An Uzbek spring has sprung, but summer is still a long way off

STRANGE things have been happening over the past year in Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous country and one of the world’s most repressive police states. Political prisoners have been walking free from jail. There has been less resort than usual to forced labour to bring in the cotton harvest. Journalists have started airing problems in the tightly censored media. Foreign human-rights advocates, who have long been banned from the country, were unexpectedly allowed to visit.

The author of these head-turning changes appears to be Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the president, who took power a year ago after the death of Islam Karimov, the strongman who had run Uzbekistan for the previous 25 years. Karimov had protesters shot and his opponents tortured—some were allegedly boiled alive. Mr Mirziyoyev had been Karimov’s prime minister for 13 years, and few expected him to run the country very differently. But he claims his “profound reforms” will transform Uzbekistan into a “democratic state and a just society”.