Galima Bukharbaeva (born 7 July 1974, Tashkent) is an Uzbek journalist known for her reporting on state authoritarianism and her eyewitness account of the 2005 Andijan massacre.
[4] Following weeks of peaceful demonstrations, a group of masked gunmen attacked the jail where the men were being held on the night of 12 May, freeing them as well as protesters who had been arrested the day before.
[6] At 1800 local time, security forces massed for an assault, and soldiers began firing on the crowd of protesters from armored personnel carriers.
[5]When Bukharbaeva reached safety, she discovered that a bullet had passed through her backpack, leaving a hole in her press card and her Che Guevara notebook.
[7] On 25 May, twelve days after the massacre, the government newspaper Pravda Vostoka accused Bukharbaeva and IWPR of instigating the Andijan violence.
[10] In 2008, three years after Andijan, she wrote an editorial in the New York Times accusing Western nations of having already forgotten the massacre by beginning to normalize relations with Uzbekistan.
[2] The award citation recognized the dangers she faced in her reporting and stated that she had earned "a reputation as one of Central Asia's most outspoken journalists".
[2] In 2011, Newsweek recognized her as "one of ten female journalists that risked their lives" in pursuit of a story, stating that "her reporting on Uzbekistan's authoritarianism led to her being denounced as a traitor".
[15] Bukharbaeva is married to a German journalist, Marcus Bensmann, who works for the Swiss daily newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung.