Tag Archives: Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan raises interest rates to beat inflation

FEB. 24 2020 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate by 75 basis points to 5% because of creeping inflationary pressures. This is its highest rate since mid-2018 when the Central Bank started cutting its interest rate. It said in a statement that it had raised its inflation prediction for 2020 to 5% from an earlier estimate of 4.6%. Food price rises are driving inflation, it said.
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— 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

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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.

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— 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

Attackers beat anti-corruption website editor in Bishkek

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BISHKEK/Jan. 9 2020 (The Bulletin) — A group of men attacked and beat Bolot Temirov, editor of the anti-corruption website FactCheck, near his office in Bishkek one month after he published information accusing the state customs department of corruption.

Rights activists have said that the attitude of the authorities in Kyrgyzstan, once considered a relative bastion of free speech in Central Asia, had worsened significantly in 2019.

Since Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Berlin-based Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Bishkek-based Kloop led publication of an in-depth investigation into official corruption, media websites have been hacked and their bank accounts frozen.

Mr Temirov, the editor of FactCheck, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that he needed paramedic assistance after the attack and that he had filed a complaint to the authorities.

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— 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

Kyrgyzstan evacuates residents near border with Tajikistan

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JAN. 10 2020 (The Bulletin) — The authorities in southern Kyrgyzstan temporarily evacuated people living in the village of Kok-Tash because of a series of attacks on the border town that they blame on Tajiks, media reported. Clashes in Kok-Tash, which included gunfire, last month hospitalised several people. Tension between Tajiks and Kyrgyz have been rising.

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— 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

Coordinator of Kyrgyz feminist exhibition says she was attacked

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DEC. 26 2019 (The Bulletin) — Aigul Karabalina, one of the coordinators of the Feminale exhibition in Bishkek that promoted women’s rights, said that she had been attacked in the street. She linked the attack, in which she suffered concussion and a bruise under her eye, with what she said was a misogynistic backlash against Feminale. She now wants to leave the country. Activists have said that the government has not done enough to promote women’s rights.
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