Tag Archives: human rights

Tajikistan acting as route for Turkey to send Uighurs to China -media

DUSHANBE/JULY 26 (The Bulletin) — Tajikistan is acting as a secret channel for Turkey to deport Uighurs to China where they are interned in so-called re-education camps, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The newspaper quoted lawyers in Turkey and family members of deported Uighurs who said that China was making hundreds of demands on Turkish authorities to deport Uighurs and that they were now using third countries, such as Tajikistan, to deport them.

The Telegraph documented how 59-year-old Uighur widow Aimuzi Kuwanhan, who had fled China for Turkey, had disappeared suddenly.

“A lawyer hired by her family subsequently discovered that she had been extradited to Tajikistan, despite having never lived there or having held Tajik citizenship. Sources who knew Kuwanhan say from there she was sent to China,” the Telegraph reported.

Turkey has denied the reports and Tajikistan has not commented but there has been an increase in the number of media and online reports from Istanbul of Turkish police and authorities detaining known Uighur activists this year.

Turkey, like Tajikistan’s neighbours — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan — has a sizeable ethnic Uighur population and it would have been politically impossible to deport them directly to China. Tajikistan, though, has close connections with China but no ethnic Uighur population. The plight of the Uighurs, and other Muslim minorities, in China’s Xinjiang province is not a major discussion point in Tajikistan.

This means that while Turkey has a policy of not sending Uighurs back to China, under pressure from various bilateral agreements that it has signed with Beijing, it could send them to Tajikistan. The authorities there would be able to send them on to China.

Over the past decade, Tajikistan has developed close relations with China relying on cheap loans from Beijing to upgrade its Soviet-era infrastructure and give its towns and cities facelifts. These loans have come with major political influence too and Tajikistan can now be relied upon by China to act as a loyal ally.

ENDS

— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Feted Kyrgyz human rights activist dies in prison

Leave a Reply

BISHKEK/JULY 25 (The Bulletin) — Azimzhan Askarov, one of Kyrgyzstan’s most high-profile prisoners, died in his cell aged 69.

The death of Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek human rights activist considered by the West to be a political prisoner but by most Kyrgyz to be a troublemaker, will damage Kyrgyzstan’s already battered reputation for minority rights.

Announcing Askarov’s death, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Kyrgyz authorities had wanted him to die.

“They had every opportunity to end his wrongful imprisonment, but each time they flouted their obligations,” said Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at HRW. “They intended for him to die in prison, and so he has.”

The US and Western human rights groups had been calling on Kyrgyzstan to release Askarov from prison on humanitarian grounds. He had been ill for several years and had been given only a few months to live earlier this year.

But the Kyrgyz Supreme Court said that Askarov was a dangerous agitator who helped to whip up inter-ethnic tension in 2010 that led to fighting around Osh and Jala-Abad that killed several hundred people. He was imprisoned in 2010 for murdering an ethnic Kyrgyz policeman during the violence after a trial that human rights activists said was riddled with violations. They also said that Askarov had been tortured in prison.

In 2016, the UN asked Kyrgyzstan to release Askarov and re-run his trial and the US gave Askarov a prestigious human rights prize.

A Bulletin correspondent based in Jala-Abad, south Kyrgyzstan, said that while the death of Askarov had sparked some interest, there had been no protests. Most Kyrgyz agree that he was a troublemaker and ethnic Uzbeks don’t want to rock fragile ethnic relations.

ENDS

— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Georgia sells US dollar reserves to prop up lari currency

Leave a Reply

MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — In Georgia, the Central Bank sold $140m of its currency reserves to prop up its ailing currency and also released a statement which said that its economy would recover once it has come through the fallout of the coronavirus.

All shops have been closed, other than pharmacies and food shops. As reported on page 5, Georgia’s important tourist industry is facing collapse. Estimates said that 9m people visited Georgia in 2019, double the number from 2012.

The government has not yet downgraded its GDP growth estimates for 2020 but analysts said they expected this to happen within the next few days.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

COMMENT: Kazakh government on defensive after activist dies

Leave a Reply

>> Concessions are likely from the Kazakh government as it works hard to contain the fallout from the death in police custody of an opposition activist, writes James Kilner.

MARCH 3 2020 (The Bulletin) — As The Bulletin was going to press, a court in the northeastern Kazakh city of Semey ordered the release of Mukhtar Dzhakishev, perhaps the country’s most high-profile political prisoner.

Dzhakishev has been in prison since 2009, sent down because of various financial crimes. He had been a high flyer within the Kazakh elite, at the time of his arrest he was head of the nuclear agency Kazatomptom, although the government of Nursultan Nazarbayev always doubted his loyalty.

Many people, including foreign governments, suspected that the real reason that Dzhakishev had been imprisoned was because he was close to Mukhtar Ablyazov, the billionaire owner of BTA Bank who fled to Moscow and then London in 2009 and set himself up as an opposition leader.

The theory goes that Nazarbayev couldn’t get to Ablyazov, and still hasn’t, but he could take out some of his key Kazakhstan-based associates, including Dzhakishev.

So why release Dzhakishev now? Afterall, Ablyazov is still acting as an opposition leader from his base in Paris and only last year a court rejected Dzhakishev’s appeal for his early release on health grounds.

