DEC. 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Soccer’s governing body, FIFA, scrapped plans for Uzbekistan to host the women’s under-20 soccer world cup next year. FIFA said it had to re-schedule the competition in Japan because of technical issues. Human rights groups have been strongly critical of Uzbekistan in the past few months.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject a deal to reduce tariffs on Uzbek textiles until the UN is given access to investigate reports of child labour. The decision comes at a time when, despite criticism over its human rights, Uzbekistan is being re-integrated into the international community.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
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.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Underlining his unilateral principles, Uzbek president Islam Karimov used a TV speech to warn against integration in the former Soviet Union. Commentators interpreted the speech as a snub to Russian PM Vladimir Putin’s proposal of a Eurasian Union. Kazakhstan backs the idea of a Eurasian Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 13 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A report by Human Rights Watch accused the US and NATO of virtually ignoring torture by Uzbekistan because it was now an ally in their war in Afghanistan. As relations with Pakistan have worsened, NATO has increased supplies to its forces in Afghanistan along a route through Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A disputed parliamentary election in Russia on Dec. 4 triggered unprecedented anti-government street demonstrations in Russian cities, protests which will have worried leaders in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
The people of Central Asia and the South Caucasus have strong historical, business, family and political ties with Russia and what happens there matters.
Politics in Kazakhstan is similarly aligned to Russia and the country is confronting growing pains. President Nursultan Nazarbayev also has to deal with a parliamentary election on Jan. 15.
Although Mr Nazarbayev’s position is far more secure than his Russian counterparts’ he faces lingering issues over his succession policy and commitment to genuine democracy. The compliant Kazakh media has steered away from covering the Russia protests in detail but Mr Nazarbayev certainly wouldn’t want them to linger.
In Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan the media is even more tightly controlled and the impact of the anti-government protests in Moscow will be softer but, again, if they are prolonged they will start to worry their leaders.
In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan is most prone to an impact from street demonstrations in Russia. Its police force stamped out anti-government protests during the first half of the year and demonstrations in Russia could embolden protesters again.
It is premature to talk of a Slavic Spring in Russia but there is an air of change and this attitude could start to drip into other former Soviet states.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
DEC. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s Senate voted to cut the presidential term to five years from seven years in a move that means President Islam Karimov may legally be able to continue his reign despite being in the second consecutive and final seven-year term allowed in the Constitution. Mr Karimov’s current term ends in 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 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.
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(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)
NOV. 22 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Reports from Uzbekistan say police have arrested emergencies minister Tursinkhon Khudaybergenov and presidential adviser Ravshan Mukhitdinov. It is not yet clear why the men were arrested for whether the arrests were connected.
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(News report from Issue No. 66, published on Nov. 23 2011)
NOV. 20 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek media reported an explosion on a railway in Uzbekistan which is used for carrying supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan. Uzbek authorities said Islamic militants may have attacked the railway. Uzbekistan is considered vital to the US supply line running across Central Asia into Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 66, published on Nov. 23 2011)
