APRIL 7 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps trying to replicate the action-man image developed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov won the country’s inaugural car race. Mr Berdymukhamedov was a last-minute entry into the race in Ashgabat. Correspondents reported the race had been blatantly choreographed.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 083, published on April 13 2012)
MARCH 30 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The UN’s human rights committee gave a strongly critical assessment of human rights in Turkmenistan after a month-long investigation. The assessment was unequivocal about its main concerns — a lack of any freedom of expression, ill-treatment in detention and torture.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 082, published on April 6 2012)
MARCH 27 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said on national TV that he wanted to create two new political parties, an agrarian party and a party for entrepreneurs, Reuters reported. Formally this would break the one-party state but in reality Turkmenistan would remain an autocracy.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 081, published on March 30 2012)
MARCH 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Underlining the surging personality cult surrounding Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the authorities declared an era of happiness to mark his election victory last month, media reported. The official newspaper published a new poem for the occasion.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 080, published on March 8 2012)
FEB. 28 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has resumed full gas deliveries to Iran after cutting output by half last month because of the cold weather, Iran media quoted Javad Owji, the Iranian deputy energy minister, as saying. Turkmenistan is a vital gas supplier to northern Iran which is hundreds of miles from Iran’s own gas fields in the south.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 079, published on March 1 2012)
FEB. 17 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, a 54-year-old former dentist, was sworn in for his second five-year term as Turkmenistan’s president. In his inauguration speech he promised democratic reforms, a pledge he has previously made but failed to deliver.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 078, published on Feb. 23 2012)
FEB. 9 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – France’s defence minister, Gerard Longuet, told the magazine L’Orient Le-Jour that NATO’s logistics route through Central Asia is too expensive. NATO has earmarked the route, dubbed the Northern Distribution Network, as the best way of withdrawing soldiers and kit in 2014 from Afghanistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 77, published on Feb. 16 2012)
FEB. 12/13 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – No surprises in Turkmenistan’s presidential election with Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, in power since Feb. 2007, winning 97% of the vote. Mr Berdymukhamedov faced seven token candidates, all government ministers who supported the president. Europe’s election watchdog declined to send monitors.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 77, published on Feb. 16 2012)
FEB. 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – You’d be forgiven for not noticing, but on Sunday Feb. 12 2012 Turkmenistan holds a presidential election.
The election should give voters in Turkmenistan, which has a population of five million people and holds the world’s fourth largest reserves of gas, a chance to judge Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s first five years in power.
But it won’t. This is a mirage of an election.
Aside from Mr Berdymukhamedov, a 54-year-old former dentist, there are seven other official candidates. All are party loyalists, some currently hold ministerial positions and none offer genuine choice.
Despite the government’s rhetoric last year inviting its exiled opponents back to Turkmenistan, the opposition is wary and won’t return to contest the election.
The main international newswires have local correspondents inside Turkmenistan but Western journalists met a stony silence when they requested visas to cover the election.
Even the ubiquitous election monitors from Europe’s democracy watchdog, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have declined to go. They said simply that there was no point as democracy and choice in Turkmenistan does not exist.
The only issue is what official proportion of the votes Mr Berdymukhamedov will win. In 2007, he won with 89% of the vote. Will his winning margin in 2012 be bigger?
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 76, published on Feb. 9 2012)
FEB. 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Media freedom rankings by the France-based NGO Reporters Without Borders reflect another tough year for local journalists in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Turkmenistan retains its standard position at the bottom of the 179-country list, just above North Korea and Eritrea, underlining its reputation as one of the world’s most repressive states. Twenty places above Turkmenistan is Uzbekistan, also in familiar territory.
But this year, between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, sliding 10 places to 162nd is Azerbaijan.
In 2011, the authorities in Azerbaijan quashed anti-government protests and imprisoned journalists and bloggers. In November a prominent Azerbaijani journalist was also murdered in Baku.
Reporters Without Borders called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev a “predator” of the media.
“Violence is back in a big way there, with threats, beatings and abduction of opposition journalists,” the report said.
The report was compiled between Dec. 1 2010 and Nov. 30 2011, before the Kazakh authorities’ crackdown on media after riots in the west of the country.
Even so, Kazakhstan comes in at 154th position and looks set to slip in the next rankings.
Armenia enjoys the most media freedom in the region. In 77th position it has regained ground lost after opposition protests and a state-of-emergency in 2008.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 75, published on Feb. 2 2012)