Tag Archives: law

Uzbek GM ex-head awaits trial

SEPT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Uzbekistan released on bail former GM Uzbekistan head Tokhirjon Jalilov, who was arrested in April in connection with a fraud scheme around car exports to Russia. Jalilov, who had served as chairman of GM Uzbekistan since 2010, will face trial for embezzlement. State-owned Uzavtoprom owns 75% of GM Uzbekistan, US- based GM owns the rest.

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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)

Azerbaijani court sentences bus driver in Euro Games crash

BAKU, SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The bus driver who crashed into a group of Austrian teenage swimmers inside the athletes’ village on the eve of Baku’s European Games last year was sentenced to three years in prison for breaking road rules, but a security company camera-man who recorded and circulated the footage of the crash on the internet was found guilty of abuse of office and sentenced to four years in jail.

Footage of the crash showed a coach swinging through a roundabout too quickly and then mowing over the Austrian swimmers. One of the swimmers was left severely disabled and the accident overshadowed the Games.

The different length of prison sentences has concerned many Azerbaijanis who question the fairness of a justice system in which the man who made the information public was punished more harshly than the driver of the coach.

“You don’t have to be a lawyer to say that this judgment is completely disproportional. Recording and sharing such a video should not be a crime. It’s not a state secret,” Said, a 20-year old student at Baku State University told The Conway Bulletin.

“The government tried to cover the incident because they invested millions of dollars in the Games and didn’t want that to spoil their international image. But if they truly care about it, they should make sure the trial is fair. It clearly wasn’t.”

Three Austrian synchronised swimmers were hit by the coach on June 13, a day before the start of the European Games. Two of them, suffering from multiple broken bones and spine injury, were flown to Vienna on the personal jet of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.

The driver of the coach pleaded guilty, saying he had mistaken the accelerator for the brake pedal.

Azerbaijan had tried to use the inaugural European Games in Baku to promote itself. Instead the Games were marred by the coach crash, another serious car crash and mediocre sporting performances.

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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)

Court charges with espionage former Kyrgyz PM’s son

SEPT. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Bishkek sentenced Altynbek Muraliyev, son of former Kyrgyz PM Amangeldi Muraliyev, to 22 years in prison for treason and espionage, toughening its previous sentence of 12 years in prison. Muraliyev was arrested in November 2014, while attempting to flee Kyrgyzstan. The National Security Service said he had given classified information to foreign governments.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Kazakh President wants new housing deal

ALMATY, SEPT. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s government adopted a new programme to improve access to housing, in an effort to curb protests against proposed land reforms that swept the country earlier this year.

The new programme, called Nurly Zher (‘Bright Land’), will, it is planned, put into action plans laid out in 2003 to give 1,000 square metres of land to every Kazakh citizen.

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev told ministers at a government meeting that without infrastructure, the land parcels would be useless to people.

“We told people we would give them 1,000 square metres to build houses. Now people demand this land. But across our vast steppe there are no roads, electricity, water and heat infrastructure,” Mr Nazarbayev said.

Kazakhstan is the ninth biggest country in the world but has a population of just 17m people.

The Nurly Zher programme will spend $71m building infrastructure — roads, water, electricity — to try and attract development.

It has also said that it will subsidise the building of new housing by up to 30% and ensure that banks give cheap loans out to developers.

But it also drew criticism from people who said that Mr Nazarbayev had diluted the original plan.

“Through this program we will finally have infrastructure for lands. However, people will now be forced to buy houses with mortgages despite the fact that the land is free,” said Daniyar Kankozha, an IT worker.

Land reform and housing are sensitive issues in Kazakhstan. Earlier this year, protests spread around the country after plans were unveiled that would have given foreigners
more rights to own land.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Azerbaijani President sets referendum for constitutional changes

JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijanis will vote in a referendum on Sept. 26 on reforms to the Constitution proposed by President Ilham Aliyev that he says will create a stronger country but his opponents have said are designed to boost his own powers.

Mr Aliyev set the date for a referendum after formal approval from the Constitutional Court.

Among the proposed changes are the extension of presidential terms from five to seven years, the creation of the new positions of first vice- president and vice-president, and the abolition of the 35-year-old minimum age for presidential candidates.

