Documentary filmmakers from developing countries can apply for a grant.

The Jan Vrijman Fund, sponsored by the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), provides funding for creative documentaries and documentary events in developing countries. The maximum contribution is ?15,000 (about US$21,400).

Project directors should have the nationality of a developing country and live and work in a developing country, as defined on the DAC list. The fund strives to have a minimum of 18% of the selected projects from countries from the two left columns (Least Developed Countries and Lower Income Countries.)

For more information, click here: http://www.idfa.nl/industry/markets-funding/vrijman-fund/Submit-your-project.aspx

http://www.idfa.nl/industry/markets-funding/vrijman-fund/Submit-your-project.aspx

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — A web-based television channel in Kazakhstan says it has been subjected to intrusive inspections because of its independent news coverage, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.

Two editors of the Almaty-based Stan-TV, Elina Zhdanova and Baurzhan Musirov, told journalists on August 23 that their offices were inspected without prior warning last week by representatives of the Almaty city architecture-and-construction-control, fire-safety control, and sanitary-control boards.

They said the inspectors told them the inspections were undertaken in response to written complaints from residents of nearby apartment blocks about a large antenna placed on the roof of Stan-TV’s office. The inspectors said the residents complained that the antenna was affecting their health.

Zhdanova and Musirov said they subsequently met with some of those residents, who told them local police pressured them to write letters of complaint.

The Stan-TV representatives told journalists they plan to formally request that Almaty city police and the National Security Committee (KNB) investigate whether the inspection of their offices was legal.

http://www.rferl.org/content/kazakh_journalists_link_inspections_to_coverage/24305881.html

OSH, Kyrgyzstan — Journalists in Kyrgyzstan’s southern city of Osh have been warned against «igniting interethnic hatred» as they cover the run-up to October’s presidential election, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reports.

Mairambek Rasulov from the Osh prosecutor’s office said authorities will be keeping a closer eye on media outlets in the weeks leading up to the election to prevent any inflammatory statements that might spark interethnic clashes.

Osh was one of the epicenters of violent clashes between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the south of the country in June 2010 that left more than 400 people dead and hundreds injured and/or displaced.

On August 17, Prosecutor-General Aida Salyanova told RFE/RL that «any statements calling for interethnic, interreligious or interregional hatred will have very tough consequences.»

Salyanova also said that during the election campaign, which will start on September 25, all statements by presidential candidates will be carefully monitored by experts from Kyrgyzstan’s leading universities.

The Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security will decide on the basis of those experts’ conclusions whether to open a criminal case in connection with provocative or inflammatory statements, both written and oral.

Ninety-eight criminal cases were opened in Kyrgyzstan last year in connection with alleged «‘incitement to interethnic, racial and interreligious hatred.» Sixty-one similar criminal cases were opened between January and June this year.

http://www.rferl.org/content/kyrgyz_journalists_warned_against_igniting_interethnic_hatred/24300695.

The website Fergana.ru has reported that Elena Urlaeva, a rights activist in Uzbekistan, has been detained today in the eastern city of Namangan and told a colleague she is being beaten.

Fellow rights defender Bahadur Namazov told Fergana.ru that Urlaeva called him «and with her voice trembling said they were beating her in the Namangan city police station.»

Namazov also told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service that Urlaeva she was in detention.

Urlaeva is a leader of the Alliance of Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan. S

he has previously been jailed, forcibly admitted to a psychiatric hospital and beaten by men with knives in front of her child on the street in Tashkent.

Urlaeva was in Namangan to protest a decision by local authorities to charge three local television journalists with extortion.

http://www.rferl.org/content/rights_defender_urlaeva_reportedly_detained_beaten_in_uzbekistan/243005

The trial of a BBC reporter accused of associating with banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has begun in the northern Tajik city of Khujand, RFE/RL Tajik Service reports.

Urunboy Usmonov, 59, denies the charges, saying any meetings he had with Hizb ut-Tahrir members were for purely journalistic purposes.

The reporter said he had interviewed some members of the banned group as part of his work reporting on the region, where Hizb ut-Tahrir is active.

The BBC has said it regards the accusation as completely unfounded.

Usmonov’s arrest on June 13 was condemned by international media and rights advocates as a censorship attempt.

The reporter’s relatives said he was beaten while in custody.

Usmonov was released on bail a month after his arrest pending the trial.

http://www.rferl.org/content/bbc_journalist_trial_begins_in_tajikistan/24298287.html

ALMATY — A Kazakh journalist jailed for revealing state secrets has had another appeal for parole rejected, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.

Ramazan Esergepov, who was chief editor and owner of the independent weekly newspaper «Alma-Ata Info,» was jailed for three years in 2009 over an article he said revealed links between a businessman and the National Security Committee (KNB).

A prison appeals commission in the southern Kazakh town of Taraz on August 16 rejected his parole request.

Esergepov’s wife, Raushan Esergepova, told RFE/RL that the commission cited Esergepov’s alleged failure «to set about correcting» his erroneous attitude.

According to his wife, Esergepov’s jail term ends in five months. His previous appeals for release on parole were similarly rejected.

Esergepov’s supporters and rights organizations say the case against him was politically motivated because of his newspaper, which ceased publication after his arrest.

http://www.rferl.org/content/jailed_kazakh_rights_activist_parole_appeal_rejected/24298274.html

KHUJAND, Tajikistan — Some school principals in northern Tajikistan say they are under pressure to attract new members to President Emomali Rahmon’s ruling National Democratic Party of Tajikistan (NDPT), RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.

