The forced confessions and Stalinist show trials that followed the indiscriminate attack, purporting to reveal an Islamist plot, were not believed by anyone. Too many witnesses had reported the truth: that troops simply opened fire on a huge crowd in the town square, killing men, women and children.

Since that time, the regime in Tashkent has been trying to bribe, extort and force refugee witnesses to the massacre and their families to return home, where the regime can convince them, one way or another, to shut up about what they saw two years ago.

Some governments -- usually those with dodgy human rights records themselves -- have even cooperated with Tashkent, arresting and extraditing the refugees back to Uzbekistan, where successive United Nations special rapporteurs have found torture by law enforcement officials to be "systematic".

No government that cares at all about human rights should pay any attention to Tashkent's demands to get these witnesses back. Certainly not an EU government like the Czech Republic. As Volker Beck, a member of the German Bundestag calling for Maksudov's release, has said: "I find it unbearable that an EU country like the Czech Republic fulfils the demands of a persecuting country. Extradition to Uzbekistan will be a violation of international law."

It is also a slap in the face to a fellow EU member state: Germany granted Maksudov asylum after all.

Maksudov's case is dragging on a worryingly long time. His Czech lawyer says the state only had the right to hold him for 40 days, no longer, and the clock has ticked past that already. But even a few days in custody would be disturbingly long. If Maksudov was arrested at the border because of a mistake by a low-level official, this should have been kicked upstairs and sorted out weeks ago -- as indeed it was for Maksudov's travelling companion, Zohid Mirzayev, who has asylum in the Netherlands and was released by Czech authorities after 20 days.

Does the delay mean the Czech Republic really considering sending Maksudov back to Uzbekistan?

Last words to Maksudov's family, who said in a fresh statement:

We suffered from tyranny in Uzbekistan and escaped the bloody massacre to find refuge in Germany.

However, unfortunately, after the detention of Amonullo we have lost peace and health again. It is a moral torture when my son is in a solitary sell and is facing the threat of extradition to Uzbekistan any time.

We expect the EU to protect our rights and humanitarian values. We have never desired to fall victim to Czech bureaucracy now.