Tag Archives: society

Tajik authorities introduce single phone number for police

APRIL 18 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s interior ministry introduced a single phone number to dial police in an emergency, ditching a clumsy system that had forced people to remember different numbers for each district police station.

Now, dialling 1919 in Dushanbe, in Kulob or in Khujand will connect callers to a central switchboard which will then link through to a district police station.

And the reaction on the streets of Dushanbe was positive.

“Now it’s easier to call the police. I hope the system will be effective. Before, if something had happened, God forbid, I would not have had an idea how to call the police from my mobile urgently,” Sudoba, a 54-year old social worker, said.

“In emergency situations, each second counts. Calling the police in the right moment is vital.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Azerbaijan to cut funds for overseas study

APRIL 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan is phasing out a programme that funded overseas study for undergraduates in order to save money during an increasing vicious economic downturn.

Mikhail Jabbarov, Azerbaijan’s minister of education, said funding for bachelor level programmes has dried up.

“The ministry is developing a new format of the program, which envisages education at foreign higher educational institutions only for PhD and Master’s Degrees,” Mr Jabbarov told media.

The government’s stated objective is to attract more foreign professors to Azerbaijan to allow undergraduates to receive high-level tuition without having to study abroad.

What the government cannot openly say is that the programme has become unsustainable because of a sharp drop in oil prices that has dragged down its economy.

The ministry of education’s overseas undergraduate programme is one of two channels that Azerbaijani youth can use to access scholarships to study abroad.

SOFAZ, the country’s oil fund, had also established an eight-year programme in 2007 to fund education abroad. But that programme is now being wound up and is unlikely to be extended.

In the first quarter of 2016, SOFAZ said it spent 5m manat ($3.3m) paying fees for Azerbaijanis studying abroad.

Analysts have said that if both programmes were cut, Azerbaijan would, effectively, be isolating itself from the West.

The government has already cut several domestic social projects, including updating broadband internet across the country and investments in care homes, roads and railways, to cut costs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Berdy says time to stop Turkmen government subsidies for utilities

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a government meeting, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov appeared to suggest the unimaginable. He said he wanted to scrap state subsidies for gas, electricity, water and salt.

And, unscoring the growing economic pressure in Turkmenistan, Mr Berdymukhamedov also sacked the ministers for economic development and foreign economic relations as well as the head of the tax administration.

Mr Berdymukahmedov has now sacked six top government officials this year.

With little accurate economic data coming out of Turkmenistan, the quick succession of sackings and the musing over cutting government subsidies suggest that the Turkmen economy, which is so heavily reliant on gas sales, is listing heavily.

Government subsidies of utilities is one of its cornerstone policies. They have been in place since 1993, although Mr Berdymukhamedov floated the idea of cutting the subsidies through the Council of Elders last year. The Council of Elders is a traditional Turkmen advisory body although it has been co-opted over the past two decades to test the opinions of the president with the public.

Now, though, according to press reports, Mr Berdymukhamedov has openly discussed cutting the subsidies for the first time.

“This is no longer justifiable from an economic point of view. It is hindering our transition to a market economy and imposing an additional burden on the budget,” he said.

There is no publicly available data which shows just how much the government spends each year on subsidises for gas, electricity, salt and water for the 5.5m people who live in Turkmenistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Senior Georgian judge calls homosexuals ‘flawed’

APRIL 8 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Nino Todua, a senior Georgian judge, told a parliamentary hearing on her promotion to the country’s Supreme Court that homosexuality is a moral flaw.

Her comments may be abhorrent to Western liberals, but for many Georgians Ms Todua was just reflecting their own strongly held views.

A survey by the largest data collection organisation in the country, CRRC, said that 87% of Georgia’s population believes homosexuality can never be justified.

“I feel sorry for them because of such a deviation. Every person has a flaw; I have mine and they have their flaws and that is their flaw,” Ms Todua was reported as saying when asked about homosexuals.

“There are no flawless persons. The question was why I think that it is a flaw – because cultural norms deem it to be such; it’s not just my personal opinion, the majority of the world’s population think that it’s against cultural norms.”

The homosexuality debate is important, politically, in Georgia. While anti-homosexual sentiment reflects popular opinion, it runs counter to the views of the European Union, a group that Georgia aspires to join.

And gay rights campaigners were quick to criticise Ms Todua.

Eka Chitanava, director of the local NGO Tolerance and Democracy Initiative, said that as a person in the public limelight, Ms Todua should keep her personal opinions private.

“Her beliefs will directly impact her decisions. It was a mistake from the president to nominate her for that position,” she said.

Still, on the streets of Tbilisi, it was clear that most people generally supported her position.

