Tag Archives: rights and freedoms

European Parliament set to approve Uzbek cotton deal

NOV. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An influential European Parliament committee backed a textile trade deal with Uzbekistan that had been moth- balled in 2011 on concerns over the use of child labour.

The vote is a triumph for Uzbekistan and acting-president Shavkat Mirziyoyev as it bestows credibility on the Uzbek cotton sector after years of negative headlines and boycotts by international clothing companies.

The Committee on International Trade will now recommend at a full European Parliament vote in December that a trade deal is made with Uzbekistan.

Reuters quoted Maria Arena, one of the MPs on the committee, as saying that Uzbekistan had improved its labour rights over the past few years.

“The progress made by the Uzbek authorities allows us to move forward and include textiles in our partnership agreement. But we will remain extremely vigilant,” she was quoted as saying.

Last year the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) monitored the Uzbek cotton harvest. It said in a report that there had been major improvements in the way labour was organised and although it was still commonplace for government workers to leave their jobs to pick cotton during the harvest, the use of child labour was far reduced.

Human rights groups, though, were adamant that the European Parliament needed to set an example and avoid a deal with Uzbekistan. In an open letter to the committee sent three days before its meeting, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that it was because of the European Parliament’s rejection of a trade deal in 2011 that Uzbekistan agreed to open up to UN monitors. It also said that the scenario in Uzbekistan wasn’t as positive as the committee made out.

“We were pleased to note that as a result of international pressure since 2013 children have not been forced to pick cotton on a nationwide scale, and child labour has effectively declined. Yet, local officials reportedly still resort to forced child labour out of a need to fulfil their quotas,” HRW said in its letter.

“Since 2014 we have received steady reports of extortion linked to the cotton harvest.”

Cotton is one of Uzbekistan’s most important commodities. For Mr Mirziyoyev, the timing of the recommendation is also important. He faces a presidential election next month.

He is certain to win this election and become the second post-Soviet president of Uzbekistan after Islam Karimov who died in September, but he still needs to win over popular support. Backing from the European Parliament that child labour is reducing in Uzbekistan and a trade deal can now be made will strengthen his position.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Tajikistan bans newspaper

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik Indem think tank suspended the print edition of its Nigoh newspaper under pressure from the authorities. The independent media scene has shrunk in Tajikistan in recent years. Nigoh was known for its support of the now banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Uzbekistan ratifies ILO treaty on assembly

OCT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an apparent bid to improve its international business image, Uzbekistan ratified a UN convention that protects workers’ freedom of association and businesses’ rights to form lobby groups.

Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed into law Convention no. 87 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a UN agency, which had originally been drawn up in 1948.

It is the 154th country, and the last in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, to ratify the Convention. Notably, the US, China and India are among the countries which have not ratified the Convention.

And for Uzbekistan this is something of a landmark. It has been the focus of criticism from international human rights activists, who denounced repression of the opposition and the lack of independent platforms for alternative dialogues.

Many Western clothing companies boycott Uzbek cotton because of its links to forced labour.

Foreign companies have also complained about the difficulties of operating in Uzbekistan, considered one of the most repressive countries in the world, and the ratification of the ILO convention may improve their lobbying potential.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Witness recants statement in Kyrgyz court

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — One of the key witnesses in the trial against Kyrgyz human rights activist Azimzhan Askarov recanted her testimony against her former colleague saying that she had been threatened by the police. Under pressure from the UN and the US, in July Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court ordered a re-trial of Askarov’s case. He was given a life sentence in September 2010 after being accused of inciting ethnic hatred in a revolution that toppled former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev earlier that year. Human rights lobby groups say the accusation were fabricated.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kyrgyzstan increases film control

OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz government has increased its ability to ban films considered pornographic or too violent, media reported. Human rights group have said they are worried that the new laws could be used for political reasons but family groups have welcomed the tighter control that the state will have over film releases in cinemas and on television.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

EITI tells Azerbaijan that civil society must be improved

ALMATY, OCT. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global lobby group which effectively acts as an ethical watchdog for countries with economies that rely heavily on mining, oil and gas, said it will expel Azerbaijan from the organisation if it fails to reform its NGO laws within four months.

The Oslo-based EITI is influential because Western investment is often linked to compliance with its various rules. If Azerbaijan was kicked out of the group, it would threaten vital foreign investment deals.

Last year, the EITI downgraded Azerbaijan’s membership because of what it said was a crackdown on civil society.

At a meeting in Kazakhstan, the EITI said that Azerbaijan had improved some aspects of its economy and society, in line with recommendations drawn up last year during a so-called Validation process, but that more needed to be done to retain its membership.

“Azerbaijan has made important progress in opening up the oil sector and I am encouraged to hear about the recent plans for government reforms towards more transparency,” Fredrik Reinfeldt, chair of the EITI, said in a statement.

“I hope that the government will continue its recent efforts to ensure that civil society can play its proper role in this process, otherwise this progress risks being overshadowed.”

If Azerbaijan fails to keep its EITI membership, investment for its Southern Gas Corridor, a pipeline network that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe, will be at risk.

