SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Parliament passed by 69-12 the second reading of a bill that will see the prosecutor-general’s position shift to a 6-year post elected by a 15-person body. Currently, the PM appoints the prosecutor-general on the advice of the minister of justice. Detractors of the bill say it is over-complicating the appointment process.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Constitutional Court ruled that it was illegal to keep a person in pre-trial detention for more than 9 months. The ruling is a major victory for the former mayor of Tbilisi Giorgi Ugulava who is accused of corruption. He is a member of the UNM and has said the accusations are politically motivated. Mr Ugulava has been in pre-trial detention for 14 months, after one of the charges was altered.
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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)
SEPT. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police arrested the governor of the Kostanai region in north Kazakhstan, Akhmetbek Akhmetzhanov, for corruption. Kazakh officials have arrested a handful of senior regional officials over the past year or so for corruption.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili signed into law a bill that switches supervision of commercial banks from the Central Bank to a state-linked body called the Financial Supervisory Body. Mr Margvelashvili tried to veto the switch but was blocked by parliament. Inter- governmental banks have criticised the switch and called it political.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Almaty ordered the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, until a few years ago one of the only genuine opposition parties in the country, to disband permanently. Media reported that the Kazakh ministry of justice said the party had misrepre- sented its activities. In 2011, a few months before a parliamentary election in 2012, a court suspended the Communist Party.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia is likely to hold a referendum in either November or December on constitutional amendments that would transfer power from the president to parliament, a senior member of the ruling HHK group told media.
This is clearest indication yet that a referendum on a new constitution, which the main opposition parties have said is designed to keep President Serzh Sargsyan’s grip on power when he leaves the presidency in 2018, is more than likely this year.
Vahram Baghdasaryan, leader of the HHK group, said: “If not in November, then in the beginning of December.”
This important because of the potentially destabilising impact of a referendum. Widespread street protests against a proposed increase in electricity prices in June showed just had fragile Armenia had become. Now the main opposition groups have pledged to turn the referendum into a de facto vote of confidence in the government and Mr Sargsyan.
Under the current constitution, Mr Sargsyan has to leave the presidency after two consecutive terms. He has said that he will comply with this stipulation but he has also said that he wants to transform Armenia into a parliamentary democracy.
His opponents say that he just trying to organise a power grab from inside parliament and that he wants to continue to run the country.
Armenia’s parliament is currently debating the constitutional changes. The ruling HHK group has said it is prepared to offer concessions to some of Armenia’s disparate opposition groups on the constitutional reform package in exchange for support.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Increasingly concerned about radicalising influences, Kazakhstan’s prosecutor-general said it was banning 700 websites and 21 religious organisation. Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states are worried about extremists linked to the IS group recruiting disenfranchised young men to their causes. Free speech activists have accused the government of using these concerns as a pretext for clamping down on media.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Baku sentenced investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova to 7-1/2 years in prison for various financial crimes, triggering heavy criticism from the West of Azerbaijan’s human rights record and commitment to free speech.
Ismayilova joins a growing list of human rights activists, journalists and opposition supporters who have been sent to prison by the authorities in Azerbaijan over the past few years.
Opponents of President Ilham Aliyev have accused him of effectively purging Azerbaijan of dissidents.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch said: “The outrageous verdict against Khadija Ismayilova shows the Azerbaijani authorities’ willingness to subvert the law to exact revenge against critics.”
This opinion was backed up by other human rights and media agencies as well as the EU, the British government and the United States.
Azerbaijan retorts that the West is trying to organise a coup.
Ismayilova was jailed for tax evasion, embezzlement and abuse of power, almost an exact mirror of the type of wrong-doings she has investigated in various government agencies, and even the presidential family, over the past few years.
Mr Roth of Human Rights Watch said independent observers had been unable to access the courtroom because pro-government supporters had taken all the seating.
“The government gets away with things like this because Azerbaijan has paid no price for throwing one dissident, one human rights activists after another into prison,” he said.
Part of the dilemma for Europe is that it wants to reduce its gas dependency on Russia. This means finding an alternative source of gas and this source of gas is Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijani government appears to have gambled that Europe won’t stop building pipelines and negotiating gas contracts despite grumbling about its crackdown on dissidents.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government has drawn up a draft bill which is says will do more to protect workers’ right although trade unions have said that it will reduce overtime pay and strain worker-company relations further.
The oil workers trade unions in western Kazakhstan have written to the government to ask it to change the draft labour law, setting up a stand-off between workers and the government.
Birjan Nurymbetov, the deputy minister for health and social development, told media that the new labour code was good for workers because it defended their rights and increased the criteria that an employer needs to test before he can sack an employee to 25 from 20.
“The new Labour Code fully protects the rights of employees against unfair dismissal,” he said.
The trade unions had a different view.
“The current project rate for overtime, holidays and weekends, is no less than 1-/12 to two times. This will be reduced to 1-1/4,” said Berdy Otebay, deputy head of the Aktau-based trade union Karazhanb- asmunaigas.
Relations between companies and workers have been strained since a protest in 2011 in the western oil town of Zhanaozen ended in clashes that killed at least 15 people. Companies have become increasingly wary of unions who have started to orgsanise workers more effectively, often securing pay rises.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan said they had arrested nine more people in connection to financial crimes linked to Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, RFE/RL reported. Until March 2014 Ms Karimova was one of the most powerful people in Uzbekistan. She has been under house since then.
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(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)