Tag Archives: rights and freedoms

Promotion for Kazakh General blamed for Zhanaozen shootings

ALMATY/Jan. 16 2020 (The Bulletin) — A senior Kazakh government official accused by human rights activists of ordering police to open fire at protesters in the oil town of Zhanaozen in 2011 has been promoted to head the State Guard Service.

General-Colonel Kalmukhanbet Kassymov is seen as a hardline loyalist. He was Kazakhstan’s interior minister between April 2011 and February 2019 and will now head up one of the most senior paramilitary units in the country. The State Guard Service is tasked with providing security for President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and also for former president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

At least 14 people were killed in Zhanaozen in December 2011 when striking oil workers clashed with security forces during celebrations for the 20th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence from the Soviet Union. Video shot on shaky mobile phones showed police firing at fleeing workers.

Human rights groups have accused Gen. Kassymov of ordering armed police from central Kazakhstan to travel to Zhanaozen, in the western oil region of Mangistau, to confront and, ultimately, shoot protesters.

Gen. Kassymov, 62, is a professional policeman, making his way up through the ranks to become deputy head of the Zhambyl region police force in 1990 before moving into the Presidential Administration in the newly independent Kazakh government. From February 2019, after nearly eight years as Kazakhstan’s interior minister, Gen. Kassymov was made Secretary of Kazakhstan’s Security Council and an aide to the President.

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— This story was first published in issue 434 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyz court refuses to approve extradition to Turkey of suspected Gulenist teachers

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BISHKEK/Dec. 30 2019 (The Bulletin) — A district court in Bishkek shunned Turkey by refusing to sanction the extradition of two Turkish teachers suspected of being so-called Gulenists.
The court said that the extradition of the teachers, approved earlier by Kyrgyzstan’s deputy prosecutor general, was illegal.

Rights activists have said that so-called Gulenists who have been extradited from countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have been tortured in Turkey and don’t get fair trials. The Turkish government blames Gulenists for a failed coup in 2016 and has promised revenge.

The press secretary of the Pervomaisky District Court, Asel Ravshanbekova, didn’t give the Kyrgyz branch of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty any reasons for the court to overturn the deputy prosecutor’s extradition approval other than to say that it was considered “illegal”.

Even so, the court’s decision is a sharp and rare blow to Turkey’s status in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region. With the exception of Kazakhstan and Armenia, the other countries in the region have been quick to round up Turkish teachers working at schools and universities regarded as Gulenists. These were educational institutions set up in the 1990s by followers of Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic cleric who was once an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but now lives in exile in the United States.

These Gulen-linked schools were considered to be the best schools and universities in each country in the region, producing government ministers and business leaders.

In 2017, Turkey as much as told Kyrgyzstan that it needed to close down the Gulen school network known as Sebat. Kyrgyzstan refused but did rebrand the schools as Zepat. These fee-paying schools still educate many sons and daughters of the elite.

Kyrgyzstan-Turkey relations have improved since Sooronbai Jeenbekov took over as president in 2017 but the strain over the fate of the Gulen schools and their teachers has damaged some of the goodwill.

Mr Jeenbekov took over as president from Almazbek Atambayev, who had pushed a foreign policy that, while not anti-Turkey, was definitely cool towards its traditional ally.

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— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020

— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

Attackers beat anti-corruption website editor in Bishkek

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BISHKEK/Jan. 9 2020 (The Bulletin) — A group of men attacked and beat Bolot Temirov, editor of the anti-corruption website FactCheck, near his office in Bishkek one month after he published information accusing the state customs department of corruption.

Rights activists have said that the attitude of the authorities in Kyrgyzstan, once considered a relative bastion of free speech in Central Asia, had worsened significantly in 2019.

Since Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Berlin-based Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Bishkek-based Kloop led publication of an in-depth investigation into official corruption, media websites have been hacked and their bank accounts frozen.

Mr Temirov, the editor of FactCheck, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that he needed paramedic assistance after the attack and that he had filed a complaint to the authorities.

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— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020

— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

Tajikistan arrests suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood

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JAN. 6 2020 (The Bulletin) — The security forces in Tajikistan arrested dozens of people over the New Year period who they said are linked to the banned Muslim Brotherhood group, media reported. Tajikistan banned the Muslim Brotherhood in 2006. It has carried out a number of purges since of Muslim Brotherhood members, although rights activists have said that the real targets may just be opposition supporters.

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— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020

— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

Don’t send men back to China, HRW tells Kazakhstan

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JAN. 9 2020 (The Bulletin) — New York-based Human Rights Watch said that Kazakhstan should not extradite two ethnic Kazakhs accused of crossing the border illegally from China because they face the risk of torture or detention. HRW said that the two men, Kaster Musakhanuly and Murager Alimuly, had been escaping China’s crackdown on Muslims and that they should be given asylum.

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— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020

— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

Coordinator of Kyrgyz feminist exhibition says she was attacked

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DEC. 26 2019 (The Bulletin) — Aigul Karabalina, one of the coordinators of the Feminale exhibition in Bishkek that promoted women’s rights, said that she had been attacked in the street. She linked the attack, in which she suffered concussion and a bruise under her eye, with what she said was a misogynistic backlash against Feminale. She now wants to leave the country. Activists have said that the government has not done enough to promote women’s rights.
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— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019

Kyrgyzstan’s government targets anti-corruption reporters

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DEC. 18 2019 (The Bulletin) — Rights activists accused the Kyrgyz government of targeting news agencies who had reported on alleged corruption by senior officials by briefly closing down their websites and bank accounts. In November the Berlin-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) the Kyrgyz service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Bishkek-based news website Kloop published their investigation into money laundering in the Kyrgyz Customs Committee. Since then protesters have demanded the resignation of several officials, although the government has dodged taking action.
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— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019

Ukraine extradites Aliyev critic before presidential visit

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DEC. 14 2019 (The Bulletin) — Ahead of a presidential trip to Azerbaijan, Ukraine detained and deported Elvin Isayev, a critic of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev known for his coarse use of Youtube videos to attack the First Family. Mr Isayev, who is shunned by most mainstream opposition figures, had moved to Ukraine earlier this year from Russia. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, flew to Baku two days after Mr Isayev’s extradition.

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— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019

Jailed former minister paraded on TV

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DEC. 4 2019 (The Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s state TV showed footage of former interior minister Isgender Mulikov wearing a prison uniform and with his head shaved less than two months after he admitted corruption. Mulikov had been interior minister for a decade when he was arrested and charged with corruption. Analysts have said that parading former ministers on TV as criminals is a ploy by Pres. Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to shift attention away from Turkmenistan’s faltering economy.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Kyrgyz security forces want to question anti-corruption journalists

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DEC. 2 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Committee said that it would call in for questioning journalists who worked on a corruption report produced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Berlin-based Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Bishkek-based news website Kloop. The report highlighted organised crime and corruption at the top levels of the Kyrgyz customs service.
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019