Zoyir Mirzayev, the deputy Prime Minister of Uzbek has been sacked over a scandal concerning the humiliation of farmers.
Reports have revealed that the deputy prime minister reprimanded a group of farmers for failing to water the wheat fields on time. The farmers were forced to stay enter a ditch, where they remained for a duration of half an hour.
Taking cognizance of the episode, the labour ministry responded quickly to the episode by setting up a phone hotline for more information on the issue. Over the weekend, a photographed had surfaced on social media, where six men were seen standing in knee-deep water of the ditch. Soon after, the incident assumed the shape of a social media movement, wherein people posted pictures of them standing in an irrigation ditch to draw attention towards the abuse of the farmers at the hands of the deputy Prime Minister. The final nail in the coffin for the deputy Prime Minister was when another image of farmers carrying boulders emerged on social media on the same day. The farmers had been asked to do so as a form of punishment for the poor state of their fields.