AUG. 17/19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Officials in Tajikistan appeared to ramp up their crackdown on opposition members by filing extradition requests to Russia and Moldova for people linked to the banned Group 24. Earlier this year the exiled head of Group 24, Umarali Kuvvatov, was shot dead in Istanbul.
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(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)
AUG. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev appointed Akhmetzhan Yessimov, formerly the mayor of Almaty, to head his set piece EXPO-2017 in Astana. Mr Yessimov is a trusted ally of Mr Nazarbayev and is tasked with bringing EXPO-2017 back on track after a major corruption scandal. Baurzhan Baibek, an official at Mr Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan, will be the new Almaty mayor.
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(News report from Issue No. 243, published on Aug. 14 2015)
AUG. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Turkmenistan have stopped a prominent horse breeder who has fallen out of favour with senior officials from leaving the country, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. HRW said that Geldy Kyarizov and his family were barred from boarding a flight to Moscow where he was hoping to receive medical treatment.
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(News report from Issue No. 243, published on Aug. 14 2015)
JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Kyrgyzstan sentenced Melis Myrzakhmatov, a former mayor of Osh and a firebrand politician with a large following to 7 years in prison for various financial crimes. Myrzakhmatov was viewed as a potential destabilising influence. He has been on the run since January 2014, when he lost his mayoral seat.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 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) – Western media lobby groups called for Azerbaijan to release imprisoned journalist Khadija Ismayilova who is accused of various financial crimes. Her trial was due to begin on July 24. Ms Ismayilova’s supporters say the charges have been fabricated.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A core group of activists opposed to electricity price rises have called for a series of rallies in Yerevan between July 27 -31 ahead of the Aug. 1 start date of the increases. Momentum behind the rallies protesting against the price rises has fizzled out.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TBILISI — Georgia’s parliament approved the appointment of Vakhtang Gomelauri, the current minister of interior, as head of the new State Security Service.
Its a controversial move as the State Security Service, which will take over most of Georgia’s intelligence gathering duties, was created to break up the power of the interior ministry.
Before becoming the interior minister, Mr Gomelauri was the head of the bodyguard team protecting Georgia’s most powerful man Bidzina Ivanishvili who set up the ruling Georgian Dream coalition.
And Georgia’s opposition have already accused the government of turning the position into a political football with Mr Gomelauria’s appointment.
“Gomelauri’s appointment shows that setting up the State Security Service to depoliticise security related matters is an absolute farce,” said Chiora Taktakishvili, an MP for the United National Movement during the vote in parliament.
As head of the new State Security Service, Mr Gomelauri will be in charge of defending Georgia’s borders, fighting terrorism, and preventing corruption.
Lincoln Mitchell, a political scientist, told the Bulletin it was, always unlikely someone without a close relationship with Mr Ivanishvili would have been appointed to the position. He also said, though, that he thought the creation of the agency was a step in the right direction.
“The Georgian Dream government has made Georgia more free than the previous regime, but has not moved as quickly as it should have to dismantle the tools that their predecessors used to limit freedoms,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BISHKEK – Kyrgyzstan downgraded bilateral relations with the US because of an award the State Department gave to an imprisoned ethnic Uzbek human rights defender last week, media reported.
Relations between the US and Kyrgyzstan have been worsening since the US military withdrew from an air base outside Bishkek last year. Since then, Kyrgyzstan has drifted towards Russia, joining its Eurasian Economic Union and adopting laws on foreign-funded NGOs and homosexuals which the US has said infringes civil liberties.
The award was given by the US State Department to Azimzhan Askarov. He was imprisoned in the south of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 after ethnic fighting killed nearly 400 people in the city of Osh. His supporters said that the charges, inciting violence, had been fabricated.
After Askarov’s son travelled to Washington to pick up the award, Kyrgyz PM Temir Sariyev signed a decree denouncing relations, which will come into effect on Aug. 20. The move will mean tax breaks awarded to US companies will be cancelled.
On the streets of Bishkek, reaction was mixed. Some people welcomed the tough stance by Mr Sariyev, others were cautious.
“In a couple of years, we will become a colony of Russia,” said a 30-year-old resident of Bishkek. “It is indeed bad that we are losing such assistance because Kyrgyzstan is a poor country.”
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tajikistan jailed Jaloliddin Mahmudov, a senior official in the opposition Islamic Renaissance party, for illegally handling weapons, media reported. Opposition groups in Tajikistan have said that they are being unfairly targeted by the authorities.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)