DEC. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The trial has started of Valery Permyakov, a Russian conscript accused of killing seven members of the same family in January. The murders shocked Armenia and strained relations with Russia. Russia keeps a major military base in Armenia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in south-west Tajikistan has sentenced seven people, including three under the age of 18, to jail for raising a flag in support of the radical IS group, RFE/RL reported. Tajikistan is concerned about IS recruitment. The seven people received jail sentences of 7 to 27 years.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan appeared to bow to international pressure and release a frail- looking Leyla Yunus, one of the country’s most high-profile human rights activists, from prison where she had been serving an 8-1⁄2 year sentence for fraud and tax evasion.
She will re-join her husband, Arif who was sent to prison at the same time but was released earlier on health grounds, in their Baku home.
The West has accused the authorities in Baku of cracking-down on dissents over the past few years.
Human rights activists welcomed the release of Leyla Yunus, although she is not allowed to leave Baku and her fraud and tax evasion conviction still stands.
They also said, though, that other so-called political prisoners needed to be released. This includes journalist Khadija Ismayilova who was sent to prison earlier this year.
Ismayilova was a relatively well- known RFE/RL journalist in Azerbaijan who had reported on top level corruption in Azerbaijan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili signed a decree stripping Mikheil Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship.
When he was in power between 2003 and 2013 Mr Saakashvili painted himself as proud Georgian patriot and it is likely that losing his Georgian citizenship will hurt and even humiliate him.
Under Georgian laws, though, dual citizenship is illegal.
In May this year, Mr Saakashvili took Ukrainian citizenship, allowing him to take up an offer by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to be governor in Odessa.
This meant that, formally, the government had to strip Mr Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship.
“Based on the law of Georgian citizenship, President Giorgi Margvelashvili signed a decree terminating Mikheil Saakashvili’s citizenship due to his acquisition of a foreign country’s nationality,” the Georgian presidential press service said.
The AFP news agency quoted Mr Saakashvili as telling Georgia’s Rus- tavi-2 TV station that he was angry.
“They can take away my passport, but they can’t do anything with my love for my Motherland,” he said.
Although the constitution bans Georgians from taking dual nationality it doesn’t force foreigners taking Georgian citizenship to renounce their original nationality.
Georgia’s prosecutor-general also wants to arrest Mr Saakashvili and charge him with various crimes. Mr Saakashvili has always said the charges are politically motivated. Several of Mr Saakashvili’s former government colleagues and government officials have been arrested.
The European Union and the West have also warned Georgia’s government not to politicise the criminal system.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev signed into law the creation of an agency under the ministry of justice that will be charged with the responsibility of approving funding to non-government agencies. The law has proved controversial with campaigners saying that it is similar to a law introduced by Russia which banned NGOs from taking funding from foreign organisations.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
NOV. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tajikistan handed a 9-1⁄2 year prison sentence to an activist of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) which, until September, had been the country’s only opposition party. Hasan Rahimov had been the IRPT chief in the southern Farkhor district. He is the first of two dozen IRPT activists to stand trial on various terrorism charges. The IRPT says the charges are politically motivated.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The warden in charge of the jail from which nine prisoners escaped last month has been found hanged in his cell, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Imankul Teltaev had been in pre-trial detention waiting for this trial on charges linked to the mass escape.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon is about to add another title to his growing list of names. Already called “His Excellency”, he will now add the moniker “Leader of the Nation”.
A group of deputies of the lower chamber of parliament have submitted a draft law proposing that Mr Rakhmon take this title.
One of the proposers of the bill, Abdurahim Kholikzoda told local media that the draft has been prepared because of a groundswell of support from ordinary Tajiks who want to honour their president and everything he has achieved.
“This is a tribute to the merits of the outstanding son of the Tajik people, President Emomali Rakhmon, and for his services to the country and the people of the country,” media quoted Mr Kholikzoda as saying.
Mr Kholikzoda has a track record of lavishly praising Mr Rakhmon. Once head of the State Religion Committee of Tajikistan, he called Mr Rakhmon “the sun” and “the star of happiness” earlier this year.
Many ordinary Tajik are suspicious, though, and suspect that Mr Rakhmon’s new title is a crude attempt to curry favour.
A Dushanbe resident called Farhod said: “We have the lowest economic development in the post- Soviet space, our migrants are dying in Russia, our families are freezing in areas without electricity or poisoned by carbon monoxide of coal, corruption is developed, and the list can go on.
“However, what are our MPs doing? They compete to invent such laws to get the attention of the President. I am speechless.”
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Two Azerbaijani policemen and four gang members were killed during a gun-battle in a village near Baku when the authorities raided what they described as the stronghold of a group with links to religious extremists.
The fierce battle, which involved machine gun fire and grenades, shocked people living in Baku, triggered warnings from the authorities of a rise in violence linked to extremists and threatened to damage Azerbaijan’s relations with neighbouring Iran.
Although they didn’t explicitly link violence to IS in Syria, the authorities have been increasingly nervous of IS recruitment in Azerbaijan.
In a statement Azerbaijan’s prosecutor-general said that the group, called the Muslim Unity Movement was planning various attacks across Baku and that they had links to Islamic extremists.
“These people and their supporters gathered in Baku and other regions, stocked with various types of weapons, ammunition, explosives,” the prosecutor-general said.
“During the operation, the gang showed armed resistance to police officers and started firing automatic weapons, hand grenades were also thrown.”
The prosecutor-general also said that 14 so called gang members were arrested during the raid in the village of Nardaran.
But neighbouring Iran viewed the incident differently.
The men who were killed were Shia Muslims. Azerbaijan is officially a secular country and the authorities have previously cracked-down on the Shia community, much to the irrita- tion of Iran. The Iranian official media was scathing of the Azerbaijani authorities’explanation.
The Iranian-state owned PressTV described the violence as a crackdown on Azerbaijan’s Shia Muslims.
“The attack came as Shias gathered for a religious ceremony in the village of Nardaran to mark Arabaeen, December 2, the 40th day since the death of Imam Hussein and his followers in a battle of Karbala,” it said. “The reports said violence erupted when security forces attempted to arrest Tale’ Bagirzade, the leader of the MMU, who was delivering a speech on the occasion.”
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Air Armenia, the national flag carrier, lost its appeal against a bankruptcy order.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)