Tag Archives: protest

Tajik students want opposition extradited

OCT. 26 2015, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — A group of students at the Tajik National University appealed to the US, the EU and Germany to extradite opposition members, raising immediate concerns that the authorities may be coercing sectors of the population to pursue its agenda.

Civic activism is stunted in Tajikistan and this apparent support for the government worried analysts.

A Dushanbe-based analyst who spoke to a Bulletin correspondent said: “The government knows that the Western states will not extradite opposition leaders to Tajikistan. Thus, they control the students and organise similar appeals and demonstrations to show the world that Tajik youth are politically active and there is democracy in Tajikistan.”

The government has stepped up its persecution of opposition groups this year, banning them and arresting activists. It wants opposition leaders extradited from Europe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Georgians protest against Gazprom

OCT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of people demonstrated in central Tbilisi against a potential deal with Gazprom to supply gas to Georgia. The demonstration was a response to a meeting last month between the Georgian government and Gazprom. Georgia and Russia fought a war in 2008 and relations are still strained.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Azerbaijani sets fire to himself as protest

SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A taxi driver from Sumqayit, in western Azerbaijan, has died after setting himself on fire, media reported, an apparent final desperate protest against bully by officials and corruption.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said this was the seventh immolation in Azerbaijan since 2014.

Immolations in the region are a particularly sensitive issue because of the political connotations. The so-called Arab Spring erupted after an immolation by a frustrated and brow- beaten market seller set himself alight in front of a local government building in a provincial town in Tunisia in 2010.

The Arab Spring spread across North Africa, fuelling popular protests which eventually toppled governments in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

It also worried Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and some analysts have said that he started cracking down on opposition figures and media outlets after the Arab Spring undermined some of his allies.

The dead taxi driver was named as 27-year-old Maqsad Suleymanov. The authorities in Sumqayit did not specify how he died but a mass of social media comments and eyewitness reports said he had set himself on fire.

Georgian winegrowers protest against falling prices

SEPT. 11 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Several hundred farmers protested in the ancient winemaking region of Kakheti in eastern Georgia, demanding that the government increase subsidies for harvested grapes.

Eyewitnesses said that the demonstrations were passionate and angry but peaceful, although some protesters brawled with police after tension boiled over. There were no reports of any injuries and only three people were detained but the unrest does show how the former Soviet Union’s economic malaise is deepening.

A grape farmer attending the protests told broadcaster Rustavi2 that they will not back down, but that people are afraid.

“I demand a rise of prices. People are afraid of this government, they do everything to keep us quiet. What should we do?” grape farmer Murtaz Gorkhelashvili said.

The price for a bunch of grapes has fallen by 40-55% this year because of a fall in wine export to Russia and Ukraine.

Western-imposed sanctions on Russia and a sharp fall in oil prices have tipped its economy into recession. A civil war has heavily dented Ukraine’s economy.

In 2014 wine production accounted for 2.5% of Georgia’s GDP, a higher proportion than France, even, where wine makes up around 0.9% of GDP.

Independent consultant and freelance wine writer Caroline Gilby described how important wine is to Georgia’s economy and also to its national identity.

“Wine is economically critical to this small country with its limited natural resources,” she said.

The government subsidy, an election promise by the Georgian Dream coalition in 2012, of an extra 0.35 lari per kilo of white grapes and 0.15 lari per red grapes for farmers is considered insufficient by the protestors.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Armenians protest electricity price rise

SEPT. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Armenia detained 50 people during a protest against electricity price rises for businesses. The government backed down after a series of protests in July and said it would subsidise a 17% price rise for residential property but that businesses would have to pay it.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Activists clash with police in Armenia

SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 100 protesters scuffled with police in Yerevan over electricity price rises for businesses. Activists said they believe President Serzh Sargsyan has reneged on his promise to protesters in June to subsidise planned electricity price rises by omitting businesses from the deal.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Police clash with protesters in Azerbaijan

AUG. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Riot police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of dozens of young men in the provincial Azerbaijani town of Mingachevir, a rare display of public anger and frustration in Azerbaijan. The crowd had been calling for the head of the local police force to resign after a 22-year-old Azerbaijani man died in police custody two days earlier.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)

Armenian activists want more rallies

JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A core group of activists opposed to electricity price rises have called for a series of rallies in Yerevan between July 27 -31 ahead of the Aug. 1 start date of the increases. Momentum behind the rallies protesting against the price rises has fizzled out.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Protesters challenge Kyrgyz labour law changes

JULY 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BISHKEK — Dozens of people protested in central Bishkek against proposed changes to labour laws which they say will reduce the rights of temporary workers.

The main proposed changes focus on making it easier for foreign companies to hire and fire workers.

The government has argued that it needs to update labour laws to crackdown on the “shadow economy” where employers hire people for short periods but do not pay tax.

Protesters said the amendments would help foreign companies dodge paying social security and over-time.

The mood at the protest, which wound its way through central Bishkek under a cloudless blue sky, was angry but calm.

“We are against slavery,” one of the protesters’ banners said.

Many of the protesters were representatives of workers’ unions attached to mines, including the Kumtor mine in the east of the country owned by Toronto-based Centerra Gold. Kumtor is Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest industrial asset.

After the protest, the government said they would set up a working group to look at the demonstrators’ concerns.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)

Armenians continue to protest against electricity price rise

JULY 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of people continued to protest in central Yerevan against a potential price rise for electricity, although a Bulletin correspondent at the demonstration said that the numbers and the intensity have dropped off.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)