Tag Archives: human rights

Comment: Georgia needs to prove it cares about human rights

JUNE 5 2017 (The Bulletin) — The Georgian authorities need to act and act fast if they are going to salvage their reputation from the mystery surrounding the kidnapping of an Azerbaijani journalist. He was kidnapped in Tbilisi on Tuesday evening, driven to the border with Azerbaijan and handed over to the authorities.

Human rights activists are, rightly, outraged at the kidnapping and have accused the Georgian government of being complicit, although it is still unclear who the kidnappers actually were.

Levan Asatiani from Amnesty International said the Georgian government allowed Azerbaijani security forces to kidnap Afgan Mukhtarli.

“Georgia must promptly and impartially investigate what happened and hold accountable all those involved in this gruesome operation,” he said.

Asatiani is not the only one to suggest that the kidnapping of an outspoken Azerbaijani journalist from Tbilisi must have had the backing of the Georgian authorities and the European Union and the United States, two key allies of Georgia, have also lodged strongly worded statements.

The timing is also important here.

A week before Mukhtarli’s disappearance, Georgia detained Emre Cabuk, a manager at a school in Tbilisi known to have links to the Gulen movement. Turkey has been trying to shut down the Gulen movement worldwide, ever since a coup attempt last summer, and this has included schools and universities its members had set up in Central Asia and the South Caucasus in the 1990s.

Azerbaijan, as expected, immediately fell into line with the demands from Turkey, its key ally but Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan ducked them.

Georgia had also been expected to avoid being dragged into the Gulen witch-hunt. Apparently not, though.

Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey from an energy pipeline axis that will be vital to European gas needs, adding to the oil pipeline the triumvirate already host. The gas will be produced in Azerbaijan and pumped through pipelines in Georgia and Turkey into Central Europe.

The dividends are likely to be high, drawing Georgia closer towards Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Both Azerbaijan and Turkey have, to put it mildly, a different perspective on human rights and media freedom to the European ideals that Georgia professes to yearn for. It wants to be part of the EU and NATO. There is no point in just paying lip service.

Georgia has to prove that it is worthy of meeting the high criteria demanded of EU and new NATO members.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)

Uzbekistan’s senate ratifies cotton deal with the European Union

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TASHKENT, MAY 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Senate ratified a deal with the European Union over textile exports, paving the way for an expected boost in one of the country’s most important revenue earning products.

The senate’s processing of the protocol was routine but it came only a week after an EU delegation visited Uzbekistan to discuss progress it had made on human rights. At the end of last year, the European Parliament voted to renew a 1999 deal to drop tariffs on cotton imports from Uzbekistan.

It had been suspended in 2011 over concerns about Uzbekistan’s use of child labour to pick the cotton.

During its visit the European Parliament’s human rights subcommittee had said that it was impressed with Uzbekistan’s openness.

“Our impression now, after a three-day visit, is of a country where change is in the air, the road to openness and modernisation lies open if the political resolve to choose the path is strong and consistent,” the group said in a statement.

Human rights groups have said that normalising trade deals over Uzbek cotton has come too early but for Uzbekistan it will be a boost.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)

Kazakh human rights defender quits

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ALMATY, MAY 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Civil rights activists and opposition journalists in Kazakhstan blamed the authorities for pressuring human rights campaigner Olesya Khalabuzar into quitting an anti- government party she established a few years ago.

Known for her forthright statements, Ms Khalabuzar had been viewed as something of a superstar in Kazakhstan’s small activist scene. She was head of the Justice party that she set up in 2015.

“She’s been pressurised by the authorities,” said one journalist in Almaty who asked to remain anonymous. “The anti-government space is getting smaller and smaller here. This is just another instance of the state pressuring an activist to give up their work.”

Rights campaigners have said that the authorities have taken an increasingly tough line on dissenters, cracking down on people who challenge the authorities.

On May 17, in a surprise announcement, Ms Khalabuzar wrote on Facebook that she had decided to give up politics.

“Probably, people will think that I am giving up because of a criminal case against me this is not the case – these people do not understand my situation,” she wrote. “I am leaving public activity. I want to become an ‘ordinary citizen’ and devote the remaining time to my family. This is the most sacred thing.”

In her post she also said that she regretted some of her actions which she described as “counterproductive” and “short-sighted”.

This year, police have detained Ms Khalabuzar for involvement in what they described as an illegal protest. They have also searched her office and she has been the subject of a civil complaint.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 330, published on May 28 2017)

Amnesty International accuses Tajik government

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MAY 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Amnesty International accused the Tajik government of cracking down on civil rights activists and people critical of the government. The accusation came a week after human rights lawyer, Fayzinisso Vohidova, was prevented from leaving the country.

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(News report from Issue No. 330, published on May 28 2017)

UN rights chief praises Uzbekistan

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MAY 10/11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, finished a tour of Uzbekistan by saying that in general he was confident that the country, often derided as one of the worst in the world for human rights, had started to mend its ways.

Mr Zeid’s visit was the first by a UN Human Rights Commissioner to Uzbekistan since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It has been viewed as a turning point in Uzbek relations with international institutions and a major PR victory for Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev who has been looking to woo global institutions.

In a statement at the end of his two night trip to Uzbekistan, Mr Zeid said that he had been impressed by the new Uzbek administration’s endeavor setting up a series of units to improve human rights.

