Uzbekistan has tightened laws punishing online criticism of the Central Asian country's leader and calls for "disorder" ahead of a presidential vote in autumn, state media reported Wednesday. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who is likely to run essentially unopposed in October, has won plaudits for reforms that have opened up the ex-Soviet country after the death of hardline predecessor Islam Karimov brought him to power in 2016. But rights groups have warned that signs of backsliding are multiplying in the country of 34 million people, highlighting moves against the media and speech freedoms during the pandemic. Amendments to the criminal code that took effect Wednesday added "telecommunication networks or the world wide Internet" to existing laws punishing calls to disorder and insulting the president by a maximum jail sentence of five years, the state newspaper People's Word reported. The new legislation comes after a blogger, Miraziz Bozarov, was violently attacked Sunday after repeatedly criticising Mirziyoyev and calling for the repeal of a law prohibiting sexual relationships between men. Police said Monday that they are investigating the attack but have not yet detained anybody. Police also detained 12 people who took to the streets Sunday in a rare demonstration to oppose Bozarov's calls for LGBT rights and defend Islamic culture. Some protesters appeared to attack people standing in a central square during the march. The clampdown on dissent also comes as Uzbekistan's economy has begun to struggle. It grew by only 1.6 percent in 2020, compared with 5.8 percent a year earlier, as the coronavirus pandemic battered a tourism sector that had grown massively thanks to the lifting of entry restrictions for people from dozens of countries. Winter fuel shortages also spurred small protests in some Uzbek regions. The shortages were seen by some analysts as the reason that authorities moved the presidential vote forward from December to the warmer month of October. sk-cr/emg/wai