Tajikistan
World Bank Group support to countries in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region totaled more than $9.3 billion in fiscal year 2011. This was double pre-crisis levels but, as planned, less than at the height of the crisis. The Bank continued to lend significant support this fiscal year to help countries sustain the nascent recovery in the region, while mitigating the impact of lingering effects of the crisis on the region’s most vulnerable, World Bank’s press-service reports.
“Countries in the region are continuing to face a challenging environment as they look to recover from the crisis. Growth resumed in Europe and Central Asia in 2010 and reached 4.5 percent, following sharp declines during the global crisis. Projections for 2011–13 are for slightly stronger performance, but remain below those for other regions.
For net importers, higher food and energy prices threaten to increase poverty, particularly in Armenia, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan, and the continued financial concerns in Western Europe provides added uncertainty. The World Bank remains committed to supporting the countries in the region as they continue to recover from the crisis and take the necessary steps to improve the lives of their citizens.”
Philippe Le Houérou, World Bank Vice President for the Europe and Central Asia Region.
Courtesy of the BBC.
Editor’s note: Tajik authorities have released BBC journalist Urunboy Usmonov from custody. “The international community’s appeal have been heard,” writes neweurasia’s Tomyris, “and though Usmonov’s release is under an agreement not to leave the country, neweurasia is thrilled that he is at least released alas, but still nonetheless regrets to learn that he still may face unjust criminal prosecution.”
“They told Urunboy Usmonov’s family to go and pick him up outside the detention centre.” – BBC
neweurasia joined the international community last month in insisting that Tajik authorities immediately release journalist Urunboy Usmonov, who was accused of being a member of the banned Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Then today, exactly one month and a day after his arrest, AFP has reported that he has been released from custody. AFP goes on to say:
“Urunboi Usmonov still faces criminal prosecution, but was released from prison Thursday after the General Prosecutor ruled that he was eligible for bail.”
neweurasia‘s managing editor, Schwartz, has been in contact with BBC Central Asia. He reports that they are overjoyed but cautious:
“A normally quite literate group are responding to my e-mails with multiple exclamation points and enthusiastic typos. It’s really nice to see them in this mood. Nevertheless, they point out that his release doesn’t mean he’s no longer face charges, but that at least he’ll be with his family again and hopefully have easier access to legal resources.”
Indeed, ASIA–Plus has quoted Tajikistan’s Prosecutor-General Sherkhon Salimzoda as saying:
“Prosecutors have studied criminal proceedings instituted against Usmonov and have come to a conclusion that investigation may be continued without holding the suspect in custody.”
Urinboy Usmonov, a 10 year long journalist for BBC‘s Central Asian Service, was arrested on June 13th and is being held in Khujand, northern Tajikistan for suspicion membership in the Islamic Movement Hizb ut-Tahrir. His lawyer, Fayziniso Vokhidova, said he was denied his right to see her. After having had gone missing on June 13th, Usmonov briefly returned home – visually beaten-up – with Tajik police who searched his house and then took him away.
Hamid Ismailov, Uzbek novelist and poet and BBC’s World Service Writer in Residents, spoke with Oybek, Usmonov’s son, about his father’s situation and learned that when “leaving his home he whispered to his family: “It’s because of my work. I can’t take another night like the last one. I can’t survive.””
According to Reporters Without Borders, 150 Hizb ut-Tahrir activists were arrested in 2010. The group is controversial for its mission and links to people such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Founded in 1953 in Jerusalem by Taqiuddi al-Nabhani, Hizb ut-Tahrir (“Party of Liberation” – حِزْبُ التَحْرِير) is an Islamist organization banned in Tajikistan and throughout Central Asia (but not in the United Kingdom and some other European countries):
Soros Foundations in Central Asia organize “Youth in the 21st Century: Debating and Producing Media” summer camp that will last for 12 days (yahoo!) with young brilliant people aged 17 to 25.
So here is a deal:
Apart from age, the following thing is the last requirement: participants must be young people from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to be eligible for applying.