As well as tinkering with the constitution, Mr Aliyev may be using the vote as a show of strength at a fragile time for his presidency. Azerbaijan’s GDP is set to shrink this year for the first time since 1995, inflation is rising and all-important oil exports have slowed. Earlier this year unprecedented anti-government demonstrations across the country shook the Azerbaijani establishment and demonstrated the depth of frustration felt by ordinary people.

Still, it is likely that the proposed reforms will be passed because of the generally high level of support for Mr Aliyev and also because he has purged his opponents over the last few years. Even so, on the streets of Baku candid opinion was divided over the merits of the proposed reforms.

Talking to the US-funded RFE/RL, a retiree said the changes were a good idea.

“The nation knows the president very well, so why bother with holding elections that often,” he said.

But not everyone is equally enthu- siastic. Some of the changes appear designed to limit free speech, specifically making it more difficult for people to gather in public.

Gulnur, a 29-year-old project manager, said she would vote against the changes.

“I am totally against constitutional changes which will hand extra power to this already long-running dictator,” she told The Conway Bulletin’s Azerbaijan correspondent. “To be honest, I have lost so much hope for any good changes in Azerbaijan.”

A 2009 referendum scrapped a two-term limit, allowing Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father in 2003, to be president-for-life.

Azerbaijan has never held an election considered free and fair by Western election observers.

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Armenia proposes new tax code

JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s ministry of economy proposed slashing taxation on dividends in the draft of the country’s new tax code, official media reported. Armenia’s parliament approved the new tax code at a first reading on June 15. Artsvik Minasyan, minister of economy, said that scrapping dividend tax will lure more foreign investment to the country.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Kazakh court jails IS activist

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Petropavlovsk, in northern Kazakhstan, sentenced a man to seven years in prison for joining the IS extremist group. According to the court, the man travelled to Syria in 2012. Warning of a growing IS recruitment drive, Kazakhstan’s security services have said they will intensify their clampdown on Islamic extremism.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Tajik court sentences Salafist activist

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Tajik court jailed Mukhammadi Rakhmatullo, alleged leader of Salafi, a banned conservative Islamic movement in Tajikistan, for seven years in prison. Rakhmatullo had allegedly returned to Tajikistan after a period working abroad and had continued to run the banned Salafi opposition movement. He was arrested in February during a mass security operation that jailed dozens of Salafists.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Turkmen President urges to vote on new constitution

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered the Council of Elders to vote on a new constitution in mid-September. The Council of Elders is an advisory body chaired by Mr Berdymukhamedov widely believed to rubber-stamp his diectorates. A proposed new constitution that would effectively extend Mr Berdymukhamedov’s term as president was published in February.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Kazakh court fines opposition newspaper

ALMATY, JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a case that media freedom lobbyists say shows how Kazakhstan is muzzling independent media, a court in Almaty ordered the opposition newspaper Tribuna/ Ashyk Alan to pay 5m tenge ($14,836) in damages to government official Sultanbek Syzdykov after it described him as corrupt for stealing 23m tenge ($68,249) from the budget of the 2011 Asian Games.

Although police launched an investigation into Mr Syzdykov, the court ruled that the newspaper could not describe him as corrupt because he had repaid the amount he had stolen.

Denis Krivosheyev, the Tribuna journalist who wrote the story, said that the verdict was nonsense.

“This government official was convicted of corruption,” he told reporters outside the court. “It is a fact that no one denies.”

Western government and media freedom groups have accused Kazakhstan of cracking down on free speech. Earlier this year, Guzyal Baidalinova, editor of the opposition Nakanune.kz website, was convicted of slander against Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s largest bank. She was released from prison, also on July 12, although her guilty sentence remains.

The government has cracked down on the media this year, partly as a reaction to a worsening eco- nomic outlook and to increasing unrest in the country.

Yermurat Bapi, a trustee of the journalists’ union in Kazakhstan told The Conway Bulletin that the media environment was worsening.

“This authoritarian system that was developed over 15 to 20 years has become obsolete, it is dying and with its last gasp is trying to preserve and protect itself through bans, persecutions and the courts,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)