A U.N. human rights rapporteur Friday asked the Uzbekistan government to allow him to urgently visit the country for talks with all those involved in the shootings that killed hundreds of civilians according to dpa. Philip Alston, a law professor at New York University who works also for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, said he was troubled by reports that the shootings were connected to government efforts to fight terrorism, dpa reported Alston is a rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. "Quite apart from the need to distinguish political opponents from terrorists, the point is that governments are clearly obligated to address any such situations within the framework clearly governed by human rights," Alston said in a statement issued in New York. ---SP 2308 Local Time 2008 GMT
