Tag Archives: security

Tajik court jails 13 for IS flag

FEB. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Court in Tajikistan sentenced 13 men to between 10 and 25 years in jail for allegedly hoisting an IS flag over a building in the provincial town of Nurek, media reported. The authorities in Tajikistan have sentenced similar numbers of men on similar charges previously. It has said that radical Islam is growing in the region but human rights groups have accused the Tajik government of simply wanting to clamp down on dissenters.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Kazakh Riot police steps in

FEB. 15/16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Riot police in the southern Kazakh region of Zhambyl broke up a potential race riot after ethnic Kazakhs accused Turks of murdering a 16-year-old boy. Video from the confrontation showed police in full body armour with dogs trying to separate a group of people who had gathered around a house in the village of Burylov. The incident highlights the fragile social spectrum in regional Kazakhstan just as the economy worsens.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Georgia deals with Abkhazia

FEB. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian government will import extra electricity from Russia to send on to the breakaway Abkhazia region in a short-term deal, media reported. Abkhazia is wholly reliant on the Enguri hydropower plant for its electricity but water levels have reached a critically low level meaning that there have been a series of power outages. The deal shows that despite vicious territorial disputes, Georgia, its breakaway republics and Russia can still pull deals together.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Turkmenistan increases security over TAPI

FEB. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Addressing a government meeting, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered his government to increase security over the planned TAPI pipeline that will, it is hoped, pump gas to India. Last month the Taliban destroyed a transmission line sending electricity between Uzbekistan and Kabul. For TAPI to be successful, it needs to be able to guarantee security around the route. Governments that border Afghanistan have been warning that a resurgent Taliban are posing an increasing threat to stability.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 267, published on Feb. 12 2016)

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan dispute over border

FEB. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) -The foreign ministries of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan traded angry notes after Kyrgyz soldiers appeared to raise their national flag over a disputed border area. International monitors have said that the two neighbours had been making decent progress towards thrashing out a solution to their long-running border row. The recent dispute, though, may have endangered this progress. Analysts have said that the Tajik-Kyrgyz border dispute has the potential to destabilise the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 267, published on Feb. 12 2016)

Russia boosts assistance to Tajikistan

FEB. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov said that Russia would supply Tajikistan with all the equipment and intelligence that it needed to fend off various threats from the Taliban who are looking increasingly powerful. Mr Antonov made the promise on a trip to Tajikistan a few days after news that Taliban forces in Afghanistan had attacked a power-line running from Uzbekistan to Kabul. Central Asian states are increasingly worried about a resurgent Taliban.

ENDS