FEB. 20 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – With three months to go until Azerbaijan hosts the Eurovision Song Contest, Azerbaijani officials and human rights groups have been arguing. Rights groups urged Azerbaijan to improve its record ahead of the competition. Officials countered that lobbyists were politicising Eurovision.
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(News report from Issue No. 78, published on Feb. 23 2012)
FEB. 3 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Yerevan arrested Hayk Gevorgyan, editor of the pro-opposition daily newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak, for allegedly knocking over a man while driving. Mr Gevorgian’s supporters say he has been set up by the police. He was granted bail on Feb. 6.
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(News report from Issue No. 76, published on Feb. 9 2012)
FEB. 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – You’d be forgiven for not noticing, but on Sunday Feb. 12 2012 Turkmenistan holds a presidential election.
The election should give voters in Turkmenistan, which has a population of five million people and holds the world’s fourth largest reserves of gas, a chance to judge Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s first five years in power.
But it won’t. This is a mirage of an election.
Aside from Mr Berdymukhamedov, a 54-year-old former dentist, there are seven other official candidates. All are party loyalists, some currently hold ministerial positions and none offer genuine choice.
Despite the government’s rhetoric last year inviting its exiled opponents back to Turkmenistan, the opposition is wary and won’t return to contest the election.
The main international newswires have local correspondents inside Turkmenistan but Western journalists met a stony silence when they requested visas to cover the election.
Even the ubiquitous election monitors from Europe’s democracy watchdog, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have declined to go. They said simply that there was no point as democracy and choice in Turkmenistan does not exist.
The only issue is what official proportion of the votes Mr Berdymukhamedov will win. In 2007, he won with 89% of the vote. Will his winning margin in 2012 be bigger?
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(News report from Issue No. 76, published on Feb. 9 2012)
FEB. 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has signed a waiver allowing the US to give Uzbekistan non-lethal military aid despite concerns over its human rights record, news agencies reported. Ms Clinton signed the waiver on Jan. 18. Uzbekistan is a vital cog in the US supply chain to its forces in Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 76, published on Feb. 9 2012)
FEB. 3 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – At the annual Munich Security Conference, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev said Azerbaijan would not succumb to a Middle East-style uprising because of its strong economic growth. Last year police in Baku quashed a series of anti-government demonstrations and some analysts have said it may be vulnerable to an uprising.
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(News report from Issue No. 76, published on Feb. 9 2012)
FEB. 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Media freedom rankings by the France-based NGO Reporters Without Borders reflect another tough year for local journalists in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Turkmenistan retains its standard position at the bottom of the 179-country list, just above North Korea and Eritrea, underlining its reputation as one of the world’s most repressive states. Twenty places above Turkmenistan is Uzbekistan, also in familiar territory.
But this year, between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, sliding 10 places to 162nd is Azerbaijan.
In 2011, the authorities in Azerbaijan quashed anti-government protests and imprisoned journalists and bloggers. In November a prominent Azerbaijani journalist was also murdered in Baku.
Reporters Without Borders called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev a “predator” of the media.
“Violence is back in a big way there, with threats, beatings and abduction of opposition journalists,” the report said.
The report was compiled between Dec. 1 2010 and Nov. 30 2011, before the Kazakh authorities’ crackdown on media after riots in the west of the country.
Even so, Kazakhstan comes in at 154th position and looks set to slip in the next rankings.
Armenia enjoys the most media freedom in the region. In 77th position it has regained ground lost after opposition protests and a state-of-emergency in 2008.
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(News report from Issue No. 75, published on Feb. 2 2012)
JAN. 25 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkmen authorities sentenced a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses to four years in jail at a secret trial for distributing pornography, Forum 18, the Norway-based religion news agency, reported. The group said that the allegations against Vladimir Nuryllayev, the jailed member, were fabricated.
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(News report from Issue No. 75, published on Feb. 2 2012)
JAN. 24 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Several hundred prisoners in Kyrgyzstan sewed together their lips in a protest against conditions inside the country’s jails. The Kyrgyz prison service had said they were going to force feed the prisoners to break a week-long hunger strike they had started after police and inmates fought in a Bishkek jail.
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(News report from Issue No. 74, published on Jan. 26 2012)
DEC. 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Soccer’s governing body, FIFA, scrapped plans for Uzbekistan to host the women’s under-20 soccer world cup next year. FIFA said it had to re-schedule the competition in Japan because of technical issues. Human rights groups have been strongly critical of Uzbekistan in the past few months.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject a deal to reduce tariffs on Uzbek textiles until the UN is given access to investigate reports of child labour. The decision comes at a time when, despite criticism over its human rights, Uzbekistan is being re-integrated into the international community.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)