Tag Archives: politics

Kazakh President reshuffles anti-corruption unit

OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked Abdrashit Zhukenov and Ali Komekbayev from their posts as the deputy chiefs of the Financial Police and Agency for Civil Service Affairs, part of a strategy to reorganise the agencies in charge of combating corruption.

Mr Nazarbayev has wanted the ministry of finance and the newly-created Agency for Civil Service Affairs and Anti- Corruption to take over managing corruption cases in a high-profile move aimed at grabbing the attention of international investors who are worried about corruption levels as much as people living inside Kazakhstan.

This year a number of high profile officials have been arrested and charged with corruption.

Muslim Omiraev, former deputy at the ministry of agriculture was arrested in December 2013 and sentenced to 10 years in prison (Oct. 16). Earlier in September, police arrested the former governor of Karaganda, Baurzhan Abdishev for corruption. He goes on trial in November.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)

Kyrgyzstan wants Bakiyev extradited

OCT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s prosecutor-general asked Britain’s visiting minister of state for civil justice Edward Faulks to extradite the son of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, media reported. Mr Bakiyev was overthrown in a coup in 2010. Since then, both he and his son, Maxim, have been found guilty of various economic crimes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)

Opposition protest in Yerevan

OCT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An estimated 10,000 people rallied against Armenia’s government in central Yerevan, media reported, the biggest protest since a presidential election last year.

Opposition rallies, calling for the government to resign, are relatively commonplace in Yerevan. The issue is whether they turn violent or grow so large that the government has to react to them.

In 2008, eight people died in clashes between the security forces and demonstrators after elections.

The protest in Yerevan was the culmination of severally carefully choreographed anti-government demonstrations around the country.

And the protagonists were the same. Former president Levon Ter-Petrosian, a canny opponent for current president Serzh Sargsyan, addressed the crowd. He is credited with whipping up the anger that led to the clashes in 2008.

The protesters actual demand are hard to decipher. They, broadly, want their lives improved and the economy strengthen. No easy task for the government which is having to navigate the country through a tricky economic environment.

What is different now is the opposition’s cry that moving into Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union and away from the European Union is partly to blame for the general malaise. If the opposition can harness this, they may make more headway.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)

Tajik opposition demo fails

OCT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A planned opposition demonstration in central Dushanbe failed to materialise after the authorities blocked websites and social media outlets and used a riot exercise as a show of force.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 204, published on Oct. 15 2014)

Exiled opposition figures have called for a change of government.

Tajik security forces train in central Dushanbe

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik security forces donned full riot gear for a training exercise in central Dushanbe aimed at dealing with large anti-government crowds.The exercise was designed as a show of force against any anti-government movement that may be planning protests ahead of a parliamentary election in February.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Tajikistan cuts internet access

OCT. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Access to various social media and news websites in Tajikistan was blocked, media and sources reported. The government has not officially said that it blocked the websites. It has previously blocked access to facebook and other sites, though, to prevent opposition groups from rallying support.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Tajik opposition prepares for campaign

OCT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik opposition groups based abroad are preparing to challenge the political order built up by strongman President Emomali Rakhmon head of the otherwise predictable parliamentary elections set for Feb. 14.

Against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine and the stand-off on the streets of Hong Kong, exiled Tajik politicians have been making calls for the overthrow of Mr Rakhmon via the Internet.

One group, Gruppa 24, is promoting a demonstration against the regime on Oct. 10 on the main square in Dushanbe. The government has responded to the threat by shutting down Facebook and other websites where the the group issued calls to protest.

More menacingly, the country’s services held a bizarre simulation of a protest being put down by riot police.

Having experienced civil war in the 1990s, appetite for revolution among Tajiks is weak, and Gruppa 24’s Turkey- based leader, Umrali Quvvatov lacks the political influence in Tajikistan to pull off a coup. Nevertheless, the government’s response to the calls betrays fear, and Mr Quvvatov told the Conway Bulletin via Skype he expects a strong turnout at the protest.

“Tajiks have given up too much for this criminal regime. If the government responds to our meeting with force we will do the same. We are preparing for war,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kyrgyz President shows frustration

OCT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz president since 2011, Almazbek Atambayev appears to finally be losing patience with the sluggish pace of reform in Kyrgyzstan. At a speech during a visit to a school Mr Atambayev said that Kyrgyz needed to finally start working and to stop going to other countries begging for financial help.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kazakh President gives views on Gorbachev

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has had a ringside view on some of history’s most important moments. This includes the collapse of the Soviet Union and the final years of Mikhail Gorbachev’s time in power.

And, for perhaps the first time, Mr Nazarbayev gave his views on Mr Gorbachev to a correspondent from the tengrinews.kz website.

“I had to work in the system during the Soviet period and I was one of the critics of Gorbachev’s reforms, who believed that socialism could be corrected and we could move on,” he said.

“He had the expression of ‘socialism with a human face’ but no one understood what this was. Probably he wanted something close to a market economy. But if public companies are controlled by corporate market principles, the problem, as you see, is successfully solved.”

Rather than giving a historical insight of working under Mr Gorbachev, this statement may have been Mr Nazarbayev’s real point. He wanted to promote the idea of strong state- owned companies working in a market economy and also highlight the example of China, now an important ally of Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Tajik Muslim cleric issues fatwa

SEPT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s top state-sponsored Muslim cleric, chief mufti Saidmukarram Abdulkodirzoda, has issued a fatwa against people criticising the government, AFP news agency reported. He said criticising the government should be considered a sin. Opponents said that this underlined government control over society.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)