Eight years have passed after one of the worst massacres in the former Soviet Union since its collapse. On May 13, 2005, security forces in the city of Andijan, Uzbekistan, opened fire on protesters,  the vast majority  unarmed, killing hundreds of men, women and children  as they tried to flee. No one has been held accountable, and the authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, has defied calls for an independent investigation.

Since then Uzbekistan’s reputation as one of the world’s worst human rights abusers has only grown. In a brutal crackdown after the massacre, Uzbek authorities imprisoned dozens of human rights defenders and journalists and ejected human rights groups and international media from the country. Torture is rampant. In a shocking case from April 2012, officials beat Gulnaza Yuldasheva, who had been investigating officials’ involvement in human trafficking, with a rubber truncheon, dragging her by her hair before she lost consciousness.