown of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. The murder shocked even those familiar with the dangers of reporting in and on Uzbekistan, an authoritarian state where all media are controlled by the government, foreign reporters are deemed “terrorists,” and local independent journalists are routinely arrested, incarcerated, or forced into exile. 2 Although persecution of journalists is commonplace in Central Asia, Saipov remains a special case. He was the first Uzbek reporter to be the victim of what appears to have been a political assassination. 3 Immediately after his murder, specula- tion arose as to the Uzbek government’s involvement, a sentiment bolstered by the scathing attacks on Saipov’s character that had been published in state media outlets just weeks before. That Saipov was, in fact, not a citizen of Uzbekistan, but of Kyrgyzstan, complicated the investiga- tion, which has yet to produce a suspect. On October 27, three days after the murder, officers from Kyrgyzstan’s security services seized Saipov’s computers, phones, and documents, allegedly with the intent of handing them over to Uzbek officials. 4 On October 29, Uzbekistan’s state television aired a 20-minute documentary claiming that Saipov had served “evil forces” and had been “controlled from abroad.” 5 The next day the Kyrgyz government