GENEVA, March 22 (Reuters) - The United Nations risks sanctioning widespread abuses in Uzbekistan if its human rights watchdog follows an internal recommendation to stop monitoring the Central Asian country, activists said on Thursday.

The Human Rights Council and its predecessor body, the Human Rights Commission, have for years examined Uzbekistan's record in confidential sessions, but a Council working group has suggested dropping it from surveillance.

The Council is expected to approve the recommendation by the five-state working group, which includes Zimbabwe as Africa's representative, when it considers it next week, diplomats say.

"It would send all the wrong signals to the Uzbek government," said Veronika Szente Goldston of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"It would send a message by the world's highest human rights body that (the abuse) would not only not carry any consequences but would actually be rewarded."

Uzbekistan, an authoritarian nation of 27 million people, which exports cotton, gold, natural gas and oil, has long faced pressure from the West over its rights record.

The United States and European Union criticised the former Soviet state for using indiscriminate force to quash protests in the town of Andizhan in May 2005, killing hundreds. Uzbekistan has said the Andizhan violence was organised by Islamist rebels.

Human Rights Watch and other rights groups also accuse Tashkent of allowing the torture of prisoners and harassing political opponents.

"Our organisations continue to document credible allegations of torture during investigations and pre-trial custody, as well as in prisons," the groups said in a joint statement.

Only Uzbekistan and Iran are monitored by the Council under the confidential procedure, which is the mildest form of scrutiny to which countries can be subjected.

Iran will also be dropped by the Council, where a majority of the 47 member states opposed singling out individual countries for special attention, diplomats said.

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