Tag Archives: protest

Anti-Charlie Hebdo protest in Bishkek

>>Crowds attracted across much of the region>>

JAN. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — An estimated 1,000 people demonstrated in a Bishkek park against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Eyewitness accounts from the city centre park said that protesters held posters declaring: “I am not Charlie. I love my Prophet.”

Other posters read: “We’re against cartoons of our Prophet”.

The “I am Charlie” slogan swept across much of the Western world after Islamic radicals murdered 12 people during an editorial meeting at the magazine’s headquarters in central Paris earlier this month.

Much of the Islamic world, though, has been far more reticent. Reports from Baku and other cities across Central Asia have also suggested that anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstrations have drawn relatively large crowds.

The protests are a reminder that for all the rhetoric of Westernising and of supporting Western military action in Afghanistan, that Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, and other countries where anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstrations emerged, are predominantly Islamic countries.

And these countries are not simply nominally Islamic, as they are often pictured in the West. There is a strong strain of fairly pious Muslim thought running through these societies.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

Russian court to try soldier for Armenian murders

>>Murders have strained Armenia-Russia relations>>

JAN. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Russian soldier who allegedly killed a family of seven near his base in Armenia will be tried in a Russian military court and not by an Armenian civil court, media reported.

On Jan. 19, a week after six members of the same family died, a six-month-old baby died of wounds sustained in the same attack. No motive has been put forward for the murders.

The news that Valery Permyakov, the soldier who reportedly shot dead the family and then went on the run, will be tried in a Russian military court rather than an Armenian civil court will enflame tension further.

On Jan. 15, three days after the murders, several thousand people demonstrated in Yerevan and Gyumri, where Russia keeps a large military base, calling for the soldier to be handed over to Armenian police.

Reports from the demonstration at Gyumri said that 12 people were injured in fighting with riot police.

Relations between Russia and Armenia are generally cordial — Armenia has joined the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and also looks to the Kremlin to both support its economy and also to keep the military balance in the region — but the murders and the economic slowdown have strained ties.

For Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan, the murders and the public discontent they have fermented, represent a problem. He needs to ensure that relations with Russia remain good but that the protesters also feel like they are being listened to.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

Russian soldier murders Armenian family

>>Murders trigger anger at Russian base>>

JAN. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Russian soldier serving at Russia’s vast military base at Gyumri in Armenia murdered six members of a family and went on the run before being captured, media reported.

The killings have raised tension around the base with dozens of demonstrators reportedly calling for an apology from the base commander.

Gyumri is one of Russia’s largest overseas bases with about 3,000 soldiers stationed there. Armenia’s government views it as an important counterbalance to increasing Azerbaijani military dominance in the region.

Russian officials said that the soldier, named as Private Valery Permyakov, had been captured trying to cross into Turkey a few hours after the murders. No reason for the murders has been given.

According to officials, Permyakov shot dead six members of a local family. The only survivor was a six-month-old boy who was stabbed.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Protesters gather in Almaty for march

>>Demonstration against closure of political magazine>>

JAN. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a rare show of public dissent in Kazakhstan, a small crowd gathered in Almaty to protest against the closure of weekly opposition newspaper Adam bol”.

Led by the newspaper editor, Gulzhan Yergaliyeva, a group of 25 journalists and activists walked across the Arbat, a pedestrian and commercial zone in the centre of the former capital shouting slogans and waving placards that challenged Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev to rescind the order to close the magazine.

Black-clad security officers stood to the side closely monitoring the protest.

“The presence of ‘men in black’ is always felt at these events,” Dina Baidildayeva a high-profile blogger who filmed the protest told the Bulletin.

The authorities in Kazakhstan have clamped down on political pluralism and media freedom over the past few years, especially in the wake of the Zhanaozen riots in west Kazakhstan in 2011 that killed at least 15 people. Allowing the Adam bol demonstration, therefore, was fairly remarkable.

The newspaper was shut down last November, after it published an article on Ukraine that highlighted Kazakhs fighting in the Ukrainian civil war. The article also questioned Russia’s role in the conflict.

Nate Schenkkan, Central Asia programme officer at the US media watchdog NGO Freedom House, said: “The article on Ukraine could have been just a pretext to do away with an uncomfortable publication for the leadership.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Nazarbayev closes in on his enemies

>>Aliyev charged in Austria, Ketebayev arrested in Spain>>

DEC. 30 2014, (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his associates have scored two more notable victories over their opponents.

A court in Austria charged Rakhat Aliyev, Mr Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law, with kidnapping and murdering two bankers in 2007 in Kazakhstan. Three days earlier, police in Spain arrested Muratbek Ketebayev, a Kazakh opposition leader linked to the 2011 uprising in the town of Zhanaozen in western Kazakhstan.

