Can a photographer actually be guilty of defamation for taking photographs that reveal poverty rather than the cherubic photographs of put out by the tourist board?

Umida's conviction on Wednesday of slandering and insulting the Uzbek people has stirred outrage in artistic circles in the region, though sadly not in the Wast. The judge waived the jail term of three years, in a nod to the ridicule it would have heaped on the country and said that Ms. Akhmedova had been granted an amnesty in honor of the 18th anniversary of Uzbek independence.

As she walked free from the court, Ms. Akhmedova said she had been so deeply shaken by the prosecution that it was difficult to feel relief.

"I can't say my anxiety has subsided, I can't say I'm suddenly O.K.," she said. "There was a fear of going to prison. But to tell you the truth, I feel insulted, that's the main thing. I still don't understand how my creative work could have brought me to this courtroom."

Asked if she expected to be able to publish her photography in Uzbekistan in the future, she said, "I am afraid not."

Ms. Akhmedova intends to appeal the conviction.

The Uzbek authorities have a habit of prosecuting artists who brush with controversy. The folk singer Dadakhon Khasanov, who wrote a song about the 2005 crackdown on antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Andijon, in which hundreds died was proescuted.

Ms. Akhmedova broke new ground by singling out a visual artist for her work who avoided political themes. .

The project "Women and Men: From Dawn to Dusk," a book published in 2007, and "The Burden of Virginity," a documentary film released the following year - both underwritten with grants from the Swiss Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan's capital - caused fury with the authorities

no less than six government 'experts' declared that the film, which explores the tradition of checking a new bride's virginity, is "not in line with the requirements of ideology," and that it "promotes serious perversion in the young generation's acceptance of cultural values."

The government's exhaustive criminal complaint argued that Ms. Akhmedova's photographs intentionally showed Uzbekistan in a poor light. One photograph that shows a young boy lying on the mud floor of a bare boards house was held up a prime exhibit in the case.

"With one glance at these pictures one can see that repair work is being done in these rooms, and that the children entered them purely through the childish curiosity that is inherent to them," the complaint reads. "But to foreigners, these photographs may give the impression that these children live in these homes."

In all the photographs, "the images of the human face seem sad and anxious, they are portrayed against an excessively pathetic background," it says. "This vision excludes the beautiful landscape of our homeland, the remarkable spaces of our cities."

The charges prompted dismay fellow photographers. Petitions were circulated in Ms. Akhmedova's defense and exhibits of her work were held in in Minsk, the capital of neighbouring Belarus (another authoritarian state), as well as the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.

Daniil Kislov, editor in chief of Ferghana.ru, which turned the case into a cause celebre said the publicity probably prompted the authorities to grant Ms. Akhmedova amnesty on Wednesday.

"This case was supposed to be an example to the rest of them -- to photographers, artists and so on -- so they know they need to portray reality the way it looks to the government," Mr. Kislov said. But as Russian media picked up the story, it became clear that the case reflected badly on Uzbek officials.

"They really care about opinions in Moscow, from that cultured Moscow crowd, and they understood they had crossed a line," he said.

Notably quiet were Ms. Akhmedova's colleagues from Uzbekistan. Vyacheslav Akhunov, who lives in Tashkent and frequently exhibits his installations and video projects overseas, said artists in Uzbekistan were overwhelmingly dependent on the state to show and sell their work.

"The authorities want to show a rosy-cheeked face, a beautiful face, as if the wise rulers rule so well that nothing will ever happen," he said. "And 99 percent of artists are afraid to get involved in anything problematic."
See more of Umida's work here
And a slide show at CPJ.org

But in Greece, unlike elsewhere, if those responsible for the deception are members of a (previous) government and if the victims are "foreigners" ("xenoi," in Greek) they run no such risk. The most they can expect is slap on the wrist and a mild "Please don't do it again!"

This in a nutshell describes the Greek financial situation. Although it is certain by now that the former New Democracy government fiddled with the statistics in order to boost Greece's economic image with investors, no legal charges have been brought against either the former prime minister Costas Karamanlis nor his economic entourage. Yet the conscious distortion of the figures concerning Greece's fiscal deficit clearly constitutes deception of the perspective buyers of Greek debt. The latter were led to demand a much lower risk premium than they would have, had the true facts of the situation been known to them. And although the present prime minister George Papandreou was brave enough--by Greek standards--to reveal the magnitude of the financial misdeeds of the previous administration, he nevertheless shied away from ordering a full scale investigation into this fraud.

The unwillingness or inability of the Greek legal and political system to seek out and punish the perpetrators of this act of disinformation has created a moral vacuum in which all kinds of conspiracy theories flourish. They all have in common that they blame the victims--the holders of Greek debt--for Greece's present predicament. Everday, the Greek media are filled with stories about the despicable "speculators," "profiteers," "bankers," "financiers," and "Shylocks" that are to blame for the economic mess the country is in.

According to the dominant conspiracy theory, Greece is presently engaged in a gigantic fight to save the honor of the euro zone--believe it or not. The "attacks" of the "foreign speculators" against Greece in effect represent an onslaught against the euro by all the "dark forces" (read: Americans) who do not wish Europe to prosper and assume its rightful place on the international scene. This is a discourse that goes down extremely well with the majority of the population. For 30 years, all of Greece's political parties have fed them a steady diet of "anti-imperialist" rhetoric, according to which the causes of Greece's misfortunes is always the xenoi and the machinations of "neoliberal profiteering." So it comes as little surprise that such conspiracy theories are so popular. Indeed, when one does hear an average Greek say, "We can blame only ourselves" for the crisis, what he usually means is that Greeks hurt themselves by revealing to the "foreigners" the true size of the fiscal deficit. If only the present government had not revealed to the world the deception, Greece, according to this narrative, could continue to milk the "stupid Franks" for many years to come. In other words, the problem is not the size of the deficit per se but the fact the present government of Greece chose to tell the world about it.

In other words, Greece's problem is not only economic. Its is also moral.

"The fudging of statistical data," says Prof. George Bitros of the Athens Univeristy of Economics and Buisiness, "has been a long tradition in Greece and not just because of interventions on the part of the government." He goes on: "It is a serious systemic failure that has its roots in the failure of the political system as well as the structure and lack of transparency in the public sector. This is to say that the cancer has spread deeper into the structure of the system and would turn even saints into Rasputins."

Failing to punish those who bear the political responsibility for this massive deception will do nothing to restore Greece's credibility among international investors. On the other hand instituting legal proceedings against those responsible may not necessarily pacify the markets but will definitely show the world that deception is not tolerated in Greece--even if the victims are the xenoi.