BISHKEK — The Kyrgyz National Security Service (UKK) has interrupted the screening of an Australian documentary about a prominent Uyghur rights activist at the fourth annual One World Film Festival in Bishkek, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reports.

«The 10 Conditions of Love» is about the life and activities of Rebiya Kadeer, who is from China’s northwestern Xinjiang Province. Kadeer, who lives in exile in the United States, is also the chairwoman of the World Uyghur Congress.

UKK officers entered the hall of the History Museum where the documentary was being shown and demanded it be halted.

The officers said that they were implementing a written directive signed by presidential office head Emil Kaptagaev. They did not show the directive to the festival coordinators.

The presidential office refused to comment.

After the UKK officers left the building, the rest of the movie was shown to the audience, said Aida Baijumanova, deputy head of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, the main organizer of the festival.

The One World Film Festival originated in Prague. It has been held in Bishkek and other Kyrgyz cities since 2007.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Kyrgyz_Security_Service_Disrupts_Human_Rights_Film_Festival/2167594.htm

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has voiced alarm over the treatment of journalists in Uzbekistan.

The OSCE’s freedom of the media representative, Dunja Mijatovic, said in a statement that she is «alarmed by the unrelenting judicial pressure exerted upon independent journalists in Uzbekistan.»

Writing to the Uzbek foreign minister, Vladimir Norov, Mijatovic expressed concern for two journalists, Abdumalik Boboyev and Vladimir Berezovski, prosecuted for alleged libel.

Mijatovic also expressed concern about three other journalists — Dilmurod Saiid, Solijon Abdurahmanov, and Hairullo Khamidov — who are currently serving jail sentences of between six and 12 1/2 years.

In her letter to the Uzbek foreign minister, Mijatovic wrote that «non state-media in Uzbekistan continue to be the target of unrelenting judicial harassment and this is a matter of serious concern to me.»

— RFE/RL Central Newsroom

http://www.rferl.org/content/OSCE_Criticizes_Uzbek_Treatment_Of_Journalists/2167187.html

A branch of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) in the southern Tajik city of Kulob has complained that authorities are pressuring women who wear the hijab, the Islamic head scarf.

Local IRP leader Mahmadsharif Nabiev suggests that the harassment began after a visit to the region last month by President Emomali Rahmon.

Rahmon was reportedly heard to make disparaging comments about women in «Islamic clothing» in Kulob.

Since then, Nabiev says, several local officials have tried to ban women wearing Islamic dress from schools, universities, and even from working in the local bazaar.

Nabiev says women have asked his party to champion their right to dress as they choose.

He also says that in meetings with locals in southern Kulob on August 23, Rahmon urged parents to bring their children back from Islamic schools (madrasahs) abroad and advised women to wear Tajik national dress.

Nabiev says local officials and police misinterpreted Rahmon’s comments and have increased pressure on women who wear head scarves and other clothing viewed as Islamic.

On September 1, as students celebrated the start of the school year, Rahmon met with students in Dushanbe and repeated concerns that many young Tajik girls choose to wear Islamic clothing. He added that some parents send their children to public schools while others are sending their kids to madrasahs. Rahmon noted that «we are at a crossroads [on this issue] and so we have to choose which path to take.»

He also used tough language in describing the women who choose to wear head scarves, although an official transcript of his televised speech softened the language, likening such women to «black birds.»

Kulov resident Fotima Rahimova tells RFE/RL that her daughters were told not to wear head scarves and not to cover their hair or they would face fines of up to 500 somoni ($114). Rahimova adds that officials attributed their crackdown to Rahmon’s instructions.

Contacted by RFE/RL, Davlat Amirov, the Education Ministry’s Kulob branch director, can neither confirm nor deny that fines were handed out to people who wore Islamic clothes at schools and universities. But he stresses that the Tajik government and the Education Ministry mandated a uniform that should be worn at schools and universities, and he says authorities must enforce that regulation.

While a ban on the hijab at schools and universities is nothing new in Tajikistan, a ban of the hijab in bazaars and other markets would be.

Safarkhuja Qudratov, a merchant in the Kulob bazaar, confirms that local officials recently met with her and other female workers at the bazaar and instructed them not to wear Islamic clothes.

But Tohir Odinaev, the deputy head of Kulob’s main bazaar, says officials merely advised women to wear «national» clothes and did not say that anything is mandatory.

IRP members criticize the recent actions and say such polarizing approaches play into the hands of Islamic extremists.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Tajik_Pressure_Said_To_Be_Growing_Over_Islamic_Dress/2160501.html

Dozens of Tajik students, professors, and scholars were taken off a Tehran-bound plane at Dushanbe’s airport as they were traveling to Iran on various religious education programs, officials in Dushanbe have said.

Officials removed the group from the plane on September 4, but did not publicly comment on the issue until today.

Education Ministry officials said the authorities had acted because they did not have enough information about the aim of the trip to Iran.

Rajabali Sangov, head of the ministry’s department of international relations, told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service that the ministry received a vague letter from the Iranian Embassy in Dushanbe informing them that 71 Tajik students and professors, among others, were traveling to Iran to undergo short-term educational courses.

He said the letter came only the day before the group was planning to get on a flight to Tehran. Sangov said the ministry found out that none of the group had official permission from the relevant authorities to leave their studies or jobs to go abroad.

«If they were indeed going with educational programs, why didn’t they inform the Education Ministry about their plans?» Sangov asked.

«After all, the ministry is in charge of educational matters and projects in Tajikistan. Besides, most of them are students and teachers and they were going away at the beginning of the academic year,» he added.