Specifically, in September the EBRD said it would reconsider a $1.5b loan for the TANAP pipeline, part of the Southern Gas Corridor that Azerbaijan is building to pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, if Azerbaijan was kicked out of the EITI.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Azerbaijan jails for 10 years activist who graffitied Heydar Aliyev statue

OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Baku sentenced a 22-year- old activist to 10 years in jail after he sprayed anti-government slogans on a statue of former president, Heydar Aliyev.

Giyas Ibrahimov was arrested with fellow activist Bayram Mammadov in May 2016, hours after a photo of the graffiti was posted on Facebook. Both were later charged with drug possession although the men said that these were bogus and were politically motivated.

Opposition groups have said that the authorities wanted a particularly heavy sentence against Ibrahimov because of the sensitivity of defacing a state of Heydar Aliye, father of current president Ilham Aliyev.

Before he was led away at the end of his trial, Ibrahimov was defiant “We didn’t violate any law, we violated the rules of a corrupt system,” he said.

Mr Mammadov, who was arrested with Ibrahimov, is still waiting for his case to be heard.

Erkin Gadirli, academic and member of the opposition REAL movement told The Conway Bulletin that President Aliyev would have taken the defacing of the statue personally.

“The punishment was so severe in order to teach a lesson to other activists,” he said.

The court’s verdict was also rare because the judge handed out a longer jail sentence than the prosecution had asked for. The prosecutor had asked for nine years but Ibrahimov was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Just hours after the verdict was passed, slogans of solidarity and support for the jailed activist started appearing on Baku’s streets. Importantly for the authorities, though, none of the many symbols and statues of Heydar Aliyev were defaced.

Others, though, thought the sentence was justified.

“I am against random street graffiti. As far as I know Giyas has been arrested on a drug charge,” Seda Huseyn wrote on a blog. “Anyway, what’s the point of slogan-scribbling? It works for the interests of human rights defenders. They use Giyas for their filthy ambitions like receiving grants from abroad.”

Europe and the US have criticised Azerbaijan during the past few years over its treatment of opposition activists. It’s likely that Ibrahimov’s case will generate more criticism of the Azerbaijani authorities

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Kazakh police block rallies for land activists

ALMATY, OCT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Kazakhstan blocked demonstrations in support of two imprisoned organisers of protests earlier this year against proposed changes to the country’s land code.

The two land activists, Maks Bokayev and Talgat Ayan, have been on trial in Atyrau since Oct. 12 accused of trying to organise a coup, in one of the most highly-charged and politically sensitive trials this year. The demonstrations that they are accused of organising in March attracted wide popularity and spread across Kazakhstan, unnerving the government.

Apparently worried that the high- profile nature of the trial and the latent support for the defendants might trigger another round of mass protests, the authorities have been rounding up people gathering in support of Mr Bokayev and Mr Ayan.

Local media has reported that several people have been detained trying to attend these rallies and one activist said that he was beaten up by unknown men shortly after attending a rally in Atyrau.

For supporters of Mr Bokayev and Mr Ayan, the trial is a sham.

Bakhytzhan Toregozhina, a human rights activist, told The Conway Bulletin that she thought it was a purely political process.

“The judge pretends that she is neutral and listens carefully to both sides but this is a regular political trial in an authoritarian country, nothing new,” she said.

The authorities, though, have said the two men are coup plotters who had teamed up with Tokhtar Tuleshov, a millionaire brewery owner from Shymkent in southern Kazakhstan. Mr Tuleshov has been detained since January and is also charged with a coup attempt.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Kazakhstan looks to ban Salafism

ALMATY, OCT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan appeared to signal that it would ban Salafism, a form of Islam, after its new minister for religious affairs, Nurlan Yermekbayev, described it as “unacceptable”.

Mr Yermekbayev’s comments, at his first press conference as minister for religious freedom, will strengthen analysts’ views that the ministry, created last month, was designed to clamp down on religious freedom.

“We consider that for Kazakhstan, Salafism is an unacceptable and destructive religious movement. In

general, Kazakhstan’s society has a negative attitude to this alien understanding of faith, leading to radicalism,” the official Astana Times newspaper quoted him as saying.

“Our future work will focus on preventing the spread of literature and the work of the websites promoting the ideology of Salafism.”

Salafism is an ultra-conservative form of Islam that has its roots in Egypt. It has been blamed for the spread of radical Islam.

Previously, Wahhabism, has been blamed for encouraging a series of terrorist attacks in Kazakhstan and banned by the government.

But Kazakh officials have now blamed a series of gun attacks in Aktobe, in the west of the country, in June on a group of Salafists.

Kazakhstan, like its neighbours, has been clamping down on pious Muslims, increasingly worried that they are destabilising the country and acting as a possible fifth column.

Human rights groups have described the clamp-downs as attacks on human rights and free speech.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

Kazakhstan retiriertes Hijab ban

OCT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan said that it had reiterated a ban on hijabs at school despite a number of complaints from parents since the ban was introduced in January. Kazakhstan is officially a secular states although the vast majority of people are Muslim. Headscarves have also become a more common sight on the streets of Kazakh cities over the past few years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)