Tag Archives: human rights

HRW criticises Azerbaijan over blogger

MARCH 7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The influential New York-based Human Rights Watch described the imprisonment of Azerbaijani blogger Mehman Huseynov for slander in February as a “new low even for Azerbaijan”. Rights groups have been complaining that the Azerbaijani authorities have been crushing dissenting voices for years using slander and libel laws. Azerbaijani officials have refuted this and said instead that the West was intent on fomenting a revolution in Azerbaijan. Huseynov was well- known for reporting on official corruption.

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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)

Uzbek authorities detain rights campaigner

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MARCH 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan detained human rights campaigner Elena Urlaeva, Reuters reported quoting a video message she posted on the internet. In her video message, Ms Urlaeva said that she had been detained, beaten and taken to a psychiatric unit in Tashkent. She is best known for campaigning against forced labour in the cotton industry. She had been due to meet with the World Bank to discuss forced labour violations.

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(News report from Issue No. 319, published on March 3 2017)

Uzbek authorities release reporter after 18 years

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FEB. 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan released opposition activist and journalist Muhammad Bekjanov from prison after 18 years. Mr Bekjanov, considered one of the longest serving political prisoners in the world, was sent to prison in 1999 after a trial linked to a car bomb in the capital, Tashkent. His supporters have always said that he is innocent.

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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)

Kazakh authorities clamping down on rights groups

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FEB. 21 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The New York-based Human rights Watch said that the authorities in Kazakhstan have been harassing two local human rights groups by falsely alleging that their tax receipts were wrong. HRW said that International Legal Initiative Foundation and Liberty had both faced tax audits. The Kazakh authorities have not commented. Rights groups have previously accused Kazakhstan of using official channels to close down groups that it finds a nuisance.

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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)

Turkmen authorities release RFE/RL reporter

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FEB. 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said that its journalist Khudayberdy Allashov and his mother, Kurbantach Arazmedova, had been released from prison and given a three-year suspended sentence for carrying chewing tobacco. Human rights activists cheered their release from prison, as they feared that a custodial sentence was likely. Under the terms of his release, though, Allashov is banned from using communication equipment, making it impossible for him to return to work as a journalist.

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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)

Uzbek authorities release banker from jail

FEB. 15 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan have released Rustam Usmanov, who once owned a bank and a string of other business, after 19 years in prison, RFE/RL reported. RFE/RL quoted a relative of Mr Usmanov as saying that he was released on Feb. 13. The move may be part of a general softening of tone in Uzbekistan after the death of Islam Karimov, ruler for 25 years, and the emergence of Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Mr Usmanov is credited with setting up Uzbekistan’s first bank in the early 1990s. The 69- year-old was convicted of fraud in 1998.

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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Kyrgyz civil leaders criticise crackdown on Facebook as an “invasion of human rights”

BISHKEK, JAN. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rights groups and civil society leaders in Kyrgyzstan have criticised the government for moves to monitor Facebook for comments critical of the president.

The row centres on the Kyrgyz National Security Committee’s (GKNB) move to identify and monitor 45 Facebook users who have criticised President Almazbek Atambayev. Facebook in Kyrgyzstan is one of the few mediums ordinary people use to express political opinions.

But Klara Sooronkulova, a former judge of the Constitutional Court who was sacked in 2015 because of a disagreement with Parliament over the use of people’s biometrics data said the move was wrong. “It is invasion of privacy and violation of human rights,” she told The Conway Bulletin.

A Bishkek analyst who preferred to remain anonymous said politics may be motivating the clampdown.

“The next presidential elections are coming [ in October],” he said. “They are taking measures to control chaos by trying to control who criticises the President.”

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(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Kyrgyzstan keeps Uzbek activist locked up

BISHKEK, JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Kyrgyzstan reiterated a life sentence against ethnic Uzbek rights activist Azimjan Askarov for stirring racial tension in the south of the country in 2010.

Kyrgyzstan has been under pressure from the United States, the United Nations and various human rights groups to free Askarov, but the judge in the court in Bishkek rejected the notion that the original conviction had been unsafe.

Human rights groups said the decision had been politically motivated and that the government was looking for scapegoats for ethnic violence in 2010. Askarov had been arrested in the aftermath of riots in 2010 focused on the southern city of Osh between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that killed several hundred people.

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(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Ex-security chief in Turkmenistan dies in jail

JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tirkish Tyrmyev, the former head of Turkmenistan’s National Security Committee, has died in prison, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. RFE/RL said that Tyrmev had been sent to prison in 2002 for abuse of power. It also said that shortly before he was due to be released in 2012, a court extended his sentence by seven years for apparently attacking a prison guard. Turkmenistan is one of the most secretive country’s in the world and has a poor human rights record.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Azerbaijan’s court jails activist

JAN. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Azerbaijan sentenced Elgiz Gahraman, a 31-year-old opposition youth activist, to 5-1/2 years in prison for drug-related offences. The New York- based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that in August 2016 Gahraman had been taken by police to a station in Baku, beaten and forced to sign a confession that he had been carrying heroin and intended to sell it. HRW has accused the Azerbaijani authorities of using bogus charges to imprison people it considers to be troublemakers.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)