Tag Archives: politics

Georgian Orthodox Church head to visit Moscow

NOV. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The head of the Georgian Orthodox Church Patriarch Ilia II will visit Moscow from Nov. 18 until Nov. 25 to, officially, celebrate the 70th birthday of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, media reported. Ilia II is an important figure in Georgian politics and is often used to as a conduit with Russia. In the immediate aftermath of a war between Georgia and Russia in August 2008, Ilia II was able to travel to Moscow to start talks on repairing relations. He usually meets Vladimir Putin, now Russia’s president, when he visits Moscow. His trip later this month will be his fifth since the Georgia- Russia war.

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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Uzbekistan names street after Karimov

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan authorities have floated the prospect of renaming Kattakurgan, a city near Samarkand, after Islam Karimov, the local service of Russia’s Sputnik News said. Rumours about the possible renaming circulated among Kattakurgan residents, according to Sputnik. Karimov, Uzbekistan’s only post-Soviet president, died in September.

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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Freedom House criticises Azerbaijan

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US-based Freedom House accused the Azerbaijani government of harassing two lawyers who have represented a number of clients that it said were later imprisoned for political reasons. Robert Herman, a Freedom House vice president said that Azerbaijan “should end its campaign of innuendo and threats against Elchin Sadiqov and Fariz Namazli, two of the few lawyers in the country who dare to represent political prisoners and bring attention to government wrongdoing.”

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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Kyrgyz parliament approves new government

NOV. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament approved the composition of a new government, still dominated by Pres. Almazbek Atambayev’s Social Democratic Party, after a row over a referendum next month led to the collapse of the previous coalition. Two parties, Kyrgyzstan and Bir Bol, have entered the coalition and been given ministerial positions.

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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Uzbeks mourn their great leader Karimov

SAMARKAND/Uzbekistan, NOV. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Davlat, 33, was standing looking almost dreamily at Islam Karimov’s mausoleum. “I wish he’s ruled for another ten years,” he said.

In the West, Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, is considered a brutal dictator who ordered his soldiers to shoot his own people. In Uzbekistan, though, ordinary people pay homage to his foresight and magnanimity.

A long line of people were queuing up at the end of last month to pay their respects to Karimov.

The authorities had decided to bury him in Samarkand, where he was born and his mausoleum, like the other grand mausoleums in Uzbekistan’s most famous and most written about city, will gradually become another tourist site.

The Registan, a square in front of three madrassas, is a short walk away. It is the city’s most popular tourist site. It is also where Farkhod, 55, earns a living directing tourists.

“I remember days, when we used to get products like flour and bread only from food cards and now there is nothing that we do not produce ourselves. Cotton, wheat, machines,” he said.

“This is all thanks to Islam Karimov. May his soul rest in peace.”

Back in Tashkent, Bobor smiled when he thought of Karimov.

“I won a golden medal in boxing in 2006 and the President gave me this car,” he said proudly. Although it is now old and problematic, he said that he wouldn’t dream of selling it.

Most ordinary Uzbeks have their own stories of Karimov, focused on his image as a great leader and saviour.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Former Georgian President quits Odessa job, praises Trump

TBILISI, NOV. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili quit as governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine after 17 months, blaming unbreakable links between politicians and corruption.

His resignation came less than a week after it was confirmed that his United National Movement (UNM) had been badly beaten in a parliamentary election in Georgia. Mr Saakashvili had been hoping to return to frontline politics in Georgia if the UNM had retaken parliament.

Instead, the UNM, and Mr Saakashvili were humiliated, winning 27 seats in the 150-seat parliament, down from 65 in 2012.

Mr Saakshvili had been given the job of heading the Odessa region by Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko on a pledge to combat corruption.

Analysts said that the bombastic Mr Saakashvili may now be preparing to set up a new political party in Ukraine or even be angling for a job under US President-elect Donald Trump.

In the aftermath of Mr Trump’s election victory on Nov. 8, Mr Saakashvili wrote on his Facebook site: “We’ve been friends for more than 20 years. I predicted this accurately.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Comment: An unexpected PR boost for Kazakhstan’s prisons, writes Kilner

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s not often that Kazakhstan gets praised for its prison system. Not very often at all.

And there is a reason for this. There have been improvements over the last few years but the overwhelming majority of its prisons are based on crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure accompanied by an uncompromising Soviet-era mindset. There is no Norwegian cuddliness here.

These are mainly cold, uncomfortable and dangerous places. Stories from Kazakh prisons are hooked on riots, Islamic extremism recruitment, hunger strikes and deaths — both suicides and apparent suicides.

It’s the same story across the rest of Central Asia. Human rights groups and the media criticise governments for not investing enough time or money into their prison systems and the governments get defensive.

Except in last week’s Financial Times, when Kazakhstan scored what must have been a wonderful piece of prison PR.

On a week-long trip to Kazakhstan, FT editor Lionel Barber wrote in a diary-style entry that he had been inspired by Jonathan Aitken, a British Conservative politician who went to jail for perjury, to look around a Kazakh prison. Aitken had written glowingly about them in a book he’d been paid to write by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Barber was also impressed.

“It is unlikely to be wholly representative, compared with the former Soviet gulags in Kazakhstan. But its rooms are spotless; there are curtains and large glass window panes without bars, all of which would be seen as suicide risks elsewhere,” he said of prison 66/10 outside Astana which he was shown around.

Prison 66/10 is one of Kazakhstan’s new showcase prison and he knows it, but he also dangerously underplays the awfulness of most of the Kazakh prison system. Since 2011, when prisoners rioted and sliced open their stomachs in protest at the poor conditions, Kazakhstan has improved its prison system but perspective is needed.

Roger Boyes, a columnist at the London Times newspaper, picked up this theme. He said high-profile former politicians and visitors, such as Aitken and Tony Blair and Barber, were being used to whitewash Kazakhstan.

“He should have asked to see the basement,” Boyes wrote of Barber’s comments on Kazakh prison 66/10. “That’s where the truths are buried.”

By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Turkmen President reinforces cigarette ban

NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov reprimanded the country’s interior minister, Isgender Mulikov, for ineffectively combating the illegal sale of cigarettes. Shortly after the presidential remarks, which aired on state TV, local reporters said that cigarettes disappeared from the shelves of several stores in Ashgabat. Opposition website Alternative News of Turkmenistan said the shopkeepers were responding to a direct order from the ministry. In January, Turkmenistan introduced an informal ban on the sale of cigarettes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Armenian President to see out term

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armen Gevorgyan, chief of the presidential staff in Armenia, said that, despite the country’s prospective transition from a presidential to a parliamentary democracy, President Serzh Sargsyan will continue to rule until his term, his second and final one, ends in 2018. Last December, a referendum approved the switch in the country’s form of government. Next year, Armenians will vote in parliamentary elections with a new electoral law. In the Central Asia/South Caucasus region, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have switched to parliamentary systems of government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Insulting Tajik President becomes a crime

NOV. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon signed into law a motion passed by parliament at the end of last year that insulting the president would become a criminal office, media reported. The new law underlines the increasingly autocratic nature of the regime that Mr Rakhmon has built up in Tajikistan. Last month, MPs also decreed that he should be given the title of Founder of the Nation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)