Shalva, a 54 year old bus driver, said: “I don’t care what people do in their bedroom, but they shouldn’t shove their life-styles in my face. Good for her for speaking up for the Georgian people. We need someone to protect our values.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Azerbaijan jails five guilty of killing journalist

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Azerbaijan found five men guilty of beating to death a journalist in August, sentencing them to prison.

The case triggered public debates in Azerbaijan where the authorities have appeared to hold critical journalists in contempt with their own clampdown on the media over the past few years.

The five men received sentences of between 9 and 13 years for knocking Rasim Aliyev to the floor and beating him in broad daylight in Baku. He later died in hospital from his injuries.

They were relatives and friends of Cavid Huseynov, an Azerbaijani international football player. Aliyev had criticised Mr Huseynov as “immoral and ill-bred” in a Facebook post for goading supporters of Apollon, a Cypriot team, at a football match by waving a Turkish flag.

After the verdict, Aliyev’s father said: “All of them are criminals and they killed my son on purpose. They planned the attack before meeting my son and they killed him.”

Mr Huseynov faces a trial for not reporting the crime. He has not been linked directly with the beating.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Turkmenistan introduces pre-marriage HIV test

APRIL 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an effort to combat the spread of HIV, Turkmenistan introduced mandatory tests for couples seeking to obtain a marriage licence. By making it a requirement, the Turkmen government is effectively banning HIV-positive people from getting married. Human rights groups have said that this is a violation of personal choice and freedom. Turkmenistan discloses little data on HIV infections.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Turkmenistan relaxes currency controls

APRIL 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Airport security in Turkmenistan has allegedly relaxed regulations on the transit of foreign currency since the beginning of the month. The opposition website in exile Alternative News Turkmenistan said that, informally, passengers at Ashgabat Airport are now allowed to carry foreign currency worth up to $10,000 without having to declare it, over three times the previous limit.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Power consumption drops in Kyrgyzstan

APRIL 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Consumption of electricity in Kyrgyzstan was down 23% in March compared to last year, due to warm weather conditions, according to industry data. Total consumption amounted to 881m kWh. Severlektro, the largest distributor, said it delivered 438m kWh, 29% less than in March 2015. Previously an opposition MP had said a drop in electricity consumption showed the extent of the economic downturn.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Tajik migrant workers appear to be most vulnerable to IS recruitment

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – DUSHANBE — In an apparent effort to shift responsibility for radicalisation away from Tajikistan, the Tajik Prosecutor General, Yusuf Rakhmon, said that around 85% of Tajik citizens who have joined IS in Syria and Iraq were migrant workers recruited in Russia.

Mr Rakhmon also told the state- owned Jumuhuriyat newspaper that official calculations showed 1,094 Tajik citizens fighting for IS.

Tajikistan has been criticised recently for being a soft touch for IS recruiters. Last year a highly regarded Tajik police chief, who had previously travelled to the United States on training missions, joined IS, handing the extremist group one of its biggest publicity coups.

Mr Rakhmon’s comments are important as, although independent research has suggested that disgruntled Tajik migrant workers who have been losing their jobs in the Russian recession are vulnerable to IS recruitment, there has previously been no official acknowledgement of the issue.

Also, the number of Tajik recruits to IS is higher than Mr Rakhmon has previously noted. In June, he said that there were around 400 Tajik fighters with IS. This was updated in November by the Tajik security service which said that 700 Tajiks had joined IS, although 300 had been killed.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Tajikistan tightens security at mosques

MARCH 28 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik authorities ordered mosques in Dushanbe to improve security by installing CCTV and metal detectors, a move that sceptics said was actually aimed at clamping down on pious Muslims who officials view with increasing unease.

Mahmadsaid Ubaydulloev, Dushanbe city mayor, said the extra surveillance was needed to ensure public safety in the city and that mosques would have to buy the kit with cash from their own budgets.

This is a continuation of a policy of tightening security around mosques in Tajikistan.

A month ago, Tajik authorities ordered mosques to police their prayers for extremists. The government is increasingly worried about radicals infiltrating mosques and either recruiting young men to join the extremist IS group in Syria or inciting revolution. Last year, the government banned the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan and arrested its leaders and activists in what free speech advocates have described as clamp down on human rights.

And pious Muslims in Tajikistan have complained of increased harassment too, including being forced to shave long beards. They told The Conway Bulletin’s Dushanbe correspondent that the latest move to install extra security is merely aimed at making life even more difficult.

Umedjon, a 36-years old salesman, said that he does not feel free to pray. “Instead of focusing on praying, I have to think about how I am praying in order not to get in trouble with the authorities. If they install metal detectors and cameras, the mosque will become a constrained place for praying,” he said as he left one of central Dushanbe’s mosques.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)