Mr Ketebayev was co-founder of the Alga! Party which was close to Mukhtar Ablyazov, for many year’s Mr Nazarbayev’s main opponent until his arrest in France in 2013.

Mr Nazarbayev has been after the extradition of both Mr Aliyev and Mr Ketebayev for years. He wants to avenge what he considers his betrayal by Mr Aliyev in the mid-2000s when he was married to Dariga Nazarbayeva, Mr Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, and also the uprising at Zhanaozen when police shot dead 15 protesters, triggering the most serious crisis of his presidency.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 213, published on Jan. 7 2015)

Kyrgyzstan meets Soros with protests

NOV. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Pro-Russian demonstrators in Bishkek protested against a visit to Kyrgyzstan by US billionaire philanthropist George Soros, an unusual welcome for a man who spends millions of dollars on the country each year.

Up to 170 protesters, including the head of Kyrgyzstan’s only real Communist Party, carried slogans such as “USA – Get your hands off sovereign Kyrgyzstan” and “Soros – Let us live in peace and friendship”.

Mr Soros, a US citizen, was in Bishkek for the first time in 10 years to meet with representatives of his Open Society Foundation and President Almazbek Atambayev.

The Open Society’s budget for 2013 was $2.2 million, mostly spent on health, education and governance programs. State-controlled Russian news outlet RIA Novosti made little mention of the foundation’s work but applauded the protests, noting spuriously that Soros’ last visit to the country in 2004 was accompanied by a revolution the following year.

“Of course, there is no direct proof that he came to realise different aims. However, there is no reason to believe a citizen of the United States,” the RIA-Novosti report said.

At their meeting, Mr Atambayev thanked Mr Soros for his continued contributions to the country. Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, though, appears less impressed. It is due to consider a Russia-inspired bill that will force all foreign-funded NGOs — including Mr Soros’s Open Society Foundation — to register as foreign agents.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Thousands rally in Georgian capital against government

NOV. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An estimated 30,000 people crammed into the centre of Tbilisi for perhaps the largest anti-government rally since the Georgian Dream coalition defeated the party of former President Mikheil Saakashvili in a parliamentary election in 2012 and a presidential election in 2013.

The demonstrators waved Georgian flags and pictures of Mr Saakashvili, who now lives in New York and is wanted by Georgia’s prosecutors for various alleged crimes, and shouted anti-Russia slogans.

They blamed Russia for annexing the rebel states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Importantly they also blamed their current government for not standing up to Russia.

Mr Saakashvili addressed the crowd via a Kiev video-link.

“Let’s show Georgia’s government that the nation is united against the serious threat to its independence, its future,” he said.

The importance of the rally, though, was not the appearance of Mr Saakashvili on a video-link but its size. It hasn’t taken long for the glamour of the Georgian Dream coalition to fade.

Allies in the EU and the United States have accused Georgian Dream of petty revenge tactics in pursuing former ministers and charging them with various crimes. Earlier this month PM Irakli Garibashvili also sacked the popular defence minister, Irakli Alasania, triggering a wave of resignations.

Street politics are still a major force in Georgia and the rally could be a sign that after a relatively calm 12 months, instability is returning to Georgian politics.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Uzbek authorities use forced labour

NOV. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – n a rare public protest against the Uzbek authorities, students at Uzbekistan’s National University published an open letter on a website which said they had been forced to pick cotton during the harvest season. Campaigners around the world have criticised Uzbekistan for using forced labour in its cotton harvest.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Protesters rally against Azerbaijan’s President

NOV. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Several hundred people protested against a crackdown by the authorities in Azerbaijan against the media, a rare protest in this increasingly heavily policed state.

A Bulletin correspondent said that the demonstration in Baku was good natured and had a festival-like atmosphere with flag waving, folk music and dancing.

Police tried to block reporters from speaking to demonstrators and from filming the march but they eventually relented.

Shakar Isgandarli was one of the demonstrators.

“I am a teacher of two political prisoners, Anar Mammadli and Bashir Suleymanli,” he said. “I taught them to fight against injustice. And they did. Now the Aliyev regime has jailed them for this”.

Europe and the United States have made increasingly harsh statements about the crackdown by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on the media but, seemingly, without much impact. Virtually every week, reports from Azerbaijan say that another anti-government activist has been imprisoned.

Mammadli and Suleymanli are two human rights lawyers who were imprisoned earlier this year for tax evasion and illegal business activities. They have said that these charges have been fabricated.

Protesters called for the resignation of Mr Aliyev and vowed to continue protests. The risk for Mr Aliyev is that although the police and prosecutors have been effective at imprisoning government critics, the arrests are stirring more anti-government feelings.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 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)