«They should have informed education officials that they were going to be absent for some time. They were to spend one month in Iran, and we don’t know what exactly they would study there.»

‘Bring Them Home’

It’s not the first time Tajik officials have stopped students from traveling abroad to study at foreign religious schools.

Late last month, the ministry canceled its earlier decision to send 10 Tajik students to Pakistani madrasahs, citing «technical» reasons and a «lack of clarity» in their learning programs.

The moves came days after President Emomali Rahmon urged parents to remove their children from foreign madrasahs.
During a trip to southern Khatlon province shortly before the new academic year started, Rahmon said foreign madrasah graduates could pose security threats to the country.

«We have opened our own religious university, and we prepare our mullahs right here,» Rahmon said, and implored parents to bring any of their children studying abroad home, «otherwise the majority of them would turn into extremists and terrorists in five, 10 years time.»

«They don’t only study religion there,» the president said. «They will come back and create problems for the nation and government.»

Religious Renaissance

People in the predominantly Muslim country have attained considerable religious freedom since the collapse of communism nearly two decades ago.

Tens of thousands of mosques have been built, thousands of Muslims have been given an opportunity to perform the hajj pilgrimage each year, and major celebrations in the Islamic calendar have been approved by the government as public holidays.

At least 20 official Islamic madrasahs and an Islamic university operate in the country. In addition, hundreds more students attend religious schools in countries like Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

However, Rahmon’s secular government has come under criticism in recent years for restricting Islamic practices.

Security and law enforcement agencies have conducted raids on mosques and private houses to prevent mullahs from running unsanctioned religious classes. Officials have outlawed the Islamic head scarf, or hijab, in schools and public offices.

And this week, Tajikistan’s Council of Islamic Ulema, a pro-government independent religious body, urged imams not to call children and students for prayers in mosques.

The council insists its only aim is not to harm school attendance, as some prayers take place during school hours. Yet the call has outraged some imams, who say the authorities are unhappy with the steadily increasing number of children turning up for mosque prayers.

Importing Extremism?

The authorities have repeatedly highlighted the threat of extremism and terrorism posed by graduates of foreign religious schools, notably by those who attend unofficial madrasahs.

Authorities say officially 2,000 Tajiks are studying at foreign madrasahs through educational grants and quotas, and intergovernmental agreements.

But regional media estimate that several thousand more students have been sent privately to foreign religious schools. An estimated 4,000 Tajiks reportedly study in Pakistani madrasahs alone.

Tajikistan’s embassy in Islamabad has repeatedly expressed its concern that some of the students have ended up in underground schools run by extremist groups.

Tajikistan has banned a number of religious groups, including the Salafi movement, which the government claims is being run by foreign madrasah graduates with radical ideas.

Many such graduates, however, insist the authorities’ fears are baseless.

Dushanbe resident Said Muhammad Ghozi says he studied in a madrasah in Pakistan along with his four brothers in the 1990s. Now his sons and several of his nephews study at the same religious school.

«We didn’t study anything remotely radical there,» Ghozi said. «Our educational program solely focused on Islam and also on computer studies.»

Many others in Tajikistan, however, share the government’s concerns.

Abdullo Rahnamo, a Dushanbe-based analyst of religious and social issues, says that unfortunately, there have been real security threats posed by graduates of foreign schools, particularly those who attend underground schools, and promote the ideas of different religious sects upon their return.

RFE/RL’s Tajik Service contributed to this report

Farangis Najibullah, RFE/RL

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/Tajiks_Stopped_From_Traveling_to_Iran_Pakistan_For_Religious_Courses/21

There’s an interesting post on neweurasia.net by Annasoltan about Turkmenistan banning a popular social-networking site, agent.mail.ru.

There’s uproar among the youth in Turkmenistan today after the government decided to ban the popular social networking site, agent.mail.ru. Currently, it’s inaccessible via both TM Cell and MTS (about whom I’ve reported before.) The website had eventually experienced a small surge in Turkmen users, especially young men and women who used it to get to know each other.

It’s an open secret that one of the main purposes of agent.mail.ru is dating. The site certainly facilitates meeting potential partners: just type in the city, gender, and age in the search engine, and within only a few seconds, voila! Lovely, smiling faces appear. You can even find young women in bikini shots or Odalisque poses — some as young as 16! Another big advantage is the availability of chat rooms, which are easy even for the less techno-savvy to use, and is cheaper in the long run than mobile phones.

Under President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, Turkmenistan has become the land of gestures. A statue is dismantled. The circus is allowed back in town. Internet for everyone, as long as you can afford the high prices and are in one of the few places that offers it. But substantively, Berdymukhammedov has not really differentiated himself from his more colorful predecessor, Turkmenbashi.

Perhaps the worrying part is here:

While the ban has been deplored by its users, it’s also been hailed by some older Turkmens (and non-users) as a welcome move. They have legitimate fears about the spread of child pornography and internet addiction. These are real problems, and exactly because the internet does not regulate itself, it’s reasonable that government must therefore do the regulation. They also see something else — a threat to traditions.

We’re going to see this more and more. Repressive governments using arguments about tradition (culture X isn’t compatible with the Internet) or populist crusades against pornography, to justify their Internet crackdowns.

According to Annasoltan’s post, while it doesn’t look like this ban was overtly because of political reasons, it is following a pattern: Facebook and YouTube have already been banned in Turkmenistan. Even though the site might have just been used for dating, it was a public space the government didn’t control — and they don’t like that. Although at least Annasoltan does say that already young Turkmens are turning to other social-networking sites.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Another_SocialNetworking_Site_Banned_In_Turkmenistan/2146645.html