School principal Fayzullo Fayziev, who also heads the Sughd provincial branch of the opposition Democratic Party of Tajikistan, told RFE/RL on August 15 that the local education board has asked all school principals to recruit from five to 10 new party members, all of whom must have a university degree.

But Anvar Jalilov, an NDPT activist in Khujand, told RFE/RL that party membership is voluntary. He challenged those who claim people are being forced to join the NDPT to produce evidence to substantiate those allegations.

Tajik experts said such orders are usually issued verbally and are difficult to prove.

Tilav Rasulzoda, a local expert on politics, told RFE/RL on August 15 that the ruling party is afraid that educated people may join opposition parties if they are given the choice.

Analyst Mardon Hojipoor said the NDPT wants to have the largest and best-educated membership of any party.

The NDPT is currently the largest party in Sughd, with about 48,000 members, some 20,000 of whom reportedly have graduate degrees.

Of the remaining members, about 14,000 are said to have bachelor degrees while some 14,000 are high school graduates.

The main opposition party in Sughd is the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, which says it has about 13,000 members.

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajik_ruling_party_reportedly_pressuring_principals_for_recruits_/24297

TASHKENT — A rights activist in central Uzbekistan says she was detained on August 15 for an article criticizing the government requirement that citizens use state-issued bank cards for cash withdrawals or purchases, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reports.

Saida Kurbanova told RFE/RL she was summoned to the Pakhtakor district police station in JIzzakh Province where she was «dragged up the stairs» by officers, including the district deputy chief of police. She was released after several hours.

A member of the Pakhtakor police who declined to give his name denied any force was used on Kurbanova.

Kurbanova said police told her she is being sued for libel over the article she wrote and posted on the Internet in March about the difficulties faced by people using the state-issued cards.

Police told Kurbanova one of the women mentioned in the article filed the libel suit against her on August 4.

Kurbanova told RFE/RL she denies the charge and believes the woman was coerced into making the complaint.

Many in Uzbekistan have complained about the «plastic card» method of making payments, saying not all merchants have the necessary machines and that the service charge for transactions conducted via these machines can be 20 to 30 percent of the price of items being bought.

Kurbanova is the head of the Pakhtakor district branch of the nongovernmental organization the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan.

In the past, she has worked to highlight the plight of farmers in Jizzakh.

In May 2007 the head of the Pakhtakor district, Ergash Soliev, called Kurbanova a «traitor to the motherland.»

http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbek_activist_detained_over_article_critical_of_bank_cards_system/2429

Dozens of popular websites in Uzbekistan have suffered from intermittent bouts of inaccessibility over the past week, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reports.

Many users of the websites have blamed the monopolist state Internet service provider for blocking the sites, but Uzbek officials have refused to comment on the issue.

Since most of the inaccessible websites were available via proxy servers, many users concluded that someone has been blocking access to the sites.

On August 3, the ca-news website and the Russian news agency Regnum were inaccessible. On August 9 it was impossible to view virtually any of the country’s most popular websites, even via mobile devices.

The high point of the blackout coincided with an annual festival celebrating Uzbekistan’s «.uz» Internet domain, which is controlled by the government.

Even then the most-visited «.uz» domain websites such as 12.uz and uzdaily.uz were inaccessible.

Users were most angered by the loss of access to all officially sanctioned Islamic websites during the holy month of Ramadan, which began in early August.

The most popular such site is Islom.uz, which is operated by Sheikh Muhammad Sodiq Muhammad Yusuf, a moderate Muslim leader.

The site’s administrator, Abu Muslim, told RFE/RL on August 11 that users in Uzbekistan have experienced access problems for the past two days, but the site is now fully accessible.

He said he believes the website blackout was caused by a major technical problem because he said some government sites were also inaccessible.

Internet users in Uzbekistan are also complaining that the speed of Internet has dropped drastically recently. They say even popular search engines such as Russian-language Yandex and Rambler are sometimes inaccessible.

Analysts blame the government for the slowdown and access problems, as Uzbek authorities have a history of blocking opposition and independent websites that focus on Uzbekistan.

Many say the government is clamping down on Internet access in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the country’s independence, which is on September 1.

The Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders added Uzbek President Islam Karimov to its list of «enemies of the Internet» for blocking sites and persecuting independent journalists.

An Uzbek parliament deputy proposed last month the tightening of control over social-networking sites in the country. But no action has thus far been taken against such sites as Facebook or Twitter even though dozens of other sites are inaccessible.

http://www.rferl.org/content/dozens_of_websites_in_uzbekistan_experience_access_problems/24295316.ht

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, — A younger brother of slain journalist Alisher Saipov has been badly beaten in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reports.

Osh Interior Ministry spokesman Zamir Sydykov told RFE/RL on August 11 that Shakhrukh Saipov is currently in the hospital following an assault on August 10 and refuses to talk to local police. Sydykov said the incident is being investigated.

Saipov’s father, Avaz Saipov, confirmed to RFE/RL that his son was badly beaten and has been hospitalized.

Shakhrukh’s brother, Alisher Saipov, a Kyrgyz citizen of Uzbek origin who was chief editor of the «Siyosat» (Politics) newspaper, was shot dead near his office in Osh on October 24, 2007.

Alisher Saipov, who had also worked for Voice of America’s Uzbek Service and RFE/RL, often wrote about the political and social affairs in neighboring Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

His colleagues and human rights activists say he was killed for his critical articles about Uzbek officials.

Shakhrukh Saipov, 26, reportedly owns his own online news portal.

http://www.rferl.org/content/slain_journalists_brother_beaten_in_southern_kyrgyzstan/24293940.html