Tag Archives: law

Kyrgyzstan defends shares in Centerra Gold

BISHKEK, JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Canada dismissed a notion put forward by three companies and a businessman locked in legal disputes with the Kyrgyz government that would have threatened state-owned Kyrgyzaltyn’s ownership of shares in Toronto-listed Centerra Gold.

The decision is a major victory, after years of wrangling, for Kyrgyzstan which wanted to ringfence a 32.7% stake in Toronto-listed Centerra Gold owned by state gold company Kyrgyzaltyn. It’s also a relief for Centerra Gold, which owns the Kumtor gold mine — Kyrgyzstan’s single largest industrial asset.

The claimants — Canadian miner Stans Energy, Turkish construction companies Sistem and Entes and the Latvian citizen Valeri Belokon — had said that the Canadian court should freeze and seize the stake to enforce other arbitration rulings involving Kyrgyzstan. They said that the shares may be officially owned by Kyrgyzaltyn but that the Kyrgyz state was the beneficial owner.

The judge, Justice Conway, disagreed, though, and ruled that Kyrgyzaltyn and Kyrgyzstan could not be treated as the same entity.

The ruling means that the claimants will have to find other jurisdictions to pursue their legal claims against Kyrgyzstan.

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

Kyrgyz Supreme Court orders retrial for Askarov

BISHKEK, JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial into the sentencing of human rights activist Azimzhan Askarov in 2010 to life in prison for involvement in a murder and for inciting ethnic hatred.

The announcement disappointed human rights activists who have said that Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek, is a political prisoner who was made into a scapegoat after fighting between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh killed at least 400 people. They wanted the

Supreme Court to bow to pressure from the UN and US to release the 65-year-old Askarov.

Askarov’s case has strained relations between Kyrgyzstan and the US, which last year called him a political prisoner.

Analysts in Bishkek have told The Bulletin that the Supreme Court may give in to pressure to hold a retrial but that it would be, politically, very difficult for a court to come to a different outcome at a new trial.

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

Kazakh court jails IS group

JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Aktobe, northern Kazakhstan, sentenced 12 people who had allegedly tried to join the ranks of the extremist IS group in February. The suspects received sentences of between 6 and 8 years in prison. The court said the group had tried to travel to Syria to join an IS training camp. Kazakhstan’s government has repeatedly emphasised its efforts towards combating Islamic extremism.

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

Azerbaijan jails journalist

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Azerbaijan sentenced Fikret Faramazoglu, editor of theinvestgiative jam.az newspaper, to three months in jail for extortion. Jam.az reports on court cases involving government officials, with a focus on the national security department. Media lobby groups say the charges are false.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

200 people protest against drug law in Georgia

TBILISI, JUNE 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Roughly 200 people protested in front of the former parliament building in central Tbilisi against what they said was an excessively draconian and ineffective zero tolerance policy towards drugs.

The protest was one of several organised this year against the drug law in the run-up to a parliamentary election.

In Georgia, possession of even the smallest amount of drugs is considered a criminal offence that could lead to a jail sentence. The law allows police officers to stop people on the street and test them for drug use.

The Georgian Dream coalition takes a conservative approach to society, pulling in support from Georgia’s traditional Orthodox Christian society, but it risks alienating more liberal-minded voters ahead of the election that analysts have said will be hard fought.

Under the slogan ‘Don’t punish us’, demonstrators demanded the decriminalisation of drugs and the allocation of resources instead to social projects and drug rehabilitation schemes.

David Otiashvili, one of the organisers of the protest, said the current legislation was not effective and that it was being used by the police as a tool to impose control over society.

“The legislation is really strict and harsh and it focuses only on punishing people. Georgia is testing 50,000 to 60,000 people per year and it costs us millions and millions. And we know that this drug test does nothing good, there is zero effect,” he said.

The previous government under President Mikheil Saakashvili imposed the zero tolerance rules.

Tea Kordzadze, one of the protesters, said: “What has this repressive drug policy brought to Georgia? The number of drug users has increased.”