“This is a regional series of workshops that will be held during the summer and early autumn of 2011 for young people throughout the world. These workshops teach youth to be effective producers of media information by equipping them to produce and package content towards creating a better society,” Soros Foundation’s press-release says.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom placed Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan on list of countries of particular concern (or CPC), emphasizing that since independence and limited reforms undertaken by regimes since 1991, governments have systematically and egregiously violated freedom of religion or belief.
14 countries of that made the CPC list of the 2011 Annual Report include: Burma, the Democratic People‘s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, the People‘s Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
Tajikistan is in the watch list, while Kazakhstan is in the list of additional countries closely monitored. Te situation with religious freedom in Kyrgyzstan is not mentioned at all, probably as there is no visible violation on a state level as in other neighboring countries.
We will start with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, two worst dictatorship regimes in the region. Read the full story »
The Raqibov Family. Photograph from Radio Ozodi.
Editor’s note: neweurasia’s Botur publishes an open letter from over 500 Tajiks on Facebook who have created a support group to buttress an impoverished family’s two-year fight against the apparently illegal demolition of his house by local officials.
Regarding release of Atoullo Raqibov from prison and compensation to his family for hardships due to violation of human rights laws by local officials in Tajikistan.
Dear Human Rights Defenders Worldwide:
It has been two years since Atoullo Raqibov, resident of Zarkamar Village of Fayzobod District in the Republic of Tajikistan, tirelessly trying to defend his rights for fair trial after his house was destroyed in August 2009 by order of local prosecutor and as a result, his family of seven, including five young children became homeless and suffer in hardships. Nobody in the government of Tajikistan seems to listen to his claims, but on the contrary, instead of hearing his concerns objectively, last week they arrested him and transferred him to a prison in Dushanbe.
While Russia brings out issues related to Russian and Russian-speaking minorities in Uzbekistan, and while people of Uzbekistan discuss whether the movie aired at Russia 1 channel was right or wrong, no one really pays attention to what’s going on with Russian diaspora and its cultural heritage in the neighboring Tajikistan.
On Apil 26, 2011 Kayrakkum City Majlis decided to rename 55 streets and district names.
As Karomat Kosimova, Deputy Chairman of Kayrakkum, told Asia Plus Information Agency, that “people’s representatives voted for a list of streets to be renamed, offered by local people themselves… they proposed it through deputies [...] and self-governmental bodies to the Commission for streets and settlements renaming.” Read the full story »
Russian law-makers came up with an idea of recommending Central Asian countries not to wait until the situation goes under the control like in the Middle Eastern countries and be more open to democratic changes, various information agencies reported after a meeting closed to the public on April 13, 2011.
Russian Federation’s Duma’s (Parliament) committee on CIS affairs and compatriot relations has held the parliamentary hearing dedicated to the Central Asian region: strategic partnership and security problems. As reported by RBC, the participants have urged the countries in the region to enact democratic reforms and prevent the “North African syndrome,” Ferghana information agency reports.
At the same time “Parlamentskaya gazeta” informed that even though the whole hearing has been closed to the public, at least the first three statements have been made in presence of media.
“Russians are not indifferent as to the destiny of the people in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the light of historic development and co-existence with the people of Russia, which has to be the key factor in the country’s strategy in respect to these states.”
Deputy chair of Duma Nadezhda Gerasimova
U.S. State Department has released its 2010 Country Reports on Human Practices. As expected, Central Asian states did not make a significant progress in human rights practices. Vice versa, majority of our region’s countries turned their backs to what we call respect to human rights.
This report provides encyclopedic detail on human rights conditions in over 190 countries for 2010.
We will start with Uzbekistan because the situation with human rights and political freedoms in this coutnry was “granted” a huge paragraph in the Introduction to the Report. Along with Afghanistan and Pakistan, this Central Asian country, motherland for more than 28 million people, represented a South and Central Asia chapter. Read the full story »
Ms Otunbayeva has been very polite lately. She has offered an apology to Latvia for nationalizing private companies in Kyrgyzstan, which were partially or wholly owned by Latvian shareholders among other foreign investors. She has then issued an apology to those at home. To those at home who faced either death or injury or emigration, to be specific. She has traveled to the devastated city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan where she apologized on behalf of the then interim government for “being unable to prevent and stop the massacre.” Read the full story »
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