AUG. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan has once again restricted access to Facebook and YouTube, two of the country’s most popular social networking sites, users said. The Tajik government has been cracking down on opposition figures over the past few weeks, a strategy that may be linked to the social media restrictions.
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(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)
AUG. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in Astana, information ministers from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agreed to set up a news channel which will promote a so-called Turkic view of the world. These countries, and especially Azerbaijan, have become frustrated with what they view as biased coverage in Western media.
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(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)
AUG. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Azerbaijan sentenced human rights defenders Leyla and Arif Yunus to 8-1/2 and 7 years in prison for financial crimes, in what their supporters said was a sham trial.
Tanya Lokshina, a Human Rights Watch researcher based in Moscow, attended the sentencing.
“No matter what technical and legalistic pretexts the authorities are now using to lock up and destroy the Yunuses, one glance into that courtroom leaves you with no shadow of a doubt — this is a political trial and the supposed perpetrators are in fact victims of a vicious repression campaign against independent critics,” she wrote in a story on the Guardian website.
The Yunuses are just the latest human rights defenders, opposition activists or troublesome journalist to be sent to jail in Azerbaijan. The authorities have responded by saying that the West is mounting a concerted effort to blacken its name with negative PR.
But, perhaps, a precedent has been set. Attitudes towards free speech in Azerbaijan appear very dim as the death of another journalist on Aug. 8 appears to show.
Razim Aliyev died after he was beaten up apparently for criticising on Facebook international Azerbaijani footballer Javid Huseynov for making a politically sensitive gesture at a match between his club Gabala and a Cypriot team. Police have detained six men, including Mr Huseynov.
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(News report from Issue No. 243, published on Aug. 14 2015)
DUSHANBE, JULY 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik government said official news should be sent first to the state news agency Khovar, prompting allegations of a media crackdown.
Bishkek-based Tajik news agency Ozodagon published a scan of the decree.
The decree said: “All official information, meetings of the Government of Tajikistan, the President of Tajikistan’s working visits within the country and abroad, international, republican and sectoral meetings should be provided first to Khovar state information agency, and only after that should be sent by the agency to other media.”
The authorities in Tajikistan have been limiting media freedom over the past few years. The West has accused Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon of increasingly authoritarian tendencies.
The new law is another step towards becoming a fully authoritarian state, said Dr Irshod Sulaymoni, an independent political analyst in Dushanbe.
“The decree essentially contradicts the laws, including the constitution, of Tajikistan and questions the reality of equal access to information given by the law,” he said. “I think that the decree is clearly intended to control the official news.”
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A photo released by Uzbek officials of President Islam Karimov’s trip to Russia earlier this month for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) appears to have been doctored to shrink Chinese president Xi Jinping, a tall man, to the same height as Mr Karimov and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Opposition groups have previously accused official Uzbek media of doctoring images of Mr Karimov, 77, to make him look younger and fitter.
The Uzbek government has not commented.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JUNE 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani newspaper Azadliq, one of the only independent newspapers in the country, is on the brink of closing because of its worsening financial situation, media lobby groups said. The authorities in Azerbaijan have been clamping down on opposition media. Lobby groups said Azadliq has received arbitrary fines.
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Apparently without any sense of irony, Uzbek President Islam Karimov congratulated journalists in Uzbekistan on their work.
It could be said to be ironic because media groups rate Uzbekistan as one of the worst countries in the world for media freedom.
“We are well aware that today it is impossible to imagine life without your difficult and responsible work, without the multifaceted activities of the media,” Mr Karimov wrote in a letter published on the internet.
“The fruits of your painstaking work are always received with great interest and attention.”
There are now 1,400 media outlets in Uzbekistan, he said, including 70 TV stations, 30 radio channels and 300 websites.
Uzbek journalists, at least those without links to the authorities, disagree.
Daniil Kislov, the editor of the Fergana.Ru news agency which covers Central Asia, said: “The president’s impression on the richness of the information space seriously differs from reality. Reporters Without Borders placed Uzbekistan in the 166th position among 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index 2015.”
The Uzbek authorities have blocked access to Ferghana.com in Uzbekistan for several years.
US-funded RFE/RL, the BBC and the Voice of America are inaccessible in Uzbekistan, leaving the local information consumer limited to the government’s position on events.
And this view can be very skewed. Readers relying on government authorised journalism may not be aware of the problems facing Mr Karimov’s eldest daughter, she has been under house arrest for over a year, the arguments surrounding Uzbekistan’s use of child labour to pick its cotton, the general crackdown in civil liberties and, also, its poor media freedom ranking.
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Union of Journalists handed Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence agent who is now living in exile in Russia, a special award for services to investigative journalism. The US wants Mr Snowden extradited to face espionage-related charges.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Under the glare of international media and the scrutiny of the human rights lobby, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev prepared to open the inaugural European Games in Baku on June 12.
Mr Aliyev and Azerbaijan have been building up to this moment for years and view the Games, which last until June 28, as a chance to promote the country.
But the Games have also drawn major criticism of Azerbaijan’s recent human rights record. It has imprisoned journalists and locked up opposition activists.
One of the most high profile prisoners is Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist who is in pre-trial detention. She is accused of goading another journalist into a suicide attempt.
On the eve of the Games, the New York Times published a letter from Ms Ismayilova.
“Azerbaijan’s best and brightest have been locked up, tucked away for the European Games. They didn’t want you to see or hear us and our inconvenient truths,” she wrote. “The truth is that Azerbaijan is in the midst of a human rights crisis. Things have never been worse.”
The Azerbaijani authorities have countered these allegations by accusing the West of an anti-Azerbaijan campaign.
Away from the rehtoric the build up to the Games has been fraught. A fire tore through a block of flats last month killing at least 15 people. It spread quickly because of foam stuck to the side of the building to beautify it for the Games. And earlier this week, a bus hit a group of Austrian athletes in the Olympic Vil- lage, badly injuring one of the synchronised swimming team.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s first communications satellite, launched in April, has started operations, the Turkmen government said. The satellite will improve broadcasts over the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)