The answer could well lie with the death in police custody of opposition activist Dulat Agadil. In life, Agadil had not been a particularly serious threat to the government but in death, he had become a powerful force for the government’s opponents to rally around. He died in police custody on Feb. 25 in murky circumstances. The government was quick to rush out a statement saying that Agadil had died of an underlying heart condition and not from police mistreatment. Not many ordinary people believe the government and the opposition had been quick to start organising demonstrations. The one on Saturday was snuffed out by the security forces but more were promised.

Perhaps the release of Dzhakishev was a carrot that Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev believed was needed to pacify opposition momentum. It has allowed him to show himself as a moderate and even-handed president.

It may also only be the beginning of the concessions that the Kazakh government is prepared to give out to contain the fallout from the death of Agadil. Whether it works or not, The Bulletin will be there to report and analyse in full.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Human Rights Watch says Uzbekistan is still ‘authoritarian’

Leave a Reply

MARCH 1 2020 (The Bulletin) — The New York-based Human Rights Watch said that although Uzbekistan has made some progress on improving its human rights record since Shavkat Mirziyoyev took over as president in 2016, it is still an authoritarian government where “many promising reforms continue to exist only on paper”. It said that thousands of people were still in detention on politically motivated charges and that the media was continually repressed.
— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Appeal of Uzbek human rights activist begins in Kyrgyzstan

Leave a Reply

FEB. 25 2020 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court started hearing the appeal against a life prison sentence given to Uzbek human rights defender Azimjan Askarov. He was originally arrested in 2010, in the aftermath of ethnic violence in Osh that killed 450 people, mainly Uzbeks, and was accused of stirring ethnic tension. The US has criticised the Kyrgyz government for arresting and imprisoning Askarov.
— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kazakh opposition activist dies in police custody

Leave a Reply

ALMATY/Feb. 24 2020 (The Bulletin) — Opposition activists accused the Kazakh police of brutality and neglect after one of their colleagues died in police custody.

The government denied that police had mistreated Dulat Agadil, 43, and accidentally killed him in a Nur-Sultan police cell and instead said that he had died of an underlying heart condition.

“I can fully assure people that, unfortunately, the activist Agadil passed away as a result of heart failure. To make any claims counter to this is to go against the truth,” President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in a statement.

The statement was not enough, though, to take momentum away from opposition activists who called for a rally four days later in Almaty. Police snuffed out the rally by detaining up to 40 activists before the protest but opposition leaders have promised to continue demonstrations.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz court refuses to approve extradition to Turkey of suspected Gulenist teachers

Leave a Reply

BISHKEK/Dec. 30 2019 (The Bulletin) — A district court in Bishkek shunned Turkey by refusing to sanction the extradition of two Turkish teachers suspected of being so-called Gulenists.
The court said that the extradition of the teachers, approved earlier by Kyrgyzstan’s deputy prosecutor general, was illegal.

Rights activists have said that so-called Gulenists who have been extradited from countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have been tortured in Turkey and don’t get fair trials. The Turkish government blames Gulenists for a failed coup in 2016 and has promised revenge.

The press secretary of the Pervomaisky District Court, Asel Ravshanbekova, didn’t give the Kyrgyz branch of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty any reasons for the court to overturn the deputy prosecutor’s extradition approval other than to say that it was considered “illegal”.

Even so, the court’s decision is a sharp and rare blow to Turkey’s status in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region. With the exception of Kazakhstan and Armenia, the other countries in the region have been quick to round up Turkish teachers working at schools and universities regarded as Gulenists. These were educational institutions set up in the 1990s by followers of Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic cleric who was once an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but now lives in exile in the United States.

These Gulen-linked schools were considered to be the best schools and universities in each country in the region, producing government ministers and business leaders.

In 2017, Turkey as much as told Kyrgyzstan that it needed to close down the Gulen school network known as Sebat. Kyrgyzstan refused but did rebrand the schools as Zepat. These fee-paying schools still educate many sons and daughters of the elite.

Kyrgyzstan-Turkey relations have improved since Sooronbai Jeenbekov took over as president in 2017 but the strain over the fate of the Gulen schools and their teachers has damaged some of the goodwill.

Mr Jeenbekov took over as president from Almazbek Atambayev, who had pushed a foreign policy that, while not anti-Turkey, was definitely cool towards its traditional ally.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020

— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

Don’t send men back to China, HRW tells Kazakhstan

Leave a Reply

JAN. 9 2020 (The Bulletin) — New York-based Human Rights Watch said that Kazakhstan should not extradite two ethnic Kazakhs accused of crossing the border illegally from China because they face the risk of torture or detention. HRW said that the two men, Kaster Musakhanuly and Murager Alimuly, had been escaping China’s crackdown on Muslims and that they should be given asylum.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020

— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

Ukraine extradites Aliyev critic before presidential visit

Leave a Reply

DEC. 14 2019 (The Bulletin) — Ahead of a presidential trip to Azerbaijan, Ukraine detained and deported Elvin Isayev, a critic of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev known for his coarse use of Youtube videos to attack the First Family. Mr Isayev, who is shunned by most mainstream opposition figures, had moved to Ukraine earlier this year from Russia. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, flew to Baku two days after Mr Isayev’s extradition.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019