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Kyrgyzstan considers luxury bill

JUNE 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an effort to raise cash to pull through a long financial downturn, Kyrgyzstan’s economy ministry has prepared a bill that would impose an additional tax on luxury cars and large and expensive apartments, media reported. The prospect of a so-called luxury tax is a fairly radical departure from the norm in Central Asia where the rich are relatively lightly taxed.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Georgia scraps army conscription

TBILISI, JUNE 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia will scrap conscription into its army in 2017, the first country in the South Caucasus and Central Asia to ditch this Soviet military legacy.

Ditching conscription is considered a major step by Georgia towards becoming a modern army fit to join NATO, one of its key policy objectives. In reality, its 37,000-person army had already been remade in the image of a professional Western army, carrying US-made weapons, wearing US-style uniforms and fighting alongside NATO forces in Afghanistan and the US in Iraq.

Only 10% of this standing army was made up of conscripts and they filled non-combat roles. It was also relatively easy to opt out of conscription. This contrasts with the rest of the region’s militaries which are still heavily reliant on conscription and are rife with allegations of bullying.

Defence minister Tina Khidasheli said she had ditched conscription, first discussed in 2013, because it was simply no longer needed.

“The Georgian Armed Forces do not need a service member brought in on a compulsory basis,” media quoted her as saying.

The ditching of conscription will only apply to the army and not to other security services run by the interior ministry or the prison service which are still reliant on conscripts.

And the decision to scrap conscription received a mixed response in Georgia. Some remembered the role that conscription had played in bolstering Georgia’s large reserve army, mobilised in its 2008 war with Russia.

“This decision, like others taken in this period, has been made only because of the election campaign,” a 26-year old man told The Conway Bulletin’s correspondent in Tbilisi.

Georgia holds a parliamentary election in October.

Others said scrapping conscription showed Georgia was progressing. “It sounds good that in our country military service is not mandatory and we are not getting ready for a war,” said another 31-year-old man.

“This somehow emphasises that Georgia is a peaceful country.”

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Editorial: Military conscription

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s decision to scrap conscription for its army comes as no surprise. It has been moving in this direction for some time. The Georgian army is a modern Western army that has fought battles in Iraq and Afghanistan alongside members of NATO, a club it longs to join.

What is more critical is the timing of the announcement and the way it was delivered. Tina Khidasheli, Georgia’s defence minister, took it upon herself to cancel conscription from 2017. She sidestepped a debate in parliament and also presidential permission. It was a unilateral decision.

Ms Khidasheli is a member of the Republican Party, part of the Georgian Dream coalition government. The Republican Party, though, has said that it will fight a parliamentary election in October outside the government coalition. The problem with this approach, though, is that while it sets the Republican party apart it has to improve its polling, hovering around 1%.

The decision to scrap conscription in the Georgian army is a historic first for Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The timing, though, should perhaps be seen against the backdrop of an unpredictable election.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court changes Askarov sentence

JUNE 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court said it would reconsider a life sentence levied against Azimzhan Askarov, a prominent human rights defender, on July 11. Police arrested Askarov in the aftermath of clashes in 2010 that toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s government for inciting ethnic hatred. Pressured by US lobby groups, who have held up Askarov as a human rights champion, the Court had announced in April that it would revise the sentence.

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(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)

Kazakh MPs approve moratorium on land code changes

ALMATY, JUNE 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a surprise move, Kazakhstan’s parliament voted to approve a moratorium laid down by President Nursultan Nazarbayev earlier this year on reforms to the country’s land code.

Although the vote doesn’t change the process, it does confirm that Mr Nazarbayev and the Kazakh elite have delayed controversial changes to the land code until at least January.

The changes to the land code, that would have made it easier for foreigners to own and rent land, triggered a wave of protests across the country in April and May. These were the largest popular protests against Mr Nazarbayev since he took office in 1991, forcing him to announce the moratorium.

He also heaped blame on government officials for the mishandling of the land code reform that had been designed to attract much-needed foreign investment.

Like the rest of the region, Kazakhstan has been dealing with a sharp economic downturn that has hit its finances. It is heavily reliant on sales of oil and gas for its income, both of which has plummeted in value since mid-2014.

There were some suspicions that the land reform proposal were being used by opponents of Mr Nazarbayev to whip up a popular revolt against him.

The authorities accused the boss of a brewery in Shymkent for attempting a coup.

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(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)