Tag Archives: politics

Azeri opposition leader goes to trial

NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in the scruffy provincial town of Sheki in northern Azerbaijan set a date for the start of the politically sensitive trial of Ilgar Mammadov, a high profile opposition leader, and 17 others who are accused of inciting anti-government riots.

International human rights groups have called the trials political motivated and described them as part of the Azerbaijani authorities’ strategy to clamp down on dissenters.

The judge scheduled the case to begin on Nov. 28.

Mr Mammadov and the other 16 defendants are accused of inciting violence in the town of Ismayilli on Jan. 23.

Anti-government protesters gathered in the town after a confrontation with family members of the local ruling elite. The protesters burnt cars hurled rocks at interior ministry forces in the worst outbreak of civil violence in Azerbaijan in President Ilham Aliyev’s decade-long rule.

Prosecutors say that Mr Mammadov, chairman of the opposition group REAL, and Tofig Yagublu, a columnist for an opposition newspaper and chairman of the Musavat political party, travelled to Ismayilli from Baku the following day to encourage the protesters to continue to confront police. They were arrested a few days later held in detention since then.

Both men have denied the charges and have instead said that they travelled separately to Ismayilli to simply investigate what had happened.

ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

Tajikistan holds presidential election

NOV. 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nobody is in any doubt what the result of a presidential election in Tajikistan on Nov. 6 will be. Incumbent president Emomali Rakhmon will win with a thumping majority.

The authorities in Tajikistan have already disqualified Mr Rakhmon’s only serious contender, a female human rights campaigner. He is left to face five loyal candidates who lend only the facade of an opposition movement to the election.

In power since the end of a civil war in the mid-1990s, Mr Rakhmon, 61, does not brook opposition and this election will rubber stamp his grip over Tajikistan for another seven years.

Democracy advocates, human rights campaigners and anti-corruption lobbyists may complain but the realpolitik of the situation is more complex.

When NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan next year, Tajikistan moves onto the frontline of the fight against militant Islam. What NATO and Russia and China want more than anything else is a strongman in power who is able to impose stability and act as a bulwark against the potential move north of the Taliban.

For them, a clear win for Mr Rakhmon is their preferred option. And they’ll get it.

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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

New Georgian president snubs palace

NOV. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a snub to Georgia’s out-going President Mikheil Saakahsvili, Giorgi Margvelashvili, the president-elect, said he would not be taking up residence in the new presidential palace. Mr Margvelashvili said instead he would turn the controversial glass-domed building overlooking Tbilisi into a university.

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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

Ex-Georgian minister is pardoned

NOV. 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In one of his last acts as Georgia’s President, Mikheil Saakashsvili pardoned ex-interior minister Bacho Akhalaia who was found guilty last week of abuse of power. Mr Saakashsvili has said the case is politically motivated. Akhalaia remains in prison, though, waiting for a new trial on a different case to begin.

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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

Police crushes protest in Armenia

NOV. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police clashed with anti-government protesters armed with sticks in central Yerevan, media reported, raising the spectre of instability in Armenia. Reports said police arrested 20 people after the small-scale scuffles petered out. Protesters were complaining that a presidential election in February was unfair.

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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

Power games heat up in Uzbekistan

NOV. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a reference to a power struggle in Uzbekistan, Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, accused Rustam Inoyatov, head of the national security service, of harbouring presidential aspirations. Ms Karimova has thinly veiled presidential aspirations herself.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

Controversial trial scheduled in Azerbaijan

NOV. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A judge in Azerbaijan set the start of the trial of opposition leader Ilgar Mammadov for inciting anti-government violence in January for Nov. 28. Human rights groups have described the trial of Mr Mammadov and others as politically motivated.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

Power struggle brews in Uzbekistan

NOV. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, has a broad ranging resume. She has been a diplomat, a pop singer, a fashion designer and a business leader.

More recently, though, she appears to have taken on the role of social activist, an unlikely part for somebody at the centre of a money laundering scheme and whose father is accused of imprisoning his enemies.

Even so, Ms Karimova, an avid Twitter user has been handing out advice on a range of topics.

In one such Tweet, Ms Karimova accused the head of the much-feared National Security Service (NSS), that’s modern Uzbekistan’s version of the Soviet-era KGB, Rustam Inoyatov, of lining himself up for the presidency.

Succession is a major issue in Uzbekistan. Islam Karimov, Ms Karimova’s father, has been president since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. He is now 75, rumoured not to be in great health and without a clear successor.

Ms Karimova would be an obvious choice, but she is loathed in Uzbekistan and various corruption scandals have tainted her reputation.

Now, perhaps, Mr Inoyatov has entered the frame. He has been head of the NSS for two decades and is one of the most powerful people in the country. Media reports said that he had prepared a dossier of Ms Karimova’s illegal financial dealings to blacken her image further.

After reading the dossier, Mr Karimov, according to local media, initiated investigations into various companies linked to his daughter, leaving her to vent.

It’s too early to say that a struggle for the presidency has started in Tashkent. What is clear, though, is that a personal power struggle between Ms Karimova and Mr Inoyatov is underway with potentially turbulent results.

(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

Margvelashvili is Georgia’s new president

OCT. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Giorgi Margvelashvili, a 44-year-old academic and an ally of PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, won a presidential election in Georgia with 60% of the vote. The vote marks the departure from power of Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s leader since a revolution in 2003. European monitors said the election had been clean.

(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)

Opposition splits up in Azerbaijan

OCT. 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The main opposition coalition in Azerbaijan, the National Council of Democratic Forces (NCDF), is beginning to break up, underlining the fractured nature of President Ilham Aliyev’s opponents. Media reported that Lala Shevket, head of the liberal party, and her supporters stormed out of an NCDF meeting after a row.

(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)