Galima Bukharbaeva

Bukharbaeva worked as the editor-in-chief for the Uzbek news website uznews.net. The website was blocked within Uzbekistan by state authorities for several years. In 2014, Bukharbaeva's personal email account was hacked and names of her contributors from Uzbekistan were revealed. That forced her to close the website down. In 2016, she started a new regional news service Centre1.com.

Bukharbaeva then spent some time in Kyrgyzstan, first in a refugee camp and later in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, where she was received as a hero by the opposition community. However, she soon moved on to the US for fear that Uzbek security forces might attempt to kidnap her and return her to Uzbekistan for a show trial. She then received a Fulbright Award to pursue a Master's in journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. While in the US, she also testified before the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress about her experiences on the day of the massacre. 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.

In 2007, Bukharbaeva served as a founder and chairwoman of the Real Union of Journalists of Uzbekistan.

In May 2005, the city of Andijan saw several weeks of protests over the controversial trials of 23 businessmen accused of Islamic extremism. 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. On 13 May, tens of thousands of protesters blockaded the roads, taking control of the city center. A small percentage of them were armed. Bukharbaeva spent the day reporting live from Bobur Square for CNN, BBC News, and other international agencies.

In 2005, Bukharbaeva won the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists. 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". 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".

Her stories on these topics proved unwelcome to the Uzbek government, which soon attempted to restrict her ability to report. In 2002, the government refused to renew her accreditation with the IWPR, and in 2003, her AFP accreditation renewal was also refused. She continued to work at the IWPR nonetheless, becoming its country director for Uzbekistan. According to Bukharbaeva, the organization's office remained under surveillance by an unmarked government car throughout most of 2004 and 2005.

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.

At 1800 local time, security forces massed for an assault, and soldiers began firing on the crowd of protesters from armored personnel carriers. Bukharbaeva later described the massacre in a story for the Committee to Protect Journalists: