JAN. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Policemen in the city of Ferghana told the Uzbek language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that they are not receiving their full salaries. The information stream from Uzbekistan is weak but evidence has been growing that prices are rising and shortages of good growing. The Uzbek government has not commented.
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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)
JAN. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili signed into law a redistricting of constitutional boundaries, part of a move in Georgia to do away with so-called majoritarian seats in parliament. Of Georgia’s 150-seat parliament, 103 are made up of majoritarian, although the size of these seats varies from 9,000 to 150,000 people. The redistricting is the first step in a process designed to even out this imbalance.
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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen officials have started pulling cigarettes off shops’ shelves in what appears to be a draconian attempt to effectively ban smoking altogether.
In Ashgabat, an AFP correspondent interviewed a shopkeeper who said that officials had recently ordered him to stop selling cigarette or face a heavy fine.
“(They) came to our shop recently and forced us to remove cigarettes from the shelves, threatening us with huge fines,” 34-year-old Bairam Saryev said.
Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is known for his eccentricity. He is a former dentist and hates smoking. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has praised his efforts to discourage smokers by banning smoking in all public buildings, parks and offices as well as cigarette advertising.
Last year WHO said only 8% of Turkmenistan’s population smoked, the lowest of any country.
The Turkmen government has not published any official announcement on whether it will ban smoking altogether.
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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
DEC. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Azerbaijan sentenced journalist Rauf Mirkadirov to six years in prison for spying for Armenia. Mirkadirov denies the charges. His supporters said that the jail sentence is more evidence of Azerbaijan’s crackdown on dissent and free speech. Azerbaijan has jailed several journalists over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
JAN. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The trial of five men accused of killing journalist Rasim Aliyev in August has opened. Aliyev was beaten on the streets of a provincial Azerbaijani town and died in hospital. Before he died, he said supporters of international footballer Cavid Huseynov who he had criticised in a match report has attacked him. Mr Huseynov is not among the men standing trial for killing Aliyev.
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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)
DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Swedish court sentenced Yury Zhukovsky, an Uzbek national, to 18 years in prison for the attempted murder of dissident Obid-kori Nazarov in February 2012, in a case that intensified attention on Uzbekistan’s human rights record.
The prosecutor in the trial accused the Uzbek government of ordering the murder of Mr Nazarov who had fled Uzbekistan to Sweden in 2006. He had been a popular cleric who preached against the government.
The judge, though, said that it was not possible to rule on who may have ordered the murder.
Zhukovsky was caught on CCTV camera in a shop in the remote northern town of Stromsund hours before Mr Nazarov was shot in the head with a revolver. Mr Nazarov survived the attempted murder but has been left with brain damage.
Human rights groups have criticised Uzbekistan record. They have said that the government pursues its enemies abroad.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The trial has started of Valery Permyakov, a Russian conscript accused of killing seven members of the same family in January. The murders shocked Armenia and strained relations with Russia. Russia keeps a major military base in Armenia.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in south-west Tajikistan has sentenced seven people, including three under the age of 18, to jail for raising a flag in support of the radical IS group, RFE/RL reported. Tajikistan is concerned about IS recruitment. The seven people received jail sentences of 7 to 27 years.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan appeared to bow to international pressure and release a frail- looking Leyla Yunus, one of the country’s most high-profile human rights activists, from prison where she had been serving an 8-1⁄2 year sentence for fraud and tax evasion.
She will re-join her husband, Arif who was sent to prison at the same time but was released earlier on health grounds, in their Baku home.
The West has accused the authorities in Baku of cracking-down on dissents over the past few years.
Human rights activists welcomed the release of Leyla Yunus, although she is not allowed to leave Baku and her fraud and tax evasion conviction still stands.
They also said, though, that other so-called political prisoners needed to be released. This includes journalist Khadija Ismayilova who was sent to prison earlier this year.
Ismayilova was a relatively well- known RFE/RL journalist in Azerbaijan who had reported on top level corruption in Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili signed a decree stripping Mikheil Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship.
When he was in power between 2003 and 2013 Mr Saakashvili painted himself as proud Georgian patriot and it is likely that losing his Georgian citizenship will hurt and even humiliate him.
Under Georgian laws, though, dual citizenship is illegal.
In May this year, Mr Saakashvili took Ukrainian citizenship, allowing him to take up an offer by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to be governor in Odessa.
This meant that, formally, the government had to strip Mr Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship.
“Based on the law of Georgian citizenship, President Giorgi Margvelashvili signed a decree terminating Mikheil Saakashvili’s citizenship due to his acquisition of a foreign country’s nationality,” the Georgian presidential press service said.
The AFP news agency quoted Mr Saakashvili as telling Georgia’s Rus- tavi-2 TV station that he was angry.
“They can take away my passport, but they can’t do anything with my love for my Motherland,” he said.
Although the constitution bans Georgians from taking dual nationality it doesn’t force foreigners taking Georgian citizenship to renounce their original nationality.
Georgia’s prosecutor-general also wants to arrest Mr Saakashvili and charge him with various crimes. Mr Saakashvili has always said the charges are politically motivated. Several of Mr Saakashvili’s former government colleagues and government officials have been arrested.
The European Union and the West have also warned Georgia’s government not to politicise the criminal system.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
