OCT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The office of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was concerned of possible human rights violations linked to Tajikistan’s ban on the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). It said the ban was an attempt to crush dissent.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Border guards at Baku’s airport blocked two Amnesty International researchers from entering the country and the Council of Europe said it was pulling out of human rights talks with Azerbaijan because of what it described as a deteriorating situation.
Both incidents highlight the worsening relations between the West and Azerbaijan.
The West has accused Azerbaijan of clamping down on human rights over the past couple of years. Azerbaijan, in retaliation, has said that the West has been trying to organise a coup.
The Council of Europe, an intergovernmental body that covers Europe and countries on its eastern fringe that used to lie inside the Soviet Union, has been meeting members of the Azerbaijani government since October last year to try and improve dialogue between it and various civic groups.
Now it has effectively said that the situation is hopeless.
“Despite this initiative, the overall situation of human rights defenders in the country has deteriorated dramatically,” the Council of Europe said in a statement. “An increasing number of human right defenders has recently been imprisoned, and the Council of Europe has received worrying reports about unacceptable detention conditions.”
Europe’s relationship with Azerbaijan is complicated. It has derided the government’s attitude towards human rights and free speech but it has also continued to woo Azerbaijan because it needs its gas. The risk for Europe is that the row over human rights will push Azerbaijan further towards Russia.
The same day as the Council of Europe said it was pulling out of talks with Azerbaijan, Amnesty International released a statement saying that two of its researchers were deported when they tried to enter the country through Baku airport.
“The deportation of our staff adds to a sad litany of journalists and human rights defenders being targeted, detained and jailed simply for carrying out their work,” an Amnesty International statement said.
The Azerbaijan government has not commented.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said it would send an election monitoring team to Azerbaijan despite concerns over its human rights record.
There had been a growing expectation that PACE might follow its bigger European vote monitoring team at the OSCE’s ODHIR and cancel its planned mission to cover parliamentary elections on Nov. 1 in Azerbaijan.
But PACE has a softer reputation than ODIHR and has, in the past, been accused of turning a blind eye to Azerbaijan’s crackdowns on civil society. This year, though, it has vocally challenged the Azerbaijani president to improve human rights.
And Anne Brasseur, head of the Strasbourg-based assembly, confirmed that PACE would send a mission as part of its commitment to monitor democracy in the former Soviet Union.
“We decided to maintain the mission to Azerbaijan knowing that the human rights situation is not really good,” media quote Ms Brasseur as saying.
“We are going to observe several elections — elections in Ukraine, in Turkey, in Belarus, in Kyrgyzstan, and we are also going up observe the elections in Azerbaijan.”
Earlier this month ODIHR pulled out of covering Azerbaijan’s election after, it said, the government had halved its quota of observers. Its withdrawal pushed Europe-Azerbaijan relations — strained over the imprisonment of Azerbaijani activists and journalists — to a new low.
And without the ODHIR’s presence, Ms Brasseur said, Europe would not be able to make a full analysis on veracity of the Nov. 1 election. ODHIR had wanted to send 30 long- term monitors and 350 short-monitors to cover the election. By contrast, PACE’s deployment is far smaller.
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
SEPT. 29 2015, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s High Court decreed the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) a terrorist organisation and banned it, wiping the only real opposition party from the country.
The high court statement published by the Khovar state news agency accused the IRPT of committing crimes of terrorist acts and spreading provocative materials.
Pressure on the IRPT has been building.
The General Prosecutor’s Office earlier accused the IRPT leadership of involvement in double attacks on police checkpoints last month that killed two dozen people. It said the mastermind of the attacks had been deputy defence minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda.
Police also detained Buzurgmehr Yorov, an IRPT lawyer, after he started defending 13 top party members arrested for the attacks. Mr Yorov has reportedly been charged with fraud and corruption crimes.
Earlier this year, the Tajik authorities also prosecuted Group 24, another political party that it deemed to be plotting against it.
An analyst who declined to be named said: “It is the sign of zero tolerance of any kind of political opposition, no matter whether they are religious or secular. Tajikistan has now become a one-party state.”
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A taxi driver from Sumqayit, in western Azerbaijan, has died after setting himself on fire, media reported, an apparent final desperate protest against bully by officials and corruption.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said this was the seventh immolation in Azerbaijan since 2014.
Immolations in the region are a particularly sensitive issue because of the political connotations. The so-called Arab Spring erupted after an immolation by a frustrated and brow- beaten market seller set himself alight in front of a local government building in a provincial town in Tunisia in 2010.
The Arab Spring spread across North Africa, fuelling popular protests which eventually toppled governments in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
It also worried Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and some analysts have said that he started cracking down on opposition figures and media outlets after the Arab Spring undermined some of his allies.
The dead taxi driver was named as 27-year-old Maqsad Suleymanov. The authorities in Sumqayit did not specify how he died but a mass of social media comments and eyewitness reports said he had set himself on fire.
SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A group of men dragged Smbat Hakobian, a member of an Armenian opposition group, away from a march and beat him, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. HRW said this was the 2nd time an opposition activist had been beaten in the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 21-23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Even at a European human rights meeting, it seems, calling President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov a dictator is just not acceptable.
This was the irate response, at least, of a deputy minister of foreign affairs when he slapped down a Turkmen dissident at an OSCE arranged human rights meeting in Warsaw.
Responding to a series of criticisms raised during the meeting, deputy foreign minister Vepa Khadzhiyev listed President Berdymukahmedov’s achievements in bringing “cheaper and more objective information to our citizens.” He also dismissed criticism from human rights groups of a decision to remove thousands of satellite dishes from homes in Ashgabat in April. Human rights campaigners had said this was the behaviour of a dictator.
Opposing Mr Khadzhiyev was the former member of Turkmenistan’s parliament now living in exile in Norway Pirimguly Tangrikuliyev, who openly criticised Western countries for cosying up to Mr Berdymukhamedov.
“They court the dictator because they need access to Turkmenistan’s energy resources,” he said.
This irritated Mr Khadzhiyev who asked rights groups not to use the term “dictator” for Mr Berdymukhamedov.
“A dictator does not provide free electricity, gas and water to his population. Our country increases salaries yearly by 10% and provides free education and healthcare,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The BBC’s Uzbek language news said the authorities in Uzbekistan are forcing pensioners to pick cotton or face a 50% cut in their pension handout. Uzbekistan has previously faced Western criticism over its use of children to pick its cotton harvest. Cotton is a valuable cash crop for Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik government has presided over an “steady, unmistakable decline of freedom of expression”, Human Rights Watch said in a statement referring to the clampdown on the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT).
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Czech president Milos Zeman flew to Baku for an official visit where he met with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and visit parliament, only a few days after Europe-Azerbaijan relations dropped to a new low over an election monitoring row.
Mr Zeman, considered something of a maverick, praised Mr Aliyev and Azerbaijan, saying that Azerbaijan should reconsider its decision earlier this month to start the process of suspending its membership of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, a group that brings together the European parliament and parliaments from former Soviet countries.
Relations between the EU and Azerbaijan have dropped to a new low this year over European criticism of Azerbaijani human rights. Azerbaijani officials have responded by accusing the EU of trying to plot a coup.
Mr Zeman signed a number of business deals with Mr Aliyev on his trip.
Most importantly, coming only a few days after Europe’s vote monitoring watchdog, the OSCE, declined to observe Azerbaijan’s elections, it broke ranks.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)