Tag Archives: human rights

Amnesty highlights torture in Uzbekistan

MAY 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – For its global campaign against torture, Amnesty International has focused its attention on Uzbekistan.

Amnesty said that torture in Uzbekistan is widespread and that it often passes without being punished. It said that the Uzbek security services often beat detainees and sometimes rape them in order to get a confession.

One of Amnesty’s five global case studies was of an Uzbek women who fled the country in 2005 after police opened fire on a crowd of protesters. She returned five years later, was detained at the airport and then sent to jail for trying to organise a revolution. Eye witnesses, according to Amnesty, said the woman’s face was bruised and that she looked unusually thin at her trial.

None of this is new, but it is still worth highlighting. It’s also worth highlighting that most countries in Central Asia have a poor record on torture and human rights.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)

French president visits Azerbaijan

MAY 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – French president Francois Hollande started his tour of the South Caucasus in Baku. He discussed strengthening business and political ties. Human Rights Watch said Mr Hollande should have pressed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev hard on rights abuses.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)

Azerbaijani court jails youth activists

MAY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s strong-handed approach to opposition activists may have reached a tipping point after rare scuffles between young anti-government campaigners and police.

The trigger was a judge’s decision to jail eight leaders of the NIDA anti-government youth movement to between six and eight years on charges of hooliganism, possessing drugs and explosives and intent to spread public disorder.

If the charges sound draconian and Soviet that’s because they are, say human rights activists. The authorities say that they are simply doing their job and protecting the state.

Over the past few years, the authorities in Azerbaijan have been steadily ramping up their campaign against anti-government activists.

Barely a month passes without an opposition figure appearing in a court on charges of hooliganism. These court appearances invariably end up with a jail sentence.

Police arrested all eight NIDA activists during demonstrations in Baku in March 2013 against the death of an army conscript in mysterious circumstances.

The verdict, although predictable, triggered scuffles outside the courthouse in Baku and more detentions. The violence was not particularly serious but it is still important. Although street demonstrations in Azerbaijan are sometimes tolerated, there is very little history of violence against the police.

There may, though, be more to come.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)

Kazakhstan fears Ukraine turmoil

APRIL 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The revolution and turmoil in Ukraine has frightened the Kazakh government and triggered a draconian law gagging the media, journalists and analysts told the Conway Bulletin.

Earlier this month, the Kazakh government introduced a law that will allow it to ban media during a state of emergency.

Yevgeniya Plakhina, an independent journalist and blogger who has staged anti-government protests, was succinct in her view of the new law.

“The continuous state of revolution in Ukraine has scared the government,” she said. “These laws give the leadership a red button, a button that can be arbitrarily pushed.””

Mainstream media in Kazakhstan has become increasingly marginalised, leaving a void for social media to fill. The authorities argue that social media, as well as more traditional forms of press, can be manipulated by extremists and needs to be controlled during an emergency.

Peer Teschendorf, regional director of the Friederich Ebert Foundation, a German organisation promoting civil society and media freedom, said that these laws were the culmination of a process that began after fighting in the oil town of Zhanaozen in Western Kazakhstan in 2011.

“The free press that is left now has to tread very carefully,” he said.

For Zhanbolat Mamay, journalist for the independent newspaper Tribuna, the law reflects future political landmarks that the authorities are worried about

“The signing of the Eurasian Economic Union treaty is in May and no-one is allowed to criticise it,” he said referring to the morphing of the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan into a stronger union.

“Another reason behind the new laws lays in preparing for the future. The transition to a new leader will have to happen in an information void, in order to prevent criticism and revolt.”

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)

West criticises purge in Azerbaijan

APRIL 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — International human rights groups, the EU and the United States have all criticised Azerbaijan for its clampdown on opposition journalists and activists.

The Azerbaijani authorities appear to be intensifying their purge of anti-government activists.

On April 28, security personnel at Baku airport stopped prominent human rights activist Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus from flying to Doha. Media reported that they had been told they were not allowed to leave the country and held them for several hours.

This followed the extradition from Turkey and arrest at Baku airport of Rafiq Mirqadirov, a well-known writer, on allegations that he spied for arch-enemy Armenia.

In Washington a US State Department spokesperson said that she was disturbed by Mr Mirqadirov’s arrest. The European Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Miusnieks, had a similar message for Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

The authorities in Azerbaijani have been on a determined drive to purge the country of their enemies. Other than paranoia, it’s unclear, though, what is driving this purge. The opposition in Azerbaijan is disorganised, under-funded and under-supported. They don’t really hold much threat to the status quo.

One consequence of the crackdown has been to anger Azerbaijan’s Western allies. The crackdown tallies more with Russia’s mindset then with the West. The problem for Azerbaijan is that it has re-aligned its foreign policy away from Russia towards the West.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)

Court closes newspaper in Kazakhstan

APRIL 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Kazakhstan ordered the closure of the independent Assandi Times newspaper for retaining links to the banned opposition newspaper Respublika. New York-based Human Rights Group said: “This absurd case displays the lengths to which Kazakh authorities are willing to go to bully critical media into silence.”

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)

Azerbaijan police arrests journalist

APRIL 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Azerbaijan detained journalist Rauf Mirqadirov on allegations that he spied for neighbouring Armenia. The lobby group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that the charges were trumped up and called on the Azerbaijan to release Mr Mirqadirov. Press freedom has declined in Azerbaijan.

(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)

Georgia mulls anti-discrimination bill

APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — With the carrot of closer EU ties dangling before it, the Georgian government introduced a long delayed anti-discrimination bill to parliament.

The bill, whose passage is necessary to conclude a visa-free travel deal with the EU, is meant to provide protection against discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, colour, gender, religion and sexual orientation. In highly conservative, macho Georgia, discrimination still persists.

A first draft, prepared by the Justice Ministry together with civil society groups, was ready in January and it had envisaged financial penalties for state and private sector institutions that broke the law.

After consultation with various lawmaker, though, the new draft ditched these provisions.

Human Rights activist Tamta Mikeladze, who helped draft the original version, is disappointed. She said the Georgian Orthodox Church lobbied the government to water down the original version.

“I can’t say whether this will be enough for the EU to grant visa-free travel, but I can tell you that it’s not enough to protect minorities from discrimination,” she said.

The government wants to pursue EU integration and pander to the demands of the Church, a powerful group, which contains many anti-European elements. One of its major fears is that it will be forced to accept same-sex marriages.

It remains to be seen if this anti-discrimination bill will be enough to either persuade the EU that Georgia deserves visa-free travel and if it will improve the plight of minorities in the country.

(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)

HRW criticises Kyrgyzstan

APRIL 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human Rights Watch accused Kyrgyzstan of backsliding on rights and freedom of speech. It said that in the last few months the Kyrgyz authorities had drafted a bill that would criminalise spreading information about homosexuality and had banned several peaceful protests in central Bishkek.

(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)

Uzbek internet cafes install surveillance cameras

APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Under new rules designed to quash Islamic radicals, internet cafes in Uzbekistan will have to install surveillance cameras. The order was signed into law on March 19. Uzbekistan has increased surveillance generally, angering human rights campaigners.

(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)