“Uzbekistan is, in my view, at a crossroads. The volume of constructive human rights related proposals, plans and new legislation that has emerged since President Mirziyoyev took up the office is remarkable,” he said.

“It is going to be a long and difficult road to get near that point [improved human rights], with obstructions and setbacks, but I do believe the journey has begun.”

The New York-based Human Rights Watch issued a statement afterwards saying that Uzbekistan’s rhetoric now needed to be turned into action.

Mr Mirziyoyev, inviting Mr Zeid to tour Uzbekistan was a risk. In the end, though, he appears to have impressed Mr Zeid. He wants to improve Uzbekistan’s image to give it access to finance, which is increasingly linked to human rights, and gain more acceptance.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 329, published on May 20 2017)

Azerbaijan forces OSCE to close office in Yerevan

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YEREVAN, MAY 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The OSCE will close its office in Yerevan, its last in the South Caucasus, after Azerbaijan refused to agree to an extended remit.

The closure of the OSCE’s office is a reflection of worsening relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia and increased tension around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Each week both sides accuse the other of breaking a ceasefire. Last year, the worst fighting since 1994 killed dozens of people.

The OSCE, Europe’s democracy and conflict watchdog, said it had no choice but to close the office.

“We regret that after months of negotiations compromise on the extension of the mandate proved impossible. The Chairmanship has exhausted all possibilities to resolve the impasse,” it said.

“The Office is expected to close in the coming months.”

For the OSCE to maintain its office in Yerevan it needed the consensus of all 57 its members. Azerbaijan refused to endorse it because of its de-mining operation in Nagorno- Karabakh which it claimed legitimised Armenia-backed rebels’ rule over the disputed region. The US has accused Azerbaijan of deliberating using the issue of de-mining to close the OSCE office.

Azerbaijan closed down the OSCE’s Baku office in 2015 and in 2008, after a Georgia-Russia war, Russia forced the OSCE to close its office in Tbilisi.

Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Centre based in Yerevan, said the closure of the OSCE office made the West look weak.

“This decision only reaffirms the weakness and lack of Western resolve in the face of a direct challenge from an authoritarian country,” he told The Conway Bulletin.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Azerbaijani court extends ex-minister’s jail sentence

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APRIL 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Baku extended a prison sentence against former Azerbaijani health minister Ali Isanov by seven years for allegedly harbouring drugs in prison and scuffling with guards. Isanov, who has been in prison since 2005 said that the new charges had been fabricated. He was imprisoned for plotting a coup.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Tajik lawyer flees into exile

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MARCH 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A lawyer working on a human rights case in Tajikistan has fled the country fearing for her safety, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, just the latest in a series of anti- government activists who have moved into self-imposed exile. RFE/RL said that they had spoken to Muazzama Qodirova who was now in Germany where she hoped to apply for asylum. She had been working on defending jailed human rights lawyer, Buzurgmehr Yorov. Free speech and human rights groups have complained of the Tajik government’s increasingly dictatorial approach to governing.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)

Uzbek president’s first 100 days in power

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MARCH 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> What is the International Crises Group and why is it important to discuss its report on the first 100 days of Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s rule in Uzbekistan?

>> The International Crisis Group, or ICG, is a think tank based in Brussels. It draws most of its funding from Western governments and reports on some of the world’s long-running problem areas. It is influential. One of the areas it reports on is Central Asia and this report, on Mirziyoyev’s first 100 days as Uzbek president, is one of the first major efforts to evaluate his influence over the region’s most populous country.

>>How does the ICG view Mirziyoyev?

>>Essentially, positive with a strong dose of caution. Like others, the ICG welcomed moves by Mirziyoyev to improve relations with neighbours and has also said there are signs he wants to change the economy which has operated under a pseudo-Soviet centrally controlled system since the 1992 break up of the USSR. But the report’s authors also sounded a serious, and wise, note of caution. They pointed out that Mirziyoyev had been PM under Islam Karimov when the current system, designed to protect the elite, was devised.

>> Got it. What, according to ICG, are the most serious issues facing Mirziyoyev?

>> To start with, the ICG said that Mirziyoyev needs to shore up support within the ranks of the Uzbek elite. Without this support he will fail to update the system. It pointed to a government reshuffle at the start of the year which had improved things but said that he still needed to patch up his differences with Rustam Azimov, an ex-finance minister, and Rustam Inoyatov, the head of the National Security Service.

>> What about ordinary Uzbeks? Does ICG have any insight on how they view their new president?

>> Only a smattering of anecdotal evidence that suggests that Mirziyoyev is going about things the right way and that he has started out with a degree of popularity. ICG quoted a 55-year-old teacher in the Fergana Valley saying: “Mirziyoyev is a person who knows Uzbekistan’s real picture, he can make things better.”

>> And to sum up?

>> The ICG broadly welcomed Mirziyoyev’s first 100 days in office, although it also said that more is needed. It did urge foreign powers to work more closely with Uzbekistan under Mirziyoyev to ensure reforms that have been hinted at come through and don’t become early-day regime hubris.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Tajik court increases lawyers sentence

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MARCH 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tajikistan extended by two years a jail sentence imposed on human rights lawyer Buzurgmehr Yorov who was imprisoned in October 2016 for 23 years for allegedly calling for a coup. At his trial, Yorov called the allegations against him politically motivated. He then read out a verse from a poem likening officials to fools, leading to a charge of contempt of court and the additional two year prison sentence which have now been passed down.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)