Tag Archives: rights and freedoms

Hunger strike over union closure grows at oil fields in west Kazakhstan

ALMATY, JAN. 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — At least 400 oil workers in western Kazakhstan have started a hunger strike against the forced closure of the country’s trade union umbrella body, media reported.

The hunger strikers are, mainly, workers at the Kalamkas and Zhetybai oil fields in Mangistau region owned by the state-run Mangistau- munaigas. This is near to Zhanaozen where, in 2011, police shot dead at least 15 striking oil workers.

The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website reported that demonstrators were demanding that the government overturns a decision by a court in Shymkent to disband the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan because it hadn’t been

properly registered at its inception. This is the largest workers’ union in the country and analysts suspected that the Kazakh authorities were increasingly wary and worried about the power that it had accumulated.

Since 2011, the authorities in Kazakhstan have generally bent to accommodate the unions, preferring to dodge confrontation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kazakhstan increases online monitoring

JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government wants to force people who leave comments on the internet to registered first using their real names, phone numbers and email address, a move that free speech activists said is just another way of cracking down on dissenters. The Eurasianet website quoted Mikhail Komissarov, deputy head of the communications and information technology committee, as saying that the new law was designed to improve transparency online.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

HRW criticises Kazakhstan over Union closure

JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the imminent closure of Kazakhstan’s independent workers’ union, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan, as a violation of the right to freedom of association. A court in Shymkent, south Kazakhstan, had ordered the Union’s closure because it had violated union registration rules. The Kazakh authorities are suspicious of trade unions. They blame them for stirring up an oil workers strike in 2011 that turned into a riot.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Kyrgyz security services start monitoring Facebook

JAN. 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s security services have started monitoring 45 people who have criticised President Almazbek Atambayev on Facebook, the Eurasianet website reported. Eurasianet said that it had seen a memo which the Kyrgyz National Security Committee had written to an MP outlining its plans to watch the people. Human rights groups have previously criticised Kyrgyzstan for clamping down on free speech.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Kazakh editor pleads guilty to extortion

JAN. 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bigeldy Gabdullin, a Kazakh newspaper editor, pleaded guilty to trying to extort payments from government officials by threatening to publish negative articles about them. He was arrested in November and his trial is due to begin on Jan. 17. In the early 2000s, Mr Gabdullin had been a critic of the government but since the mid-2000s he has edited the pro-government Central Asia Monitor newspaper.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Police in Azerbaijan detain family of exiled anti- government rapper and independent blogger

JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The police in Azerbaijan allegedly breifly detained and threatened four family members of exiled rapper Jamal Ali in retaliation for his new song dedicated to two imprisoned anti-government activists.

Mr Ali’s rap, released on Dec. 31 and watched over 100,000 times on YouTube, criticised president Ilham Aliyev.

“The police told my mum ‘We cannot arrest your son, so we arrested you’. They also told her I had to take down my video from YouTube,” he wrote, adding that he would only take the rap down when Mr Aliyev had resigned.

Three days later, on Jan. 9, Mehman Huseynov a popular Azerbaijani blogger, who has documented what he has described as human rights infringements in Baku, said that he was taken to a police station by security officers and roughed up.

Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said that Huseynov had been abducted by police, beaten and forced into a confession that he had been fighting.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Journalist flees Kazakhstan

DEC. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bekzhan Idrisov, editor of Radiotochka.kz, one of the leading news websites in Kazakhstan, said that he had fled the country because he increasingly feared that he would be arrested by the police on trumped-up charges.Mr Idrisov’s departure is a reminder of how under-threat many Kazakhs journalists feel. Several high-profile journalists were imprisoned in 2016.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)

Uzbekistan unblocks websites

DEC. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has unblocked news websites which have been banned for years, another sign, perhaps, of improving media and human rights in the country since the death of Islam Karimov in September. The unblocked websites include the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Eurasianet, Ferghana.ru, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)

Georgian journalist accuses police of abuse

DEC. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Georgian talk show host, Giorgi Gasviani, accused police of beating him up and threatening him after a minor car accident in snowy conditions in Borjomi, northern Georgia. Media quoted Mr Gasviani as saying that he was attacked by a drunk off-duty policeman after his car slid on an icy road. Georgia’s police force is often held up as the model transformation from a corrupt institution to a far more open and respected unit. The interior ministry said it has launched an investigation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)

EU criticises Azerbaijan over human rights

DEC. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EU and human rights groups criticised Azerbaijan for sentencing to 10 years two anti-government activists who said they were tortured by police. The day before, a court had sentenced Bayram Mammadov and Giyas Ibrahimov on drug related charges. They were detained earlier this year for graffiting anti-government slogans on a statue of former Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev. The drug-related charges were added later and their supporters say they have been made up to increase prison sentences.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)f