JULY 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliament passed a final reading of a bill that strips supervision of the country’s commercial banking sector from the Central Bank. The World Bank had urged the government to drop the bill. President Giorgi Margvelashvili now has to sign the bill into law although he has said he may veto it.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BISHKEK – Kyrgyzstan downgraded bilateral relations with the US because of an award the State Department gave to an imprisoned ethnic Uzbek human rights defender last week, media reported.
Relations between the US and Kyrgyzstan have been worsening since the US military withdrew from an air base outside Bishkek last year. Since then, Kyrgyzstan has drifted towards Russia, joining its Eurasian Economic Union and adopting laws on foreign-funded NGOs and homosexuals which the US has said infringes civil liberties.
The award was given by the US State Department to Azimzhan Askarov. He was imprisoned in the south of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 after ethnic fighting killed nearly 400 people in the city of Osh. His supporters said that the charges, inciting violence, had been fabricated.
After Askarov’s son travelled to Washington to pick up the award, Kyrgyz PM Temir Sariyev signed a decree denouncing relations, which will come into effect on Aug. 20. The move will mean tax breaks awarded to US companies will be cancelled.
On the streets of Bishkek, reaction was mixed. Some people welcomed the tough stance by Mr Sariyev, others were cautious.
“In a couple of years, we will become a colony of Russia,” said a 30-year-old resident of Bishkek. “It is indeed bad that we are losing such assistance because Kyrgyzstan is a poor country.”
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tajikistan jailed Jaloliddin Mahmudov, a senior official in the opposition Islamic Renaissance party, for illegally handling weapons, media reported. Opposition groups in Tajikistan have said that they are being unfairly targeted by the authorities.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – YEREVAN — Armenia’s opposition accused President Serzh Sargsyan of trying to fiddle with the constitution so that he can run the country from parliament after he leaves the presidency in 2018.
Last week, Armenia’s Constitutional Court unveiled plans for a transition to a parliamentary democracy. Armenians are due to vote on the reforms in December.
The government has said a new system would strengthen democracy.
The opposition disagree.
“Serzh Sargsyan is carrying out the reform with one purpose only: to circumvent the constitutional ban on seeking a third term as president and thus extend his own power, Levon Zurabyan, the head of the ANC parliamentary faction,” said in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Armenia’s constitution currently concentrates power with the president. It limits him or her to two terms of five years, a ceiling that Mr Sargsyan will hit in 2018.
David Harutyunyan, an MP from the ruling Republican Party, defended the constitutional changes.
“The basic idea of constitutional reform is to prepare the country for a peaceful change of power, he told journalists at a press conference.
“The current constitution with a semi-hybrid form of government has brought some countries to a dangerous situation. For Armenia, it may have even more damaging consequences.”
There is precedent for reducing the power of the president and switching to a parliamentary democracy in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region.
JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Husband and wife Arif and Leyla Yunis will go on trial, accused of financial crimes, on July 27, a year after they were arrested, media reported. Both Arif and Leyla Yunis are high profile human rights defenders and their trial is almost certain to act as a flash-point.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BISHKEK — Dozens of people protested in central Bishkek against proposed changes to labour laws which they say will reduce the rights of temporary workers.
The main proposed changes focus on making it easier for foreign companies to hire and fire workers.
The government has argued that it needs to update labour laws to crackdown on the “shadow economy” where employers hire people for short periods but do not pay tax.
Protesters said the amendments would help foreign companies dodge paying social security and over-time.
The mood at the protest, which wound its way through central Bishkek under a cloudless blue sky, was angry but calm.
“We are against slavery,” one of the protesters’ banners said.
Many of the protesters were representatives of workers’ unions attached to mines, including the Kumtor mine in the east of the country owned by Toronto-based Centerra Gold. Kumtor is Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest industrial asset.
After the protest, the government said they would set up a working group to look at the demonstrators’ concerns.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Vienna acquitted ex-Kazakh spy chief, Alnur Mussayev and presidential guard Vadim Koshlyak of murdering two Kazakh bankers in 2007. The case involved Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev who was found hanged in prison earlier this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A special commission on constitutional reforms started consultations to shift Armenia’s constitution towards a parliamentary democracy, media reported. Executive power, it is envisaged, would be held by the PM rather than by the president. A referendum is due at the end of 2015.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US State Department gave a human rights award to Azimzhan Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek sent to prison in 2010 for inciting ethnic fighting earlier that year. At the time, in 2010, Askarov’s supporters said the charges had been fabricated. The Kyrgyz foreign ministry lodged a complaint to the US State department.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz police detained MP Hajimurat Korkmazov for extorting a bribe of $100,000 from the brother of Nariman Tuleyev, a jailed MP, the AKIpress agency reported. The case highlights corruption among officials in Kyrgyzstan.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
