KZBlog

An electronic media feeding frenzy is taking a bite out of Sting, the British rocker and self-styled defender of the environment and the downtrodden. In recent days, British newspapers and blogs have savaged the musician for playing a concert in Uzbekistan, which is home to one of the world’s most repressive governments. Sting may have exacerbated his image crisis by appearing unrepentant over his appearance in Tashkent, for which he reportedly received over $1 million.

Sting made his trip to Uzbekistan last October in connection with Art Week Style.uz-2009, a culture and arts festival, organized by President Islam Karimov’s daughter, Gulnara.

from Eurasianet.org

UPDATE: While I was offline earlier this year, I missed that Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears came and performed at Aliya Nazarbayeva’s birthday party. Alia is the youngest daughter of the president of Kazakhstan. I haven’t hear that J. Lo or B. Spea (yes, I made that one up) are getting any flack for that so I guess Kazakhstan’s human rights reputation is a lot better than Uzbekistan’s (which I would tend to agree with). Or maybe because Sting has a better reputation for caring about politics and human rights–do you really expect Britney Spears to be up on Central Asian diplomacy and the state of civil society in former Soviet states?