Tag Archives: media freedom

Kyrgyz civil leaders criticise crackdown on Facebook as an “invasion of human rights”

BISHKEK, JAN. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rights groups and civil society leaders in Kyrgyzstan have criticised the government for moves to monitor Facebook for comments critical of the president.

The row centres on the Kyrgyz National Security Committee’s (GKNB) move to identify and monitor 45 Facebook users who have criticised President Almazbek Atambayev. Facebook in Kyrgyzstan is one of the few mediums ordinary people use to express political opinions.

But Klara Sooronkulova, a former judge of the Constitutional Court who was sacked in 2015 because of a disagreement with Parliament over the use of people’s biometrics data said the move was wrong. “It is invasion of privacy and violation of human rights,” she told The Conway Bulletin.

A Bishkek analyst who preferred to remain anonymous said politics may be motivating the clampdown.

“The next presidential elections are coming [ in October],” he said. “They are taking measures to control chaos by trying to control who criticises the President.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Kazakh court gives editor suspended sentence

JAN. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Astana gave Bigeldi Gabdullin, the 61-year-old editor of the Central Asia Monitor newspaper, a five year suspended jail sentence after he pleaded guilty to trying to extort bribes from officials. Media freedom activists said Gabdullin had only avoided a jail sentence because he had been pressured into admitting guilt.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Kazakh police arrest deputy head of pres. administration

ALMATY, JAN. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kazakhstan continued their purge of top tier officials with the arrest of Baglan Mailybayev, the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, for stealing state secrets.

The arrest of both Mr Mailybayev, 41, who had been deputy head of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s administration since 2011, and another senior official, follow the arrest of a former head of the National Security Committee on similar charges in December.

A former economy minister and a handful of senior executives at a state-run company have also been arrested for corruption.

Analysts said Mr Nazarbayev may be trying to clean out his administration of people he thought were under-performing.

Dosym Satpayev, director of the Risk Assessment Group, said: “To me, the president is showing frustration with young politicians who have made some serious mistakes in their new positions.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Trial for editor begins in Kazakhstan

JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The trial for extortion of Bigeldy Gabdullin, editor of the Central Asia Monitor newspaper, began in Astana. Mr Gabdullin has admitted to charges that he blackmailed officials into paying him bribes not to publish negative stories. His supporters have said that the confession was extracted under duress and that the 61-year-old was hoping that by agreeing to the confession he will be given a light sentence.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kazakhstan increases online monitoring

JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government wants to force people who leave comments on the internet to registered first using their real names, phone numbers and email address, a move that free speech activists said is just another way of cracking down on dissenters. The Eurasianet website quoted Mikhail Komissarov, deputy head of the communications and information technology committee, as saying that the new law was designed to improve transparency online.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kyrgyz security services start monitoring Facebook

JAN. 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s security services have started monitoring 45 people who have criticised President Almazbek Atambayev on Facebook, the Eurasianet website reported. Eurasianet said that it had seen a memo which the Kyrgyz National Security Committee had written to an MP outlining its plans to watch the people. Human rights groups have previously criticised Kyrgyzstan for clamping down on free speech.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Kazakh editor pleads guilty to extortion

JAN. 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bigeldy Gabdullin, a Kazakh newspaper editor, pleaded guilty to trying to extort payments from government officials by threatening to publish negative articles about them. He was arrested in November and his trial is due to begin on Jan. 17. In the early 2000s, Mr Gabdullin had been a critic of the government but since the mid-2000s he has edited the pro-government Central Asia Monitor newspaper.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Police in Azerbaijan detain family of exiled anti- government rapper and independent blogger

JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The police in Azerbaijan allegedly breifly detained and threatened four family members of exiled rapper Jamal Ali in retaliation for his new song dedicated to two imprisoned anti-government activists.

Mr Ali’s rap, released on Dec. 31 and watched over 100,000 times on YouTube, criticised president Ilham Aliyev.

“The police told my mum ‘We cannot arrest your son, so we arrested you’. They also told her I had to take down my video from YouTube,” he wrote, adding that he would only take the rap down when Mr Aliyev had resigned.

Three days later, on Jan. 9, Mehman Huseynov a popular Azerbaijani blogger, who has documented what he has described as human rights infringements in Baku, said that he was taken to a police station by security officers and roughed up.

Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said that Huseynov had been abducted by police, beaten and forced into a confession that he had been fighting.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Journalist flees Kazakhstan

DEC. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bekzhan Idrisov, editor of Radiotochka.kz, one of the leading news websites in Kazakhstan, said that he had fled the country because he increasingly feared that he would be arrested by the police on trumped-up charges.Mr Idrisov’s departure is a reminder of how under-threat many Kazakhs journalists feel. Several high-profile journalists were imprisoned in 2016.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)

Uzbekistan unblocks websites

DEC. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has unblocked news websites which have been banned for years, another sign, perhaps, of improving media and human rights in the country since the death of Islam Karimov in September. The unblocked websites include the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Eurasianet, Ferghana.ru, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)