MAY 2 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Other than Georgia, US-based Freedom House rated media in Central Asia and the South Caucasus as “Not Free”. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan propped up the bottom of the table, closely followed by Kazakhstan. Media freedom in Georgia, the report said, had improved in 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 086, published on May 4 2012)
APRIL 17 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The family of award-winning Azerbaijani investigative journalist Idrak Abbasov alleged that security guards beat him when he tried to film the demolition of houses in Baku. The allegations will further damage Azerbaijan’s already tarnished media image ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest next month.
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(News report from Issue No. 084, published on April 20 2012)
MARCH 6 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik ministry of communications ordered internet providers to block access to Facebook and two other websites which had published an article critical of President Emomali Rakhmon, sources told Reuters. Media groups accuse Central Asian governments of manipulating the internet by blocking certain sites.
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(News report from Issue No. 080, published on March 8 2012)
FEB. 3 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Yerevan arrested Hayk Gevorgyan, editor of the pro-opposition daily newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak, for allegedly knocking over a man while driving. Mr Gevorgian’s supporters say he has been set up by the police. He was granted bail on Feb. 6.
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(News report from Issue No. 76, published on Feb. 9 2012)
FEB. 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Media freedom rankings by the France-based NGO Reporters Without Borders reflect another tough year for local journalists in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Turkmenistan retains its standard position at the bottom of the 179-country list, just above North Korea and Eritrea, underlining its reputation as one of the world’s most repressive states. Twenty places above Turkmenistan is Uzbekistan, also in familiar territory.
But this year, between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, sliding 10 places to 162nd is Azerbaijan.
In 2011, the authorities in Azerbaijan quashed anti-government protests and imprisoned journalists and bloggers. In November a prominent Azerbaijani journalist was also murdered in Baku.
Reporters Without Borders called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev a “predator” of the media.
“Violence is back in a big way there, with threats, beatings and abduction of opposition journalists,” the report said.
The report was compiled between Dec. 1 2010 and Nov. 30 2011, before the Kazakh authorities’ crackdown on media after riots in the west of the country.
Even so, Kazakhstan comes in at 154th position and looks set to slip in the next rankings.
Armenia enjoys the most media freedom in the region. In 77th position it has regained ground lost after opposition protests and a state-of-emergency in 2008.
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(News report from Issue No. 75, published on Feb. 2 2012)
NOV. 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rafiq Tagi, a 61-year-old widely respected Azerbaijani journalist, died of stab wounds in a Baku hospital on Nov. 23, four days after an unknown assailant attacked him.
He wrote articles critical of both the state and hard line Islam. Muslim extremists, though, are suspected of organising Tagi’s murder.
Whether or not the authorities or Muslim extremists are the main threat, for local journalists the former Soviet South Caucasus and Central Asia states are often both difficult and dangerous to report on.
In Turkmenistan police this year tracked down and imprisoned journalists who reported on an explosion at an arms depot. In Uzbekistan most local correspondents from international news agencies have been chased out and in Tajikistan the BBC’s reporter was jailed.
Southern Kyrgyzstan remains dangerous for ethnic Uzbek journalists and in Kazakhstan in October attackers armed with baseball bats and a gun beat a camera crew covering protests in the west of the country against the state oil company.
A 2010 press freedom index compiled by the US-based NGO Reporters Without Borders scored the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia poorly. Armenia, Georgia and Tajikistan ranked slightly better but Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were in the bottom quarter of the index.
The report card for 2011 may well be even worse.
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(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)
OCT. 26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkmen authorities released a local Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter after one month of a five-year sentence under an amnesty to mark 20 years of independence. Dovletmyrat Yazkuliyev was jailed in October for encouraging a family member to attempt suicide. His supporters said the charges were fabricated.
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(News report from Issue No. 63, published on Nov. 1 2011)
OCT. 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the northern Tajik town of Khujand convicted a local BBC reporter, Urunboy Usmonov, of illegal links to an Islamic group and sentenced him to three years in jail. Under a general amnesty decreed in September, the judge immediately released Usmonov. The BBC said Usmonov had been tortured.
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(News report from Issue No. 61, published on Oct. 18 2011)
OCT. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Turkmenistan jailed for five years a local reporter working for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for driving a family member to attempt suicide. In July, Dovletmyrat Yazkuliyev had been one of a handful of reporters to expose a government cover-up over blasts at a military depot near Ashgabat.
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(News report from Issue No. 60, published on Oct. 11 2011)
OCT. 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Turkmenistan went on trial accused of driving a family member to suicide, the media group said. In July, Dovletmyrat Yazkuliyev reported on explosions at a town near Ashgabat that the government had tried to cover up. RFE/RL said the charges against him were politically motivated.
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(News report from Issue No. 59, published on Oct. 4 2011)