FEB. 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A new law means that all unregistered mobile phones in Kazakhstan will be blocked from July 1 2017. The authorities say that the new law has been brought in to help fight potential terrorists but its detractors have said that it has been imposed to help the authorities monitor people who oppose the government more closely.
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(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)
JAN. 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili amnestied seven former defence ministry employees who had been imprisoned for seven years in 2014/15 for embezzlement. The case was high profile and lead to the resignation of Irakli Alasania as minister of defence. Mr Alasania had once been considered a high flyer member of the Georgian Dream party.
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(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)
JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev signed into law a decree that increased fines handed out to people who swear on the street and drink in office blocks, media reported.Police officers can now hand out fines of 15,000 som ($200) for swearing in public and 10,000 som for drinking in the workplace.
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(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, cut an eight year jail sentence handed out to former Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov for corruption to 1 year and seven months because of an amnesty granted by President Nursultan Nazarbayev last year to mark the 25th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence. Akhmetov had been PM between Sept. 2012 and April 2014. He was convicted in Dec. 2015. Under the new term, he should be due to be released shortly.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
ALMATY, JAN. 7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh authorities imposed new migration rules which will force people to register with a local unit of the interior ministry every time they switch jobs or travel somewhere, even if it is just for a few days.
The interior ministry has said the new rules are needed to help fight terrorism but the hundreds of people queuing at centres across the country said that the new plans were just adding cost and wasting time.
Centres dealing with the flow of people trying to register under the new rules have had their opening times extended by an hour and are now also open on Sundays.
Saltanat, 25, a small business owner in Almaty said the authorities hadn’t communicated their plan properly.
“This is a very flawed law and I think that those who passed it don’t fully understand it themselves,” she said. “I have to work eight hours a day and I don’t know how am I going to register given huge lines in Public Service Centres.”
The Kazakh authorities want to clampdown on terrorism and some people welcomed the new rules.
“In my mind, authorities are attempting to solve two problems at once. Reduce the crime rate in big cities and control the unstoppable migration of people from rural areas to the cities like Almaty,” said Shaken, 49.
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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
DEC. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tbilisi sent two former high-ranking government officials to prison for 9-1/2years for murder and perverting the course of justice. The two men, David Akha- laia and Giorgi Dgebuadze, were senior police officers in the interior ministry under the former government of Mikheil Saakashvili. The EU and the US have warned the Georgian Dream government not to politicise the justice system.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s parliament voted to make defamation of the president on the internet a criminal offence, a move that President Ilham Aliyev’s critics say highlights just how authoritarian his administration has become. Defamation has been a criminal offence for three years in Azerbaijan but there had previously been no specific mention of the president. The internet is important in Azerbaijan as it is, or was, one of the only places were Azerbaijanis could swap news and views relatively safely.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
DEC. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — New legislation in Kazakhstan will mean that from January 2017 all foreign TV stations planning on broadcasting programmes from the country will have to have a registered office, media quoted Kazakhstan’s information minister, Dauren Abayev, as saying. The move is seen as yet another way for Kazakhstan to increase its control of the media.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
ALMATY, NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty jailed four men for between eight and 10 years for the rape of woman in a case that was only investigated after the mother of the victim posted a teary, anguished video on the internet asking for help.
Few rape cases are prosecuted in Kazakhstan because the victims are afraid to speak out against their attackers and are also worried about the stigma of being raped.
In this case, the victim was attacked and raped near a police station in the town of Yesik, which has a population of about 40,000 people and is roughly 40km east of Almaty. She said that initially the police were not interested in her complaint, possibly because one of the attackers was the son of a local politician, and allowed the attackers to walk away free. It was only when her mother broadcast her video, touching a nerve with the public, that the authorities showed any interest.
After the verdict a lawyer for the rape victim, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said that the conviction of the four men for rape was an important milestone for Kazakhstan.
“The verdict is of course fair. It means a lot because all women of Kazakhstan were waiting for this verdict, all those who kept silent their whole life about rapes. For ages, centuries, this problem was concealed and finally there is a woman who has openly spoken about it,” lawyer Aiman Umarova told The Conway Bulletin.
“For the country it means a new milestone when the government paid attention to women’s rights, to this social problem, and towards abuse against women.”
While some were celebrating the case as a step towards equality there has been a backlash. The rape victim and her family have had to ask for police protection as they have been receiving death threats from friends and family of the attackers.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
TBILISI, NOV. 15 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian economy minister Dimitry Kumsishvili said compulsory vehicle maintenance and emissions inspections will resume from Jan. 1 2018, after a gap of 14 years, a move aimed at improving the safety of Georgian roads and meeting EU standards.
Mandatory vehicle inspection was abolished in 2004 due to its ineffectiveness and vulnerability to corruption, a reflection, perhaps, of Georgia’s chaotic business and social scene in the years after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
Mr Kumsishvili said he wanted to attract foreign companies with experience to take on the challenge of running and monitoring an annual vehicle safety scheme and has invited companies with at least 15 years experience in Europe to apply by Dec. 8 to run the scheme.
Mikheil Khmaladze, the director of the Land Transport Agency, which sits within the economy ministry, told The Conway Bulletin that Georgia needed a company with experience if it was going to make a success of the project.
“We might know how to do this in theory but we lack the practical experience. The international company will be a consultant and will advise us on what to do. There is a lot of risk of corruption in this field,” he said in an interview.
The winner of the tender will be given a two-year contract starting on Jan. 1 2017.
Inspections will be conducted throughout the country by local businesses. A maximum price per inspection will be set and a national database, where all the data regarding will be entered, raked over and inspected for transparency.
The reintroduction of a vehicle inspection scheme was a requirement stipulated by the Georgia-EU
Association Agreement requirement. Georgia wants to join the EU.
Environmentalists have also said that the scheme is needed to cut pollutants.
Nino Shavgulidze, Chief of Party of Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN), said that cars were the biggest pollutants in Tbilisi.
“Statistics shows that of the more than 1m cars running in Georgia, a majority are more than 10 years old. Most of these vehicles do not have catalytic converters, are very poorly maintained, and emit pollutants that are dangerous for human health,” she said.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
