Tag Archives: society

Uzbekistan frees political prisoners

>>Releases linked to election in March>>

FEB. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan unexpectedly released Khayrulla Khamidov a sports commentator imprisoned in 2010.

As well as being a soccer commentator, Mr Khamidov was a popular religious speaker who had a large following. He produced CDs and spoke at weddings on social issues.

When he was arrested, on charges of setting up an illegal religious organisation, his supporters said it was an attempt by the authorities to dampen a popular social commentator who they considered was a growing threat to stability. He was imprisoned for six years.

Mr Khamidov’s release, then, appears to be a large concession. Human rights groups have long criticised Uzbekistan for its harsh record against religion. Perhaps, though, this is beginning to change.

The Tashkent-based Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Advocates of Uzbekistan has said 16 other religious prisoners were released alongside Mr Khamidov.

No official reason for the release has been given although ordinary Uzbeks believe it is linked to a presidential election set for March 29.

Uzbekistan is in flux at the moment. Islam Karimov, who has ruled over the country since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, is increasingly frail. The election in March and what goes before and after it are increasingly important to monitor.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Architecture in Kazakhstan stirs passions

>>A row over a blog discussing Almaty’s architecture hits a sensitive nerve>>

ALMATY, FEB. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — “This is sick,” one commentator wrote. “You’re a monster,” wrote another.”

The offending photograph showed an old cottage here in Almaty decked in fine Russian vernacular architecture: carved eaves called karnizy, ornate window frames called nalichniki.

The picture had been, for full-disclosure, run through a muddy Instagram filter, and the house wasn’t in the best of shape. Yet the dissenting faction, trolls or otherwise, couldn’t find anything to admire.

“Why don’t you show our Al-Farabi Boulevard instead?” one user offered. “We’ve got all the fanciest cars!”

I never thought a site about Almaty’s overlooked architecture would be so divisive. Yet the project, Walking Almaty, has revealed a certain fault line in the attitudes of local denizens.

For those born after the fall of the USSR in 1991, the Soviet stuff I celebrated was something of an embarrassment and anything old acted as a painful, rusty reminder. Al Farabi Boulevard at the southern end of town, with its Prada store and glass and steel feel, is the aspirational icon of this crowd.

Meanwhile, old-timers who still call the city by its Russian name of Alma-Ata converse through online forums. For them, the past is something lived, not something to be shirked, and as facades of faux-granite rise, they feel as disrespected as the haters I witnessed on Instagram.

One youthful user recently posted online a picture of a rebuilt cottage, its wooden fretwork ripped off, its new paint job unsubtle. The old-timers responded in chorus. “This is sick.”

By Dennis Keen, an Almaty-based American blogger and writer
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Turkmenistan census results

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s last official census, researched in 2012, showed that only 5% of its 6m population is ethnic Russian, the chrono-tm.org website reported. Quoting the 2012 census, the website also said 60% of young families, under 30-years-old, do not own their own homes. The census had been kept out of the public domain.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Measles on the rise in Kyrgyzstan

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Measles in Kyrgyzstan is on the rise because parents are opting their children out of the vaccination for religious reasons, media reported quoting government doctors. Figures quoted by the media said that the number of confirmed measles cases in Kyrgyzstan rose to 3,400 this year from 200 last year.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Kazakh villagers attack Tajiks

>>Clashes breakout after Tajik is accused of murder>>

FEB. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A group of Kazakhs attacked Tajik homes in a village near Kazakhstan’s border with Uzbekistan.

The police had earlier accused Navmidin Narmetov, a Tajik, of killing Bakytzhan Artykov, a Kazakh in the village of Bostandyk, 150km south of the regional capital, Shymkent.

Friends and family members of the victim converged on the Tajiks’ homes, burning cars, attacking the Tajik-language school and shouting: “Go home!”.

A state of emergency was briefly proclaimed by the ministry of interior. In the southern region, internet connections and cell phone reception were frozen for days after the attacks. Online news reports, both in Russian and in English were censored across the country.

The alleged murderer was caught in Uzbekistan.

Inter-ethnic harmony is a particularly sensitive issue in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has often spoken on the topic and in 2011, rioting oil workers in west Kazakhstan clashed with police. Several people died triggering the most serious crisis of Mr Nazarbayev’s presidency.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Armenia passes business law

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Despite protests, Armenia’s parliament passed a law that will reduce tax imposed on small businesses to 1% of sales from 3.5%. The proposed law has angered businesses because it will mean that they have to provide more paperwork. Armenian PM Armen Rustamyan said the law would be introduced in July, a delay of six months.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Tajik doctor released in Yemen

FEB. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tribesmen in Yemen have released a Tajik doctor they kidnapped in October, media reported. Gulrukhsor Rofieyva, 36, was working for a Russian company when she was kidnapped. It’s unclear why her captors released her but they had demanded the release of tribesmen held by the government.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Kazakhs protest against falling tenge

FEB. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A handful of residents in Almaty staged another protest against the falling value of the Kazakh tenge. According to a Radio Free Europe report the protesters said they had taken out mortgages when $1 equalled 107 tenge. Now $1 equalled 186 tenge. Protests are rare in Kazakhstan but pressure on the tenge has angered people.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Civil rights fall across the region

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.”
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)

Tajikistan needs to improve labour

>>World Bank says Tajikistan needs to adapt>>

FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a report on Tajikistan, the World Bank said a third of Tajik men leave the country to find work and that the informal market employs about 60% of the population.

Adapting local labour training to a market that needs analytical skills and not just manual work is key to developing Tajikistan’s workforce, the World Bank wrote.

The migration numbers and the large informal economy mean the Tajik economy is fragile, especially when its main driver — the Russian economy is also under stress.

The Tajik Central Bank has raised interest rates and depleted its currency reserves in an attempt to defend its currency from a sharp devaluation. It has warned that it can’t sustain a long, second defence of its economy.

In its report, entitled “The Skills Road: Skills for Employability in Tajikistan”, the World Bank argued that the Tajik economy is undergoing significant changes that need a new approach from the government to develop more and better analytical skills to boost the formal sector of the economy and also reduce migration trends.

“New economy skills are strong analytical and organizational skills, including non-routine cognitive analytical and interpersonal skills,” the World Bank wrote.

“The report’s conclusion is that the government could shift the focus from providing access to educational institutions and instead focus on providing the skills (cognitive, non-cognitive, and technical) to students who need to succeed as adults.”
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)