Tag Archives: protest

Market stall holders in Armenian capital protest

FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Stall owners in Yerevan’s largest clothing market scuffled with police during a protest against what they say are unfair rents they are having to pay in worsening economic conditions.

Armenia is prone to street demonstrations which can often be drawn out and rattle governments. Last year protests over a proposed increase in electricity prices lasted weeks and eventually forced the government to backtrack.

And, just like its neighbours, Armenia’s economy has been worsening over the past 18 months. Remittances have fallen, GDP growth is low and shopkeepers have said that trade has collapsed.

Now frayed nerves appear to be morphing into street demonstrations once again.

Official data has shown that trade in Armenia in 2015 was down by nearly 60% on the previous year, media reported. Stall owners at the Malatia market on the western edge of the city appear to agree. Hundreds stopped work to join the protest that blocked a road.

“We are not slaves. Enough is enough,” RFE/RL quoted one stall owner as saying.

They wanted the rent on the stalls to be lowered by 30%, a figure that the market’s owner has said was impossible to hit.

The demonstration’s leaders have said that they will not pay rent in March unless the price is dropped, setting the scene for another show- down next month.

Police detained three people at the demonstration.

ENDS

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

Georgian miners end strike

MARCH 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 1,000 miners at the Tkibuli mine in central Georgia ended their two-week long strike after agreeing a pay rise with Georgia Industrial Group (GIG) which owns the mine. Under the deal, the company GIG will increase miners’ salaries by 7% now and another 3% in April. The miners had wanted a 40% pay rise. Last week they broke into the GIG regional office.

ENDS

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

Georgians protest Old Town transformation

FEB. 27 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Anger, frustration, despair. These were the main emotions described by the hundreds of protesters who marched through Tbilisi’s Old Town protesting against plans supported by Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former PM and the richest man in the country, to transform the surrounding hills into a series of hotels and entertainment centres.

“It’s unbelievable to me that they can get away with this.” Denis, 28, told The Conway Bulletin, while he was drawing a green NO on the palm of his hand.

“Why don’t they invest the $500m in revitalising our crumbling old town?”

Of course, though, there is another side. Mr Ivanishvili has said that the plans, which would also mean building a new cable car starting in Freedom Square at the heart of the city, will not alter the character of the city and will instead draw thousands more tourists, create much needed income and jobs.

“This project is interesting for our children and tourists. This will be a main tourist attraction. I am able and I want to assist my city,” Bidzina Ivanishvili has previously said.

For now, the developers appear to be winning the argument over the Panorama project and construction work has started, although planners have ruled against other projects.

The issues, though, remain the same across the region. Officials and businessmen, often linked to the political elite, want to develop a part of a city. Frustrated locals, often with few issues to protest legally about, want to stop them.

ENDS

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

Striking Georgian miners storm office

FEB. 24 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Part of a group of 1,500 striking Georgian miners stormed an office belonging to Georgian Industrial Group (GIG) who they accuse of paying salaries far below the market rate and of presiding over poor working conditions at its coal mine at Tkibuli.

The miners have now been on strike for 12 days. The scale of the strike, both its length and the number of strikers, makes it one of the most serious in recent Georgian history.

A video showed miners wearing heavy leather jackets climbing over a compound fence and then pushing in a gate to the GIG office in Tkibuli, central Georgia. Clearly angry and distressed, miners said that they earned $200 a month which, they said, was barely sufficient to survive on.

They want a 40% pay rise and an improvement in the mine’s health and safety record. Media said that 15 miners have died in separate accidents at the mine since 2009.

GIG has said that while it sympathises with some of the workers’ demands, it simply can’t afford to increase their salaries by as much as they want because of falling prices and demand for coal.

“Saknakhshiri GIG as a company of high responsibility will not issue unrealistic promises and will not make populist statements on the immediate increase of the salaries at this stage,” the company said in a statement after meeting the miners.

For the government, the strike piles more pressure on its various economic policies ahead of a parliamentary election later this year. A recession in Russia and a fall in its own currency has hit Georgia’s economy. Growth rates have been reduced, inflation is rising.

And the Tkibuli miners are not the only group of workers striking in Georgia. Media reported that workers at a glass factor in Ksani have also gone on strike.

