FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Measles in Kyrgyzstan is on the rise because parents are opting their children out of the vaccination for religious reasons, media reported quoting government doctors. Figures quoted by the media said that the number of confirmed measles cases in Kyrgyzstan rose to 3,400 this year from 200 last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Viktor Khristenko, chairman of the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union, said the final barriers to Kyrgyzstan’s entry to the group had been removed. He was talking to press after a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union. Kyrgyzstan aims to join the EEU, which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia, later this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kyrgyzstan said they had arrested several members of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir in a number of coordinated raids across the country, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Kyrgyzstan is increasingly worried about Islamic extremists’ recruitment drive in the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan detained four Uzbek nationals on their shared border, media reported. Relations between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have been strained over the last few years by rows over border rights and hydro-electric dams. The rows have the potential to destabilise the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
>>US-backed website promotes drive to counter radical Islam>>
FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan has stepped up a programme in the south of the country to counter propaganda from Islamic extremists.
The website centralasiaonline.com, which has links to the US government, quoted NGO workers and people in southern Kyrygzstan explaining how the government had started a series of courses to pull potentially vulnerable people away from online material distributed by the IS extremist group.
“Young people encounter dubious information online and fall prey to the negative influence of recruiters, who lure our brothers and sons to hot spots,” the website quoted one woman who lived near Osh, the main city in the region.
Centralasiaonline.com has a clear pro-Western agenda but its report matches other media reports which have described how the Kyrgyz government is trying to counter IS recruitment ambitions in Central Asia.
IS has identified Central Asia as a particularly fertile recruitment ground because of high levels of dissatisfaction among young Muslim men.
The centralasiaonline.com report said the government had hosted six workshops for 250 people over the past couple of months.
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
EDINBURGH/NEW YORK, FEB. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Civil freedoms in Central Asia and the South Caucasus took a turn for the worse in 2014 as governments moved closer to Russia and worried that street demonstrations in Ukraine may spread, Freedom House said in an interview.
The sharpest deterioration in civil rights in 2014, according to the US-based lobby group, came in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.
“Governments restricted freedom of assembly and speech to prevent ‘maidans’ and Russian encouragement of separatism,” Nate Schenkkan, a Eurasia Programme Officer at Freedom House, said in an interview with The Bulletin. Schenkkan’s reference to so-called maidans was to Ukrainian street demonstrations which morphed into a full scale revolution.
The interview was conducted over twitter with questions also taken from viewers.
At the end of last year Azerbaijani police raided the office of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In the interview with The Bulletin, Schenkkan said the police raid was the culmination of a tough year for media and government critics in Azerbaijan.
“There was a full-scale crackdown. Now (there are) 90 plus political prisoners, all independent media shuttered in Azerbaijan,” he said. “Sanctions for Azerbaijani officials should be on the table and EU leaders should skip the European Games.” Azerbaijan is hosting the inaugural European Games later this year.
As for Kyrgyzstan, Schenkkan said new legislation had dented Kyrgyzstan’s image.
“Kyrgyzstan is the most disappointing because it is a reversal after relative gains recently,” he said. “Copycat attempts at Russian legislation against LGBTI and NGOs nearly passed.”
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(News report from Issue No. 218, published on Feb. 11 2015)
JAN. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Inflation in Kyrgyzstan has broken through the 10% barrier, a senior official at the national statistics office was quoted by media as saying. The official, Malika Abdukadirova, said annualised inflation hit 10.4% in December mainly because of a rise in the price of foodstuffs.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
>>Russia pledges new gas infrastructure system>>
JAN. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a trip to Bishkek, Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, said the Russian state-owned gas company would invest $500m into Kyrgyzstan’s gas network system over the next three years.
This is a massive investment by Russia into what is essentially its backyard, especially during these times of economic turbulence. Gas has become a form of diplomacy and control for the Kremlin and it wants to bring Kyrgyzstan closer into its hegemony.
“This is 1.7 times larger than originally planned,” media quoted Mr Miller as saying of the proposed investment plan. “All the planned works will be financed in full.”
Gazprom bought Kyrgyzstan’s gas monopoly for a symbolic $1 in 2013. This year the Kremlin has already earned credit for negotiating a deal between the Uzbek and the Kyrgyz authorities to supply gas to the south of Kyrgyzstan.
And influence over Bishkek is important for Russia. Over the past decade Kyrgyzstan has swung between supporting the West to looking towards the Kremlin. Now that the US military base outside Bishkek has been dismantled (it went last year) the Kremlin has upped its drive to pull Bishkek closer towards it.
Later this year, Kyrgyzstan plans to join the Kremlin-controlled Eurasian Economic Union. It has sold its gas system to Gazprom and has introduced various legislation that apes Russian laws and, many analysts say, curtails personal freedoms.
Russian dominance over Kyrgyzstan is growing.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
JAN. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Imams in south Kyrgyzstan urged people to boycott French goods, especially perfume, or at least counterfeit versions, which is stocked in markets. The boycott is in retaliation for the printing of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
JAN. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev approved the selection of Indira Dzholdubayeva as prosecutor-general. One of Ms Dzholdubayeva’s main tasks is to clamp down on corruption. Her selection as Kyrgyzstan’s prosecutor-general is eye-catching because Kyrgyzstan is still a male dominated society and she is only 35-years-old.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)