Tag Archives: protest

Armenians protest the Customs Union

DEC. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The world’s attention has focused on the massive street demonstrations against the Customs Union in Kiev but in Armenia another, far smaller, crowd has also been demonstrating against the Russia-led group. And this crowd of roughly 500 were within earshot of the visiting Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The core of the debate is similar to the issues facing Ukraine. Faced with the option of moving closer to the EU or shifting towards Russia, Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan earlier this year chose the Kremlin. This surprised EU officials but unlike in Ukraine, the decision was generally welcomed in Armenia. Russia is seen as something of a security blanket for Armenia. It controls Armenia’s gas supplies and maintains a large military base in the country. It has also vowed to intervene if Azerbaijan threatens it.

Tigran Abrahamyan, a political scientist in Yerevan said the military aspect of the Customs Union was critical for Armenia. “Armenia will buy military equipment from Russia at a lower price and import it without paying customs fees,” he said.

Most Armenians are not anti-EU but they also understand the importance of military equipment and that is something that Russia’s army, and not the EU, can offer them.

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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)

Armenians protest pension reform

NOV. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hundreds of people in Armenia protested outside the PM’s office in Yerevan against a proposal for them to pay 5% to 10% of their salary into pension funds. Countries across the former Soviet Union are grappling with changing generous legacy pension systems.

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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)

Rare protest takes place in Uzbekistan

NOV. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Around 100 protesters blocked a road in Samarkand, Uzbekistan’s second city, to protest against shortages of electricity and gas to their homes, media reported. Public protests are extremely rare in Uzbekistan, one of the most repressive countries in the world.

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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)

Uzbeks protest electricity shortages

NOV. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — For Uzbek citizens to protest on the streets, a problem must be severe. Very severe. The last time that a major public protest took place was in the town of Andijan, eastern Uzbekistan, in 2005. Police opened fire on the crowd killing dozens, possibly hundreds.

It’s not surprising then that a shortage of gas or electricity in Uzbekistan has failed to trigger street protests of the sort you would expect in other countries. This, though, changed in Samarkand on Nov. 5 when, media reported, roughly 100 residents blocked a road to protest against the shutdown of gas and electricity supplies to their homes.

The protest, which successfully pushed the local authorities into re-starting gas supplies to residents’ homes (at least for now), is important because it underlined just how political and tense the issue has become in Uzbekistan.

It appears, simply, to be a clash of interests between the Uzbek leadership and ordinary citizens.

The Uzbek government wants to meet lucrative contracts to supply gas to China. This means, according to local media, depriving some Uzbek households of supplies.

And it looks set to worsen. Uzbekistan currently supplies 10b cubic metres of gas a year. China wants to build another couple of pipelines to boost imports from Uzbekistan to about 25b cubic metres a year.

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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)

Police crushes protest in Armenia

NOV. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police clashed with anti-government protesters armed with sticks in central Yerevan, media reported, raising the spectre of instability in Armenia. Reports said police arrested 20 people after the small-scale scuffles petered out. Protesters were complaining that a presidential election in February was unfair.

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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

Mob attacks mining camp in Kyrgyzstan

OCT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A mob of 200 people attacked the office of Manas Resources, an Australian mining company, in southern Kyrgyzstan where it is developing a gold mine, Reuters reported. Over the past few years, disgruntled nationalists have targeted foreign-owned mines to win concessions from companies and to destabilise the government.

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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)

Protest erupts in Kyrgyzstan’s main gold mine

OCT. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Around 200 people protested in east Kyrgyzstan against a potential deal between the Kyrgyz government and Toronto-listed Centerra Gold over ownership of the Kumtor Gold mine. Media reported that the protesters kidnapped the regional governor briefly. Anti-government groups are likely to have organised the protests.

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

Opposition holds protest in Azerbaijan

AUG. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — An estimated 3,000 supporters of Azerbaijan’s opposition parties held a rare sanctioned rally on the outskirts of Baku. They waved placards and called for a fair presidential election in October. The mayor’s office only sanctioned the rally for the outskirts of Baku.

(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)

Oil workers go on strike in western Kazakhstan

JULY 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — More than 200 workers at a subcontractor for oil fields service company Cape International Plc and Manpower Ltd in Atyrau, west Kazakhstan, went on strike for two days over job losses, media quoted the local prosecutor-general’s office as saying. The workers are employed on the Kashagan oil project in the Caspian Sea.

(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)

Kazakh government accused of torture

JULY 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human rights lobby group Amnesty International released a report accusing the Kazakh government of using torture on prisoners. The report focused on people detained during the 2011 clashes between protesters and police in Zhanaozen, west Kazakhstan. The Kazakh government has previously refuted allegations of torture.

(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)