Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

HRW may return to Uzbekistan

TASHKENT, JULY 5 2017 (The Bulletin) — Taking its era of openness to new heights, the Uzbek government said it may allow Human Rights Watch to re-open its office in Tashkent, six years after it was effectively expelled.

The BBC has also posted an advert for an Uzbek language journalist to be based in Tashkent, suggesting that it too was also preparing the ground for a return to Uzbekistan.

In comments reported by official media, Uzbek foreign minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said: “Our cooperation with Human Rights Watch underwent something of a pause, some time in 2010. But this does not mean that we have definitively suspended relations or that we do not want to cooperate.”

The human rights lobby was told to leave Uzbekistan in 2011. The BBC and other media had been thrown out of the country six years earlier after reporting on the deaths of hundreds of people in the town of Adijan after government soldiers opened fire.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has looked to open up the country since taking over as president in September 2016, promising to give ordinary Uzbeks more freedom.

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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)

Seoul mayor to visit Uzbekistan

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JUNE 25 2017 (The Bulletin) — The mayor of Seoul, South Korea’s capital, Park Won Soon is due to visit Tashkent as part of a nine-day trip to Russian cities aimed at boosting ties, the Kremlin-backed news website Sputnik reported. Mr Park will visit Moscow, St Petersburg and Ullyanovsk before Tashkent. By adding Tashkent to the list, Mr Park highlights the strong bilateral links.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Pay gas bill, says Uzbek imam

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JUNE 29 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek media quoted an imam at a mosque in Tashkent telling worshippers during a sermon that they wouldn’t be allowed to undertake the Hajj to Mecca unless they had paid off their utility bills. The reports show just how much control the government has over life in Uzbekistan, including influencing imams’ sermons, and also how desperate the authorities are to collect cash for unpaid utility bills.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Factory to open in Uzbek city

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JUNE 29 2017 (The Bulletin) — Tanotrade, a Swiss company that produces electrical parts, is set to finish constructing a new factory in Nukus, west Uzbekistan, in August, Uzbek media has reported. Reports said that Tenotrade is meeting 80% of the $8m cost of the project, with its local partner, ToshElectroApparat, putting up the rest. It is not clear exactly what products the new factory, called Nukuselektroapparat, will produce but reports said the regional Karakalpak government had offered Tanotrade a series of tax incentives.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Uzbekistan to rise utility prices

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JUNE 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will raise the cost of electricity and gas it supplies to households by 7% from July 15, media reported quoting the state- owned Uzbekenergo and Uzbekneftegas. This is the second utility price rise in less than a year, the uzdaily.uz website reported. The price rise shows the inflationary pressure built into the Uzbek economy. Last month the Uzbek Central Bank increased its key interest rate to try to dampen inflation.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Online music vids need permission in Uzbekistan

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JULY 1 2017 (The Bulletin) — Musicians in Uzbekistan now have to apply for a licence to post their videos online, rules that officials say are needed to preserve Uzbek traditions and culture. The Uzbek language service of the US- funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that a music video by the Uzbek pop singer Munisa Rizayeva had irked the authorities as being too Hispanic. They said that she had “Hispanicised” words on the music video for her song “Sakramento”.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Uzbek and Tajik ministers meet for first time since 1998

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JUNE 29 2017 (The Bulletin) — The interior ministers of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met for the first time in 19 years during a CIS meeting of interior ministers in Dushanbe. The meeting highlights just how far Uzbekistan has moved towards improving its relations with its neighbours since Shavkat Mirziyoyev become president in September 2016. His predecessor Islam Karimov had pushed to isolate Uzbekistan, eschewing regional meetings. Relations with Tajikistan had been particularly strained over plans to build a new dam.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Gas trade increases between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan

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JUNE 27 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will increase imports of gas condensate from neighbouring Turkmenistan to feed its new refinery at Bukhara, media reported quoting state-owned Turkmengas. There have been no public announcements on an increase in gas to Uzbekistan and no numbers have been released on how much gas will be sent to Uzbekistan from Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan has been looking to broaden its gas purchasing clients.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Mirziyoyev sets up his own youth movement for Uzbekistan

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TASHKENT, JUNE 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — In a speech to hundreds of youth activists, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that he was renaming their organisation as the Uzbekistan Youth Union, a deliberate break from the Kamolot brand it had used under former President Islam Karimov.

Kamolot had been one of Karimov’s most successful propaganda tools, sweeping up thousands of people aged between 14 and 30. Kamolot, which means perfection in Uzbek, was set up in 2001 as a successor to the Soviet-era Komsomol. Its detractors said it was used by Karimov to create thousands of pliant Uzbeks who would spread his ideology. It was not compulsory to join Kamolot but those that did often found their path smoothed to good government jobs.

During his speech, Mr Mirzioyev, who appears to be relishing his role as the arch-reformer since taking the over the presidency in September 2016 a few days after Karimov died, said that Kamolot had been a narrow project aimed at promoting a few people above everybody else.

“The activity of the movement has been limited to a narrow circle, and was aimed only at its members. The youth who did not join the movement remained out of sight,” he said, also announcing a doubling of the youth movement budget to $51m.

Still, he appeared to contradict himself shortly afterwards with the appointment of 23-year-old Alisher Sadullayev, a former Kamolot member, as his education minister.

And people commentating online after the announcement were sceptical, suggesting that Mr Mirzioyev was aiming to ape Mr Karimov’s Kamolot rather than build a new all-inclusive youth movement.

“I don’t think that there will be a lot of difference between Kamolot and UYU (Uzbekistan Youth Union). The only difference I’m sure about is how UYU members will call them- selves the children of Mirziyoyev’,” one commentator said.

Another was more whimsical. He wrote on Facebook: “Kamolot is dead, long live UYU!”

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)

Uzbek CB to check bank’s liquidity

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JUNE 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered Uzbekistan’s Central Bank to increase checks on commercial banks’ liquidity, media reported quoting a decree on an official website. The government is increasingly concerned about the stability of the banking sector.

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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)