Tag Archives: media

Kyrgyzstan deports US reporter

APRIL 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The media lobby group the Committee to Protect Journalists accused Kyrgyzstan of having no regard for independent journalism after it deported US journalist Umar Farooq. Mr Farooq had been in Osh investigating ethnic clashes in 2010.
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(News report from Issue No. 226, published on April 8 2015)

TV host murdered in Uzbekistan

MARCH 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Popular Uzbek TV host, Rakhmatilla Mirzayev, has been stabbed to death, Uzbek media reported. Media did not give a motive for the murder of Mirzayev who was 60-years-old and had worked for Uzbek TV for 40 years. His death, though, will once again place Uzbekistan’s rule-of-law under scrutiny.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)

Tashkent limits internet cafe access

FEB. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Tashkent have started to enforce restrictions which limit access to the internet cafes that line the streets of the capital.
Under the new rules, internet cafes have to close by 9pm and minors are banned from them during school hours.

Internet cafes are important in Uzbekistan where the media is predominantly state-controlled and home internet access is severely limited.

The authorities say they want to protect Uzbekistan’s youth from the seedier side of the internet as well as from recruitment videos from the radical group IS. Human rights groups say the real reason is to block free media.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)

Azerbaijani reporter hiding in Swiss embassy

FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swiss television reported that Emin Huseynov, a journalist and critic of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, has been hiding in Switzerland’s embassy in Baku for six months. It said Mr Huseynov took refuge in the embassy to avoid being arrested. Human rights groups criticise Azerbaijan’s recent record.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

New charges against reporter

FEB. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Azerbaijan have brought new charges against RFE/RL reporter Khadija Ismayilova, media reported. Ms Ismayilova, a critic of the government, is in pre-trial detention for coaxing a journalist into a suicide attempt. She will now also face charges of tax evasion and embezzlement.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Uzbekistan frees political prisoners

>>Releases linked to election in March>>

FEB. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan unexpectedly released Khayrulla Khamidov a sports commentator imprisoned in 2010.

As well as being a soccer commentator, Mr Khamidov was a popular religious speaker who had a large following. He produced CDs and spoke at weddings on social issues.

When he was arrested, on charges of setting up an illegal religious organisation, his supporters said it was an attempt by the authorities to dampen a popular social commentator who they considered was a growing threat to stability. He was imprisoned for six years.

Mr Khamidov’s release, then, appears to be a large concession. Human rights groups have long criticised Uzbekistan for its harsh record against religion. Perhaps, though, this is beginning to change.

The Tashkent-based Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Advocates of Uzbekistan has said 16 other religious prisoners were released alongside Mr Khamidov.

No official reason for the release has been given although ordinary Uzbeks believe it is linked to a presidential election set for March 29.

Uzbekistan is in flux at the moment. Islam Karimov, who has ruled over the country since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, is increasingly frail. The election in March and what goes before and after it are increasingly important to monitor.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

Architecture in Kazakhstan stirs passions

>>A row over a blog discussing Almaty’s architecture hits a sensitive nerve>>

ALMATY, FEB. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — “This is sick,” one commentator wrote. “You’re a monster,” wrote another.”

The offending photograph showed an old cottage here in Almaty decked in fine Russian vernacular architecture: carved eaves called karnizy, ornate window frames called nalichniki.

The picture had been, for full-disclosure, run through a muddy Instagram filter, and the house wasn’t in the best of shape. Yet the dissenting faction, trolls or otherwise, couldn’t find anything to admire.

“Why don’t you show our Al-Farabi Boulevard instead?” one user offered. “We’ve got all the fanciest cars!”

I never thought a site about Almaty’s overlooked architecture would be so divisive. Yet the project, Walking Almaty, has revealed a certain fault line in the attitudes of local denizens.

For those born after the fall of the USSR in 1991, the Soviet stuff I celebrated was something of an embarrassment and anything old acted as a painful, rusty reminder. Al Farabi Boulevard at the southern end of town, with its Prada store and glass and steel feel, is the aspirational icon of this crowd.

Meanwhile, old-timers who still call the city by its Russian name of Alma-Ata converse through online forums. For them, the past is something lived, not something to be shirked, and as facades of faux-granite rise, they feel as disrespected as the haters I witnessed on Instagram.

One youthful user recently posted online a picture of a rebuilt cottage, its wooden fretwork ripped off, its new paint job unsubtle. The old-timers responded in chorus. “This is sick.”

By Dennis Keen, an Almaty-based American blogger and writer
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)

UN criticises Kazakh clampdown

JAN. 28. 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Wrapping up a mission to Kazakhstan, the UN’s special rapporteur Maina Kiai said he was disturbed to hear from Kazakh officials that they had decided to clamp down on protests because they worried about a Ukraine style rebellion.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015

Azerbaijan and US argue over new embassy

>>The US says Azerbaijan has made the issue political>>

JAN. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Azerbaijani government cancelled a property agreement with the US on construction of a new embassy building in Baku because of criticism of its election in 2013, a US State Department report released this month said.

Relations between Azerbaijan and the US have nose-dived recently. Last month, Azerbaijani police raided the office of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the US government.

The State Department’s report adds more evidence that relations between the two countries has worsened.

“The mission’s top management priority is the construction of a new embassy building to replace the overcrowded and physically vulnerable 100-year-old chancery and a separate commercial annex one mile away,” the US State department report wrote.

“The Azerbaijani Government has frustrated at least seven US site acquisition efforts over the past decade. Most recently, the government cancelled a signed property agreement after the United States criticised the 2013 election.”

Azerbaijan has pressured human rights activists and independent media over the past few years, attracting heavy criticism from the US and Europe.

Azerbaijani political analyst Zardusht Alizade agreed the Azerbaijani authorities were using the row over the building of a new US embassy in Baku to frustrate the US.

“The Azerbaijani government does not want American embassy to extend here and to hire more people,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)

Azerbaijan extends journalists’ pre-trial detention

JAN. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan extended the pre-trial detention of journalist Khadija Ismayilova, prompting criticism from Europe’s democracy watchdog, the OSCE. Ms Ismayilova is a critic of the government. She is accused of coaxing another journalist into suicide.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)