JULY 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US State Department gave a human rights award to Azimzhan Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek sent to prison in 2010 for inciting ethnic fighting earlier that year. At the time, in 2010, Askarov’s supporters said the charges had been fabricated. The Kyrgyz foreign ministry lodged a complaint to the US State department.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECRH) in Strasbourg ruled that Russia had broken the European Convention on Human Rights in 2006 and 2007 when it detained hundreds of Georgians in Moscow and deported them. At the time, analysts said the deportations were linked to a Russia-Georgia spy row. The ECRH ruling will likely raise Georgia-Russia tension.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Relations between the United States and Azerbaijan appeared to have sunk to a new low after Azerbaijani media accused US ambassador Robert Cekuta of inciting a revolution.
The US embassy published a rare statement refuting the allegations, saying that meetings with opposition groups and media were part of its ongoing mission to listen to all sides of Azerbaijan’s community.
“The Ambassador also continues meeting extensively with top figures in Azerbaijan’s government,” the US embassy statement said.
“The US Embassy is not plotting a coup in Azerbaijan. Nor is it instructing or financing any political party in the country.”
Relations have nose-dived in the past year over Azerbaijan’s crackdown on civil society. Azerbaijan has responded to criticism by accusing the US and Europe of mounting a smear campaign.
The US Peace Corps, a US- government funded organisation which sends teenagers and young adults abroad to live and teach English, has quit Azerbaijan, as has the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The US has also criticised Azerbaijan for jailing opponents of President Ilham Aliyev.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Sixteen US senators have written to Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev calling on him to improve human rights in the country, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Mr Aliyev has previously accused the West of mounting a smear campaign against Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon wrapped up a trip to Central Asia with a speech to university students in Ashgabat in which he warned that democracy and human rights in the region were being increasingly marginalised.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a lavish ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Baku, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev opened the inaugural European Games.
The focal point of the $95m opening ceremony celebrations was a haunting rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine by Mr Aliyev hosted a handful of global leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. The leaders of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Belarus and Serbia also attended.
And the glitz and the glamour couldn’t displace all the criticism of Azerbaijan and its record on human rights over the past few years.
Irish band U2 used a concert in Montreal to call for the release of a number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. In a strongly worded statement, Rupert Colville, the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, heavily criticised Mr Aliyev and the authorities in Azerbaijan.
“These cases are indicative of a shrinking democratic space in Azerbaijan,” he said.
The Games themselves haven’t been without controversy either. Police arrested a bus driver who ploughed his coach into a group of Austrian swimmers walking on a pavement in the Olympic village and a partisan Azerbaijani crowd booed Armenian athletes at the Opening Ceremony.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are still officially at war over the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In Tashkent, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon said the Uzbek authorities should stop using forced labour to pick cotton and also improve prisoners’ rights. Clothing companies have boycotted Uzbek cotton.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Swiss embassy in Baku organised for Emin Huseynov, an Azerbaijani dissident and critic of President Ilham Aliyev’s administration, to fly out to Switzerland with Swiss foreign minister Didier Burkhalter. Mr Huseynov had been sheltering in the Swiss embassy since mid-August when police had tried to arrest him on drug-related charges.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Maina Kiai, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, said the freedom to assemble and freedom of expression were compromised in Kazakhstan. Mr Kiai was reporting on a trip he made to Kazakhstan in January.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a stopover in Bishkek as part of a wider tour of Central Asia and its capitals, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon said Kyrgyzstan should hold an impartial investigation into the death of 400 people during fighting in the south of the country in 2010.
Most of the people killed during fighting around the city of Osh in south Kyrgyzstan in 2010 were Uzbek.
“Kyrgyzstan has ambitious plans to promote interethnic harmony and to protect the rights of all, including minorities,” Reuters quoted Mr Ban as saying at a press conference in the city.
“But it’s important for these policies to be put into practice. Root causes must be addressed fully and impartially investigated and prosecuted.”
The inference is clear. Any Kyrgyz investigations since 2010 have been skewed to clear ethnic Kyrgyz of blame for the fighting which drove thousands of ethnic Uzbeks over the border into Uzbekistan.
Although lying inside Kyrgyzstan’s borders, Osh and the surrounding towns and cities have always been heavily populated by ethnic Uzbeks.
Human rights groups have accused Kyrgyzstan of a cover up over how the fighting in 2010 started by convicting local Uzbek leaders for starting the fighting.
Relations between the two communities living around Osh continued to be strained and the peace fragile.
Mr Ban was visiting Bishkek as part of a Central Asia tour, his second since 2010.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)