MARCH 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) challenged European leaders to use a trip to Europe by Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atamabayev to call for improved human rights in Kyrgyzstan. In particular, HRW said European leaders should protest against a bill passing through the Kyrgyz parliament that would limit gay rights.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
FEB. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz lawmakers are likely to vote on a bill that will criminalise promoting gay relationships in the next few weeks, the AFP news agency reported. The law is similar to Russian legislation that has attracted worldwide condemnation and, if passed, would possibly isolate Kyrgyzstan further from the West.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)
EDINBURGH/NEW YORK, FEB. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Civil freedoms in Central Asia and the South Caucasus took a turn for the worse in 2014 as governments moved closer to Russia and worried that street demonstrations in Ukraine may spread, Freedom House said in an interview.
The sharpest deterioration in civil rights in 2014, according to the US-based lobby group, came in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.
“Governments restricted freedom of assembly and speech to prevent ‘maidans’ and Russian encouragement of separatism,” Nate Schenkkan, a Eurasia Programme Officer at Freedom House, said in an interview with The Bulletin. Schenkkan’s reference to so-called maidans was to Ukrainian street demonstrations which morphed into a full scale revolution.
The interview was conducted over twitter with questions also taken from viewers.
At the end of last year Azerbaijani police raided the office of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In the interview with The Bulletin, Schenkkan said the police raid was the culmination of a tough year for media and government critics in Azerbaijan.
“There was a full-scale crackdown. Now (there are) 90 plus political prisoners, all independent media shuttered in Azerbaijan,” he said. “Sanctions for Azerbaijani officials should be on the table and EU leaders should skip the European Games.” Azerbaijan is hosting the inaugural European Games later this year.
As for Kyrgyzstan, Schenkkan said new legislation had dented Kyrgyzstan’s image.
“Kyrgyzstan is the most disappointing because it is a reversal after relative gains recently,” he said. “Copycat attempts at Russian legislation against LGBTI and NGOs nearly passed.”
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
OCT. 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an article for a policy website, the US ambassador in Bishkek, Pamela Spratlen, appeared to cement Kyrgyzstan’s place as an ideological sparring ground between Washington and the Kremlin.
In particular, Ms Spratlen, who has been the US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan since April 2011 highlighted the differences between Washington and the Kremlin over Russia’s aim to pull Kyrgyzstan into the Eurasian Economic Union as well as their divergent views over gay rights.
“Another challenge to our efforts to support Kyrgyzstan’s democracy is its growing partnership with Russia,” she wrote on Council of American Ambassadors website, a website for essays written by senior US diplomats. “It remains an unanswered question how Kyrgyzstan can maintain its democratic trajectory while pursuing this partnership.”
Ms Spratlen specifically said the Customs Union, which will become the Eurasian Economic Union next year and grow to include Kyrgyzstan and Armenia alongside Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, was as much about politics as economics.
Legislation passing through Kyrgyzstan’s parliament bears all the hallmarks of Russian political influence. A parliamentary bill forbidding “positive attitudes towards non-traditional sexual orientations” was overwhelmingly endorsed at its first reading last month, echoing a similar bill passed in 2013 in Russia.
Importantly, Ms Spratlen said Kyrgyzstan may be sleep walking into membership of the Eurasian Economic Union because it feels like it has no choice, especially as it is surrounded by more authoritarian countries in Central Asia.
“Both officials and business leaders appear unenthused, but resigned to this choice, seeing a lack of better options,” she wrote.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
NOV. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Homosexuals in Kyrgyzstan are considering leaving the country when a law banning gay propaganda is adopted, Reuters reported. The so-called anti-gay law is similar to one already adopted by Russia. “The entire atmosphere is getting more threatening,” one man told Reuters.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
OCT. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Barely a week after Kyrgyzstan’s parliament passed a first reading of a law banning the promotion of gay propaganda, more proposals restricting civil rights have surfaced.
Media reported that Kyrgyzstan wants to restrict NGOs receiving financial support from overseas, forcing groups to submit to tighter auditing and control.
Perhaps most importantly the law is similar to one brought in by Russia in 2012. The anti-gay law was also similar to a law introduced in Russia underlining the increased influence that Russia has over Kyrgyzstan.
The London-based lobby group Institute for War and Peace Reporting wrote: “Many Kyrgyz groups work on civil and political rights, democracy-building, and corruption, and could soon find themselves as beleaguered as their Russian counterparts.”
Kyrgyz officials have defended the new law as essential to monitor groups that could potentially be used to undermine Kyrgyz democracy.
Perhaps, although, similarly to the anti-gay law, the real reason could be Kyrgyzstan’s need to cosy up to Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted to pass a law that bans so-called gay propaganda, seemingly playing to Russia which has passed a similar law already and against the United States which called the new legislation an attack on democracy. Kyrgyzstan is increasingly leaning towards Russia in world affairs.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)
OCT. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The United States criticised moves by Kyrgyzstan to make so-called “gay propaganda” illegal as being harmful to democracy. The laws are similar to those introduced by Russia. The US embassy put out a rare harshly worded statement which said: “Sweeping limits on civil society harm democracy.”
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(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)
OCT. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Controversial anti-gay legislation carbon-copied from Russia, is sailing through parliamentary reviews in Kyrgyzstan, triggering concerns about Moscow’s influence over Bishkek.
Parliament’s committee for human rights accepted the bill last week and the education committee was also expected to approve it. Advocates say the law, which will fine or jail citizens promoting “a positive relationship to homosexuality” in the media or around children, is designed to preserve traditional family values.
The law and its justification bear a strong resemblance to one passed in Russia in the summer of last year. Another bill being considered by the parliament, on recognising NGOs as foreign agents, echoes legislation voted through Russia’s State Duma in 2012.
Critics argue that parliamentarians are courting Russia’s favour, important to any politician with serious ambitions in Kyrgyzstan.
Writing in the New York Times, Masha Gessen, a former editor of RFE/RL’s Russian service said pro-Russian publications have infiltrated the Kyrgyz media space over the past few years and that Kyrgyzstan was a perfect lab rat. “It is small and poor and extremely susceptible to Russian pressure,” she wrote.
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(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)
SEPT. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The message was clear.
In front of a coarse sign with a line running through it showing two stickmen having gay sex beside the warning “Homosexualism is a threat to the nation”, Kazakh politician Dauren Babamuratov, leader of a small nationalist faction in parliament, called on the government to ban gay men from holding various positions in parliament. He also claimed that blood samples could determine the sexual orientation of a person.
“I think it is very easy to identify a gay person by his or her DNA,” he said according to media.
“A blood test can show the presence of degeneratism in a person.”
His comments will find support in Kazakhstan where anti-homosexual sentiment is running high.
Last month a poster for an Almaty gay club depicting Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and Kazakh composer Kurmangazy Sagyrbayuly sparked an uproar.
There have been moves in Kazakhstan to introduce the type of laws that Russian already has in place that bans the discussion of homosexuality in schools.
Attitudes towards homosexuality in Kazakhstan have improved over the past few years. A handful of gay friendly bars have popped up but the homosexual community is still wary of flaunting itself too publicly.
Earlier this year, The Conway Bulletin carried a report from outside a nightclub in Almaty that described verbal abuse being hurled at people standing in the queue to enter the club.
Relatively, though, Almaty is the most liberal city for gay rights in Central Asia. Homosexuals from across the region tend to migrate to Almaty to work and live as there is a degree of tolerance. In most other cities in the region, homosexuals are often beaten in the street.
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(News report from Issue No. 200, published on Sept.17 2014)
