Click to expand Image Defendants listen to the verdict in their trial on charges related to the July 2022 protests in Nukus, the main city in Karakalpakstan, at a court in Bukhara, Uzbekistan on January 31, 2023. 2023 AFP via Getty Images "Onward, Karakalpaks!," shouted blogger and lawyer Daulet Tazhimuratov from his glass cage in the Tashkent courtroom on June 5, minutes after his appeal trial concluded and a judge left his 16-year prison sentence intact. Fourteen other defendants standing trial with Tazhimuratov for alleged crimes in connection with July 2022 protests in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan's autonomous region, had their sentences either reduced or converted to noncustodial "restricted freedom" terms. Eight of the defendants were released from the courtroom. Karakalpakstan's constitution states that Karakalpakstan is "a sovereign democratic republic" with the right to "secede from the Republic of Uzbekistan on the basis of a nation-w