NOV. 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Baku sentenced Sardar Alibeili, editor of the independent P.S. Nota newspaper, to four years in jail for attacking another man in the street in July. Human rights groups around the world said the charges were false and accused the authorities of clamping down on free speech.
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(News report from Issue No. 161, published on Nov. 20 2013)
NOV. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran has accused Azerbaijan of torturing one of its citizens, Iranian media reported. The accusation that Azerbaijani security forces arrested Iranian Hassan Faraji then tortured him may inflame tension between Azerbaijan and Iran. Azerbaijan has previously accused Iran of plotting bomb attacks in Baku.
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(News report from Issue No. 161, published on Nov. 20 2013)
NOV. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a rare case, a court in Astrakhan, northern Kazakhstan, sent two policemen to jail for three year for torturing a farmer into confessing he had stolen cattle. Human rights groups often criticise the authorities in Kazakhstan for turning a blind eye to torture by their police forces.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in the scruffy provincial town of Sheki in northern Azerbaijan set a date for the start of the politically sensitive trial of Ilgar Mammadov, a high profile opposition leader, and 17 others who are accused of inciting anti-government riots.
International human rights groups have called the trials political motivated and described them as part of the Azerbaijani authorities’ strategy to clamp down on dissenters.
The judge scheduled the case to begin on Nov. 28.
Mr Mammadov and the other 16 defendants are accused of inciting violence in the town of Ismayilli on Jan. 23.
Anti-government protesters gathered in the town after a confrontation with family members of the local ruling elite. The protesters burnt cars hurled rocks at interior ministry forces in the worst outbreak of civil violence in Azerbaijan in President Ilham Aliyev’s decade-long rule.
Prosecutors say that Mr Mammadov, chairman of the opposition group REAL, and Tofig Yagublu, a columnist for an opposition newspaper and chairman of the Musavat political party, travelled to Ismayilli from Baku the following day to encourage the protesters to continue to confront police. They were arrested a few days later held in detention since then.
Both men have denied the charges and have instead said that they travelled separately to Ismayilli to simply investigate what had happened.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
OCT. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a review of torture allegations, the UN Committee Against Torture said mistreatment of prisoners, illegal detentions, forced exile of human rights activists and the use of child labour were continuing in Uzbekistan. An Uzbek delegation said the allegations were politically motivated.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A judge in Azerbaijan set the start of the trial of opposition leader Ilgar Mammadov for inciting anti-government violence in January for Nov. 28. Human rights groups have described the trial of Mr Mammadov and others as politically motivated.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
NOV. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting just how sensitive the Uzbek authorities are towards the Andijan killings of 2005, prosecutors charged Tashkent-based newspaper Novosti Uzbekistana with promoting terrorism after it published a photograph from the day. Rights groups say hundreds of people died in Andijan after police opened fire on anti-government demonstrators. The authorities say a military operation killed terrorists.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
OCT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov said Uzbekistan had picked 3.35m tonnes of raw cotton this year, media reported. This is the same amount of cotton gathered in last year’s harvest. Uzbekistan’s cotton industry has attracted increased scrutiny over the past few years for allegedly using child labour.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Lara Fabian, a Belgian-Italian singer, pulled out of a concert in Tashkent organised by Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. Ms Fabian said she pulled out because she was concerned about the Uzbek government’s human rights record.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s been a difficult year for Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov and, perhaps, his heir.
Her sister Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva disowned her and told the world that Ms Karimova’s chances of becoming president were almost nil. She’s also had her property seized in Europe and become the focus of a money laundering investigation.
Now Ms Karimova has also had to deal with the humiliation of watching Lara Fabian, a Belgian-Italian singer, pull out of a concert she had organised in Tashkent.
On her Facebook site, Ms Fabian said that when she found out who the event organiser was, she quit.
She said she had been shocked and upset by criticism from media which made her out to be a stooge of the Uzbek government. Human rights groups accuse the Uzbek authorities of torturing prisoners and dissenters.
“My career and commitments reflect my values and I am shocked that you would think I can endorse a system that does not respect human rights,” she wrote.
Clearly performing for Ms Karimova or any other members of the Uzbek elite is poor PR for a European singer.
And Ms Karimova took the news personally. She vented on her twitter account that foreign forces had persuaded Ms Fabian to pull out of the concert.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)