NOV. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan and the EU held the eighth round of bilateral talks focused on human rights in Brussels. Uzbekistan’s minister for justice, Nigmatilla Yuldashev and the EU’s head of human rights, Silvio Gonzato, headed the delegations. The EU said Uzbekistan had made progress eradicating child labour in the cotton industry.
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(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)
NOV. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan claims it is on track for a cotton production target many thought unrealistic when the government announced it earlier in the year.
Avesta.tj, the Dushanbe-based news agency, quoted the country’s ministry of agriculture as saying 373,000 tonnes of its 408,000 tonne target have already been gathered.
Cotton plays a key part in Central Asia’s economy, although it is controversial as human rights campaigners have criticised all the Central Asian states of using forced labour to pick the harvest.
In 2013, the US State Department Trafficking in Persons report said: “Some Tajik children and possibly some adults were subjected to agricultural forced labor in Tajikistan — mainly during the fall 2012 cotton harvest — but this exploitation occurred to a lesser degree than in 2011.”
That may be because cotton production itself has become steadily less profitable. Typically, Tajikistan exports raw cotton to Russia, China, Turkey and Iran. Efforts to develop finished cotton products in the country’s mills have been harmed by chronic electricity shortages that tend to begin right after the season finishes.
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(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV.10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Europe’s main democracy watchdog, the OSCE, accused Azerbaijan of crushing independent media. Dunja Mijatovic, OSCE media representative, said free media had been “purposefully persecuted under various, often unfounded and disturbing charges.”
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
BISHKEK/Kyrgyzstan, NOV.12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The human rights officer, a veteran who has done her time in several tense capitals, singled out with annoyance one major European country for its relative inaction on human rights matters in Central Asia — Germany.
“Germany’s approach is one of soft diplomacy, which has its strengths, but to what end in Central Asia?” she asked rhetorically. “All of my meetings with German officials have been worthless. It’s impossible to get Germany to take a stand on human rights in the region.”
This is, of course, a criticism that many Western governments have to contend with — that they look for strategic military or business deals over human rights.
The Bishkek-based human rights activist attributed Germany’s unwillingness to criticise human rights failures in Uzbekistan to the airbase it maintains in Termez. Last month it agreed an extension on this base.
But more generally — and against its otherwise strong international reputation on human rights matters — the German government has applied relatively little pressure on Central Asian governments on questions of human rights.
All this is a particular disappointment for human rights advocates in the EU and beyond.
Germany has a large business stake in each of the five former Soviet Central Asian countries. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have been especially lucrative for Germany. Today Germany is also home to hundreds of thousands of repatriated ethnic Germans, mostly from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
But whatever the explanation of Germany’s inaction — financial interest, concerns about remaining ethnic Germans in the region, or deference to the idea of a Russian sphere of influence — the lack of direction does no favours to those non-governmental organisations trying to raise the profiles of political prisoners and the lack of a free press in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – he European Court of Human Rights ordered Georgia to pay Sulkhan Molashvili, a former official in the state audit committee, $25,000 compensation for wrongly being imprisoned in 2004 for corruption. The current Georgian government has charged former ministers under ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili of abuse of power.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
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OCT. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s government, already under fire for cracking down on human rights, will allow its police force to carry stun guns. Police will be able to use the stun guns to make arrests and in crowd control scenarios. The decision is likely to draw more criticism.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
NOV. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An official at the United Nations’ labour watchdog, ILO, said tentative progress had been made by Uzbekistan in eradicating child labour from the cotton harvest. AFP, a French news agency, quoted ILO official Harri Taliga as saying that he had seen some improvements during the recent harvest.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At least 19 people have died this year during Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported. Human rights campaigners have long accused the Uzbek authorities of forcing people to work in cotton fields during the harvest.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Barely a week after Kyrgyzstan’s parliament passed a first reading of a law banning the promotion of gay propaganda, more proposals restricting civil rights have surfaced.
Media reported that Kyrgyzstan wants to restrict NGOs receiving financial support from overseas, forcing groups to submit to tighter auditing and control.
Perhaps most importantly the law is similar to one brought in by Russia in 2012. The anti-gay law was also similar to a law introduced in Russia underlining the increased influence that Russia has over Kyrgyzstan.
The London-based lobby group Institute for War and Peace Reporting wrote: “Many Kyrgyz groups work on civil and political rights, democracy-building, and corruption, and could soon find themselves as beleaguered as their Russian counterparts.”
Kyrgyz officials have defended the new law as essential to monitor groups that could potentially be used to undermine Kyrgyz democracy.
Perhaps, although, similarly to the anti-gay law, the real reason could be Kyrgyzstan’s need to cosy up to Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Croatia’s foreign minister Vesna Pusic began a tour of Central Asia with a stopover in Ashgabat, a rare visit to Turkmenistan by a senior member of a European Union government.
Ms Pusic was on a sales pitch to win more ship-building contracts for the yards in Croatia but the trip was also important symbolically. The more high-ranking visits by officials from Turkmenistan, the more the country enters the mainstream.
Such a visit would practically have been unthinkable under Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov. But Mr Berdymukhamedov has opened up the country and turned it into a regional energy superpower with all the wealth that goes with it.
For Turkmenistan, Croatia’s interest confers a sort of respectability and gives it an ally within the EU. Human rights activists still describe Turkmenistan as one of the most repressive countries in the world with no free media.
Media reports were also candid on what Croatia had, apparently, offered Turkmen officials as a sweetener for contracts — visa free travel for Turkmens holding diplomatic passports and other special passports.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
