JAN. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting the growing attraction of Islamic finance in the region, International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) said it wanted to raise $200m-$300m later this year through a sukuk. A sukuk is the name of an Islamic bond. IBA is a government owned bank. It raised $252m through a sukuk in 2014.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)
OCT. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will probably issue another sovereign or quasi- sovereign bond next year following its $2.5b Eurobond issue in October, the head of the Kazakh Central Bank Kairat Kelimbetov told Reuters in an interview. Mr Kelimbetov said another debt issue would likely be made as a sukuk, a bond linked to Islamic banking principles.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
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
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A delegation from Qatar visited Tajikistan promising various investments, including setting up an Islamic bank, media reported. Islamic banking has previously been discussed in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan. Qatar is looking to spread its influence across the Islamic World, including Central Asia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 201, published on Sept. 24 2014)
MAY 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The head of the Georgian Orthodox Church Patriarch Ilia II called for people to mark a new day of “Strength of Family and Respect for Parents” on May 17, the same day as the International Day Against Homophobia. The Orthodox Church is regarded as anti-gay rights. Georgia has introduced a law protecting same-sex rights.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliament passed an anti-discrimination bill it needed to implement for further integration into the EU but the conservative Orthodox Church has said it will protest against it.
Media reported that Georgia’s parliament passed the law unanimously.
The bill, its supporters and its detractors, give a good insight into the division coursing through Georgian society between modernisers and traditionalists.
The EU, which Georgia is desperate to join, has called on legislation that protects the rights of minorities. This has been generally accepted by Georgians, although the conservative Orthodox Church continues to rile against it.
And the Orthodox Church in Georgia is powerful. Patriarch Ilia II is considered a genuine power-broker, politicians cosy up to religious leaders and priests lead demonstrations. Last year, priests led a march against a gay rights parade that triggered violence. Tolerance in modern day Georgia only goes so far.
For the Church, the new laws are virtually heresy and it has promised to protest against it. Their main difficulty with the law is its protection of homosexuality.
Patriarch Ilia II was succinct. “Not a single believer will accept such law,” he said.
For NGOs pushing for the new legislation it has also been a slight disappointment. They were disappointed that the law finally adopted had been watered down from its original state.
Expect more tension between modernisers and traditionalists.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
APRIL 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Easter Service at Tbilisi’s’ Sameba Cathedral has been the one place where implacable political foes in staunchly Orthodox Georgia can come together. This year, though, was different.
On Easter Sunday, April 20, only Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili and his associates attended Sameba Cathedral. At the service Patriach Ilia II delivered an epistle warning of the dangers of pseudo-liberals, an ongoing debate in Georgia.
The opposition United National Movement, instead, visited services at Orthodox, Catholic and Baptist churches and congratulated Armenian Christians on the holiday. With a local election on June 15, commentators saw this as a move to woo minorities. Many are worried about a perceived increase in Georgian nationalism under the present government.
Also missing from Sameba Cathedral was President Giorgi Margvelashvili. He has had a public falling out with his patron, billionaire former PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, and reportedly refuses to be seen with members of the government. He attended church in his small hometown.
Mr Ivanishvili, the government’s main backer, made no public appearance, fuelling widespread speculation he has left the country. A fractious Easter, in an increasingly fractious Georgia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)
APRIL 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Controlled by the state and with Ukraine’s revolution still fresh in the mind, media reported that mosques in Uzbekistan have been preaching about the joys of refraining from discontent and remaining humble.
Information leaking out of Uzbekistan points to a fairly crude attempt to control the masses through the mosques.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, funded by the US government, quoted one resident of the town of Andijan in the east of Uzbekistan who had listened to the Friday sermon at his local mosque.
“Complaining and criticising is testamount to betrayal,” the unnamed man quoted the imam as saying.
Unsurprisingly, Uzbekistan was opposed to the revolution in Ukraine, mainly because it didn’t want it to set a precedent.
Uzbekistan is also wary of religion. It blames radical Islamists for a series of attacks against government targets in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Archaeologists in Tajikistan have found several water jugs which they estimate are 2,000 years old and of Zoroastrian heritage, media reported. Tajikistan was one of the homes of Zoroastrianism, a draw for tourists.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
MARCH 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Disagreements over the pagan Nowruz celebration, marking the beginning of spring have highlighted fault lines in Kyrgyz society.
While the state-affiliated Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan (SAMK) views celebrating Nowruz as an acceptable part of pre-Islamic Kyrgyz tradition, more hard-line clerics, perhaps with a more Arab influence, called on believers to ignore the holiday completely in the run up to March 21.
The debate brings into focus the sharp rise of nontraditional Islam, imported from the Arab world, in Central Asia.
Nowruz — a key event in the calendar of all five Central Asian states and also Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey — is not celebrated in other parts of the Muslim world.
In February, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev expressed alarm at signs of “Arab culture, including the appearance of women wearing hijab, something alien to the gentler Kyrgyz traditional Islam.
As well as a gulf between the views of secularists like Mr Atambayev and practicing Muslims, Kyrgyzstan is also witnessing what a local religion expert called a “battle for control of mosques between different Jamaats.
As if to illustrate the point, last month the deputy Imam of a mosque in Kara-Suu, a southern city, was arrested for organising radical activity.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)