DEC. 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan faces a food shortage unless food rail wagons delayed in Uzbekistan are able to complete their journey, local media quoted the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Dushanbe, Alzira Ferreira, as saying. Tajik-Uzbek relations have worsened over the past year. Uzbekistan says a broken bridge has delayed the wagons.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
NOV. 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rafiq Tagi, a 61-year-old widely respected Azerbaijani journalist, died of stab wounds in a Baku hospital on Nov. 23, four days after an unknown assailant attacked him.
He wrote articles critical of both the state and hard line Islam. Muslim extremists, though, are suspected of organising Tagi’s murder.
Whether or not the authorities or Muslim extremists are the main threat, for local journalists the former Soviet South Caucasus and Central Asia states are often both difficult and dangerous to report on.
In Turkmenistan police this year tracked down and imprisoned journalists who reported on an explosion at an arms depot. In Uzbekistan most local correspondents from international news agencies have been chased out and in Tajikistan the BBC’s reporter was jailed.
Southern Kyrgyzstan remains dangerous for ethnic Uzbek journalists and in Kazakhstan in October attackers armed with baseball bats and a gun beat a camera crew covering protests in the west of the country against the state oil company.
A 2010 press freedom index compiled by the US-based NGO Reporters Without Borders scored the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia poorly. Armenia, Georgia and Tajikistan ranked slightly better but Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were in the bottom quarter of the index.
The report card for 2011 may well be even worse.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)
NOV. 29 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Petrol prices in Tajikistan, a key price to watch for inflation and social tension, have risen sharply in the last few days, the state anti-monopoly agency told local media. The official said the suspension of a railway line in Uzbekistan because of a suspected bomb attack had hit supplies.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)
NOV. 22 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Authorities in Tajikistan used a presidential amnesty to release two ethnic Russian pilots imprisoned for smuggling. The jail sentences had infuriated Moscow and, seemingly in retaliation, immigration officials had deported hundreds of Tajiks for not having work permits.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 66, published on Nov. 23 2011)
NOV. 16 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A row over Tajikistan’s imprisonment of two ethnic Russian pilots for smuggling has escalated and threatens to do long-term damage to Tajik-Russian relations.
As reported in the Conway Bulletin issue of Nov. 8, Russia reacted with indignant fury at the 8-1/2 year prison sentences handed out by a provincial Tajik court on Nov. 8 2011 to Vladimir Sadovnichy, a Russian citizen, and Alexei Rudenko, an Estonian citizen.
The Russian foreign ministry said the sentences would damage Tajikistan. Since then immigration officers in Russia have rounded up hundreds of Tajik workers.
Around 300 have already been expelled for not having the correct paperwork, according to Russian media. If many more are sent back home it will begin to hurt Tajikistan as almost half its national income derives from remittances.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev says the immigration officials’ actions are a coincidence and not revenge for the prison sentences.
Most commentators, though, don’t see it that way.
Central to the row is what Sadvonichy and Rudenko were doing when they landed their two cargo planes in Tajikistan without permission on a routine Kabul-Moscow flight. They say they desperately needed fuel. Tajik officials say they were trying to smuggle in a jet engine.
Already strained by negotiations earlier this year over Russia’s lease of a military base in Tajikistan, Tajik-Russian relations are now taking another battering.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tajikistan sentenced 28 people to jail for supporting militant Islamic groups, local media reported. Tajikistan’s authorities are trying to quell a strengthening Islamic insurgency. Courts in Tajikistan periodically sentence large groups of people to jail for supporting insurgents.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in St Petersburg, PMs from the six countries in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) said they wanted to set up a development bank. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are members of the SCO which is lead by Russia and China. Many analysts see the SCO as a bulwark against western interests in the region.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)
NOV. 8 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Dushanbe jailed a Russian and an Estonian pilot for 8-1/2 years each for illegally landing in Tajikistan with a smuggled jet engine. The Russian foreign ministry said the case was politically motivated. Already strained, the sentence is likely to damage Tajikistan-Russia relations further.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)
OCT. 22 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Tashkent and Dushanbe for talks on strengthening NATO’s supply chain through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to its forces in Afghanistan. Ms Clinton’s officials said she also warned both governments against excessive clampdowns on Muslims.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 62, published on Oct. 25 2011)
OCT. 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the northern Tajik town of Khujand convicted a local BBC reporter, Urunboy Usmonov, of illegal links to an Islamic group and sentenced him to three years in jail. Under a general amnesty decreed in September, the judge immediately released Usmonov. The BBC said Usmonov had been tortured.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 61, published on Oct. 18 2011)
