Tag Archives: politics

Georgia’s city water chief quits

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alexander Mikeladze, director of Batumi Water, resigned from his post after he became involved in a public scandal. Mr Mikeladze is accused of having abused his position of director of the water distribution company. He allegedly cut off the water supply to a restaurant that failed to provide him the table he wanted. The accusation against Mr Mikeladze comes at a complicated time for worker-management relations in Georgia. With economic conditions worsening, Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili has been talking up the need for harmony.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

No free speech in Tajikistan – says UN Rapporteur

MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – After completing a mission to Tajikistan, David Kaye, a UN Special Rapporteur, said that freedom of expression in the country was dire. Mr Kaye said that the authorities were using concerns over security as an excuse to crackdown on the media and political parties they didn’t like. “The security situation has been used as a pretext, as an excuse, to crack down on freedom of expression,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Uzbek leader creates new ministry

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov officially appointed Aziz Abdukhakimov as minister for labour, a new ministry formed out of the ministry for labour and social protection. Mr Abdukhakimov had previously been the minister for labour and social protection. It is unclear why Mr Karimov wanted to change the name of the ministry.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Tajik court sentences IRPT activists

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the Tajik town of Isfara jailed three men to up to 11 years in prison for offences linked to their memberships of the now banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). The Tajik authorities banned the IRPT, the country’s only real opposition party last year, and has since been imprisoning its members. The West has criticised this as a crackdown.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Azerbaijan’s row over weapons

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian deputy PM Igor Rogozin flew to Baku to meet with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev for talks over a shipment of weapons which Azerbaijan is apparently refusing to pay for, media reported. It was unclear if Azerbaijan didn’t want to pay for the weapons, as a form of protest over military aid Russia has given to its enemy Armenia, or whether it couldn’t pay because of the worsening impact of the economic slowdown.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Georgia PM wants constitution to block gay marriages

MARCH 8 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said he wanted to write into the national constitution that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, a thinly disguised attempt to woo conservative voters ahead of a parliamentary election in October.

Georgian society is broadly conservative and anti-gay rallies have been strongly supported over the last few years. Gay rights rallies have been attacked.

Mr Kvirikashvili’s Georgian Dream coalition is facing a tough battle to win another term in office.

It has tried to canvass votes from Georgia’s conservative base by looking for support from the influential Georgian Orthodox Church. The Church is anti-gay rights.

“We have a pending initiative that would guarantee the protection of the sacred institution of marriage, via the constitution,” media quoted Mr Kvirikashvili as saying.

This would mean changing the constitution to ensure that marriage is only possible between a man and a woman.

He appeared to be responding to an initiative by Georgian civil rights lawyer Giorgi Tatishvili who has been lobbying for same-sex marriage.

Importantly for Georgia, the EU has highlighted its conservative views over gas rights and other civil issues as a potential stumbling block for its integration into the EU.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Editorial: Georgia’s constitution

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Can it really be acceptable for Georgia’s PM to ask for the constitution be altered to block gay marriages? He wants, in effect, to subvert the country’s constitution to match his own beliefs.

This is wrong. It is not up to the PM or the government to tinker with a national constitution when it feels like it.

And it feels even more sullied because this is an election year. The suspicion is that Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili sees this as a vote winning ploy, a tool to woo Georgia’s important conservative base.

The Georgian Dream coalition, Mr Kvirikashvili’s party, has a reputation for going after the conservative vote and this very much feels as if it is playing up to this reputation. Georgia’s Constitutional Court should stand up to him and tell him to get on with the job of governing the country rather than trying to turn the national constitution into a political football.

For observers, Mr Kvirikashvili’s comments about the constitution should put them on warning about just how vicious this up and coming election campaign is likely to be.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

EU criticises Kazakhstan

MARCH 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Parliament issued a rare strongly worded statement criticising a recent crackdown on media in Kazakhstan. “MEPs are deeply concerned about the climate for the media and free speech in Kazakhstan, where strong pressure on independent media outlets includes some being closed down, and news agency directors and journalists being detained, placed under criminal investigation and sentenced to prison,” it said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Turkmen President reshuffles government

MARCH 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov replaced the heads of the National Security Service and the Border Service, key government positions. Obstentiously the changes were made for health reasons and for a job transfer. Mr Berdymukhamedov has been increasingly vocal about improving border security with Afghanistan where the Taliban have become increasingly powerful.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)

Editorial: Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Georgian civil unrests

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The economic downturn that has hit Central Asia and the South Caucasus in the past two years has dented people’s purchasing power.

Most people earn salaries in their local currency but these have lost between 50% and 25% of their value in the past months.

This has triggered some social unrest, especially in the South Caucasus. In January, people in Azerbaijan took to the streets to protest against rising food prices and stagnating wages.

The same reasons were voiced by miners in Tkibuli, Georgia, who went on strike for two weeks asking for a 40% increase in salaries. Now reports have emerged from Yerevan where market stall owners briefly scuffled with police over rental prices.

In Central Asia, protests are less frequent and, generally, silenced quickly by the authorities. Last month, however, dozens of Kazakh women banging pots and blowing whistles protested in Almaty about mortgage repayments.

The crisis is starting to bite hard and the people are growing increasingly restless.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)