FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A new opposition party in Kyrgyzstan called the United National Opposition Movement (UNOM) launched itself in Bishkek with a relatively pro-West agenda. The UNOM said Kyrgyzstan should hold a national referendum before it joined the Russia-led Customs Union. Kazakhstan and Belarus are members of the Customs Union.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, and her daughter have not been heard from since a raid on their Tashkent home on Feb. 17. Exiled opposition website uznews.net quoted an Uzbek intelligence officer saying Ms Karimova was under house arrest. The accuracy of this report cannot be independently verified.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh interrogated the city’s powerful former mayor Melis Myrzakmatov over his involvement with holding illegal rallies. Mr Myrzakmatov is considered a potential figurehead for opposition forces. Kyrgyz PM Jantoro Satybaldiev sacked him as Osh mayor in December.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anti-government rallies in Kazakhstan are rare, making a planned demonstration in central Almaty an ideal opportunity to gauge the public’s appetite for protest.
If you blinked, you would have missed it. It felt like that, anyway.
Around two dozen protesters, out-numbered by plainclothed police, gathered under a statue of Abai, Kazakhstan’s national poet, in a square in central Almaty.
Passers-by hurried on with barely a glance at the gathering. The normally ever-present uniformed police hadn’t bothered to monitor the protest.
There was, frankly, a lack of momentum.
One of the protesters shuffled his feet and said that people were afraid to turning up because of the fear of being arrested.
Certainly the authorities in Kazakhstan don’t tolerate dissent, they arrested several bloggers last month after they protested, but, even so, this was a poor turnout.
Yerlan Kaliyev, an opposition activist acting as a figurehead, tried to inject substance into the rally by referencing Abai, the poet.
He said: “His call to be wary of rich people is more than one hundred years old but could be directly applied to the current situation in our country.”
The protesters agreed with Mr Kaliyev.
They mixed political slogans with poetry recitals for about an hour. Then they all went home.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Prosecutor-General accused three associates of President Islam Karimov’s eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova, of various financial crimes, including fraud, tax evasion and money laundering. Police arrested Rustam Madumarov, Ms Karimova’s boyfriend, and two friends at her home on Feb. 17.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Clearly wary of any backlash, Uzbekistan’s state controlled media have avoided all mention of Ukraine’s revolution. Uzbekistan has one of the most tightly controlled media scenes in the world. Exiled opposition websites reported that, as usual, Uzbek media concentrated on reporting President Islam Karimov’s latest proclamations.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan said it would prosecute former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his two sons in absentia for the attempted murder of a British businessman in 2006. Bakiyev fled Kyrgyzstan after a coup in 2010. He lives in Belarus. Last year a court in Bishkek sentenced him to 24 years in jail for an assassination.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s president Kurbangkuly Berdymukhamedov gave amnesty to 859 prisoners to mark State Flag Day. Mr Berdymukhamedov has used presidential amnesties to pardon hundreds of prisoners previously. Turkmenistan is considered one of the most repressive countries in the world.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tbilisi convicted Ivane Merabishvili, a former Georgian PM, of corruption and sentenced him to five years in jail. Merabishvili is the most senior member of Georgia’s former government to be convicted during a series of trials which they have been described as “politically motivated”.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It looks as if hostilities between Gulnara Karimova and her enemies have resumed.
The Prosecutor-General in Uzbekistan reported that police detained three associates of Ms Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, for alleged financial crimes linked to Terra Group, Prime Media and Gamma Productions.
Terra Group, Prime Media and Gamma Productions were Ms Karimova’s media companies until they were shut down in 2013.
Pressure has been building on Ms Karimova over the past six months. She has been trying to defend herself from her rivals, mostly in the Uzbek intelligence services, who want to derail any ambition she may harbour of becoming the next president of Uzbekistan.
Mr Karimov has been Uzbekistan’s president since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and, publicly at least, he hasn’t named a successor. Once one of the most powerful people in Uzbekistan, Ms Karimova has seen police raid her businesses and detain her associates.
One of those detained in police operations was Gayane Avakyan. Ms Avakyan will be well known to Swedish-Finnish telecoms company TeliaSonera. She was the owner of a Gibraltar-registered company that took a multi-million dollar payment in 2007/8 for a 3G licence in Uzbekistan.
Investigators are currently investigating the deal as they suspect it may have been a secret payment forwarded on to Ms Karimova.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