Other companies, especially in the mining sector, have been laying off workers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Tajik students protest outside EU offices

FEB. 20 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — In a move reminiscent of protests organised by the authorities in Russia to hound government opponents and envoys of countries that the Kremlin had fallen out with, Tajik students demonstrated outside the Turkish and EU diplomatic missions in Dushanbe.

Around 70 students shouted slogans accusing Turkey and EU countries of allowing members of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) to hold meetings.

“Bring the traitors to the homeland” they shouted. “We came here to express our dissatisfaction with the fact that the traitors are given the opportunity to organize protest meetings (abroad).”

Reports from northern Tajikistan also said a group of students had protested outside the office of the OSCE, Europe’s democracy and human rights watchdog, in Khujand.

Students have previously demonstrated against the IRPT, although they have denied that they had been organised and paid by the government to mount the protests.

This explanation, though, didn’t sit with most analysts’ reading of the demonstrations. In Dushanbe, an analyst who asked to remain anonymous, told The Conway Bulletin’s Dushanbe correspondent that the authorities must have organised the demonstration as no protest could take place without their approval.

“Tajik authorities do not understand that Western countries and Turkey will not be affected by such protests and will not extradite the political refugees,” said the analyst.

Other observers likened the organised protests to Nashi, the youth movement organised by the Kremlin in the late 2000s to hound its enemies. Well funded and single- minded, Nashi gained notoriety for its determined and lengthy demonstrations against foreign ambassadors and democracy advocates.

Last year, the Tajik government outlawed the IRPT, the country’s only formal opposition party. Human rights groups have complained that the government aims to crack down on free speech.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Editorial: Tajik students

FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Imitation is, they say, the most sincere form of flattery. So is flattery what Tajik officials had in mind when they organised a series of student protests against diplomatic missions of the European Union, the OSCE and Turkey in Dushanbe and Khujand? Or perhaps they were just thinking about the intimidation they wanted to inflict on diplomats?

They deny any link to the student protests, but in Tajikistan people are controlled and a protest outside a foreign embassy couldn’t have happened without the support of the authorities.

Ten years ago, the Russian state spawned a youth movement called Nashi. It was well-funded, well-organised and vicious. When it was given a target it went into attack mode. Just ask ambassadors from Western countries they targeted or the democracy advocates they harassed.

It appears as if Tajik officials now want to achieve something similar, although on a smaller scale. They want to intimidate Turkey and the European Union into giving up opposition members who have fled Tajikistan. Nashi’s own results were, in the end, mixed and the Tajik students’ won’t be any better.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Dozens protest for jailed Kazakh PM

FEB. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around a dozen protesters in Astana demanded the release from prison of Kazakhstan’s former PM Serik Akhmetov, who is serving a 10-year sentence for corruption. Protests in Kazakhstan, especially supporting former high-ranking officials who have been imprisoned for corruption, are rare.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Armenia’s ex-President receives cancer treatment

JAN. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s first post-Soviet president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, had treatment for cancer in a hospital in California, media reported. It had been reported earlier in January that Mr Ter-Petrosyan, 71, had flown to the US for emergency treatment. He had been president from 1991-1998. He was a divisive figure who in 2008, was accused of whipping up anti-government protests that triggered clashes with security forces. At least 16 people died in the clashes when police opened fire on the protesters.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Kazakh mortgage holders protest

FEB. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 50 mortgage holders protested in Almaty because they said it was not possible to repay their debt after a devaluation of the tenge. This was the third protest by mortgage holders against banks this year, a rare sustained level of public discontent in Kazakhstan. The tenge has lost around 50% of its value. Last year, the Kazakh government gave banks $130m to refinance mortgages but protesters have said that more needs to be done. Analysts have said that one of the biggest issues the Kazakh government faces is growing consumer debt.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Protesters and police clash again in regional Azerbaijanji town

JAN. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police and protesters angry about worsening economic conditions in Azerbaijan clashed briefly in the town of Quba, north of Baku, three days after demonstrations sprung up in several regional towns.

Media reports from Quba said that police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to control the demonstration. Protesters are angry at a sharp rise in prices after a devaluation of the manat at the end of last month.

Similarly to the earlier protests, police moved in after the end of the stand-off and detained dozens of demonstrators.

There have been no other demonstrations since.

These were the most serious civil disturbances this year in Central Asia and the South Caucasus linked to the economic slowdown and have worried the Azerbaijani government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)