Tag Archives: Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan stops more IS recruitment

FEB. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s security services have uncovered 30 more attempts by the radical group IS to recruit young disaffected Kyrgyz men for their army in Syria, the US-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported quoting the government. The authorities also said an imam at a large mosque had been arrested for supporting IS.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Russia slow on Kyrgyz projects

FEB. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s energy minister, Kubanychbek Turdubayev, has accused Russia of working too slowly on upgrades to hydropower projects, eurasianet.org reported. Upgrades to the Kambar-Ata 1 dam and the Upper-Naryn Cascade were part of a 2012 deal that saw Moscow secure an extension to leases on military bases in Kyrgyzstan.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Inflation likely to climb in Kyrgyzstan

>>Economy minister warns of more price rises>>

FEB. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s economy minister, Temir Sariev, said that inflation could hit 13% this year, double the rate the government is aiming for.

Mr Sariev said that a combination of events had forced a large price jump in Kyrgyzstan — the falling Russian rouble, a slowdown in the economy and joining the Kremlin-steered Eurasian Economic Union.

In December annualised inflation measured over 10%, sharply up from the beginning of the year.

Last month the Kyrgyz Central Bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points to 11%, its highest rate since 2012.

But alongside the rouble devaluation and entry to the Eurasian Economic Union, Mr Sariev said that other problems had also weighed on the economy and had made the start of 2015 difficult.

“Seasonal water shortage has brought two big problems for us. Firstly, agricultural products produced in fewer amounts. Second, less energy produced. As a result, we had to buy it in Kazakhstan,” he said according to media reports.

The problem for the government is a weak economic outlook triggers resentment.

Opposition parties have already said that intend to hold a series of rallies in Bishkek this spring themed around what they described as a new economic crisis.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Kyrgyz Central Bank spends heavily

FEB. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan has spent around 10% of its currency reserves this year defending its currency from devaluing, media quoted the chairman of the Central Bank, Tolkunbek Abdygulov, as saying. The Kyrgyz som is closely linked to the Russian rouble and has devalued against the US dollar by around 20%.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Measles on the rise in Kyrgyzstan

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Measles in Kyrgyzstan is on the rise because parents are opting their children out of the vaccination for religious reasons, media reported quoting government doctors. Figures quoted by the media said that the number of confirmed measles cases in Kyrgyzstan rose to 3,400 this year from 200 last year.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Kyrgyzstan and the EEU

FEB. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Viktor Khristenko, chairman of the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union, said the final barriers to Kyrgyzstan’s entry to the group had been removed. He was talking to press after a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union. Kyrgyzstan aims to join the EEU, which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia, later this year.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Kyrgyz police arrest extremists

FEB. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kyrgyzstan said they had arrested several members of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir in a number of coordinated raids across the country, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Kyrgyzstan is increasingly worried about Islamic extremists’ recruitment drive in the country.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Kyrgyzstan detains Uzbeks on border

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan detained four Uzbek nationals on their shared border, media reported. Relations between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have been strained over the last few years by rows over border rights and hydro-electric dams. The rows have the potential to destabilise the region.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Kyrgyzstan starts anti-IS drive

>>US-backed website promotes drive to counter radical Islam>>

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan has stepped up a programme in the south of the country to counter propaganda from Islamic extremists.

The website centralasiaonline.com, which has links to the US government, quoted NGO workers and people in southern Kyrygzstan explaining how the government had started a series of courses to pull potentially vulnerable people away from online material distributed by the IS extremist group.

“Young people encounter dubious information online and fall prey to the negative influence of recruiters, who lure our brothers and sons to hot spots,” the website quoted one woman who lived near Osh, the main city in the region.

Centralasiaonline.com has a clear pro-Western agenda but its report matches other media reports which have described how the Kyrgyz government is trying to counter IS recruitment ambitions in Central Asia.

IS has identified Central Asia as a particularly fertile recruitment ground because of high levels of dissatisfaction among young Muslim men.

The centralasiaonline.com report said the government had hosted six workshops for 250 people over the past couple of months.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Civil rights fall across the region

EDINBURGH/NEW YORK, FEB. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Civil freedoms in Central Asia and the South Caucasus took a turn for the worse in 2014 as governments moved closer to Russia and worried that street demonstrations in Ukraine may spread, Freedom House said in an interview.

The sharpest deterioration in civil rights in 2014, according to the US-based lobby group, came in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.

“Governments restricted freedom of assembly and speech to prevent ‘maidans’ and Russian encouragement of separatism,” Nate Schenkkan, a Eurasia Programme Officer at Freedom House, said in an interview with The Bulletin. Schenkkan’s reference to so-called maidans was to Ukrainian street demonstrations which morphed into a full scale revolution.
The interview was conducted over twitter with questions also taken from viewers.

At the end of last year Azerbaijani police raided the office of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In the interview with The Bulletin, Schenkkan said the police raid was the culmination of a tough year for media and government critics in Azerbaijan.

“There was a full-scale crackdown. Now (there are) 90 plus political prisoners, all independent media shuttered in Azerbaijan,” he said. “Sanctions for Azerbaijani officials should be on the table and EU leaders should skip the European Games.” Azerbaijan is hosting the inaugural European Games later this year.

As for Kyrgyzstan, Schenkkan said new legislation had dented Kyrgyzstan’s image.

“Kyrgyzstan is the most disappointing because it is a reversal after relative gains recently,” he said. “Copycat attempts at Russian legislation against LGBTI and NGOs nearly passed.”
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)