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

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

On August 26, police in Almaty detained a group of journalists and kept them at a police station for three hours without any explanation, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.

The correspondents from RFE/RL and the local newspapers «Alash ainasy,» «Ush qiyan,» «Dorozhny patrul,» and «Orda KZ» were detained as they attempted to attend the trial of an alleged leader of a religious group that has been branded extremist.

The Almaly district court in Almaty is trying a leader of the NGO Senim-Bilim-Omir (Trust-Knowledge-Life), a Sufi group. No details of the case have been made public.

RFE/RL correspondent Kuanyshbek Kari says the police demanded written explanations for why the journalists wanted to attend the trial, searched their professional equipment and personal belongings, and took their pictures and fingerprints.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Kazakh_Journalists_Covering_Sufi_Trial_Briefly_Detained/2138132.html

DUSHANBE — The president of Tajikistan has asked parents of students attending religious schools abroad to bring their children back home, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.

Emomali Rahmon made the call via state-run Tajik TV’s First Channel during a meeting on August 25 with residents of Farkhor district in the southern province of Khatlon, which borders Afghanistan.

The president requested that students go to study religion within Tajikistan instead, because those studying abroad «are all becoming terrorists and extremists.»

He added that there were functioning government religious schools and that it would be better that students study in these schools or be sent abroad, as long as they have the permission and regulation of the Committee for Religious Affairs.

Rahmon’s comments come as authorities continue to hunt for 25 Islamic militants who staged a brazen prison breakout in Dushanbe on August 23.

Officially, some 2,000 Tajiks are currently studying at religious schools in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and Pakistan, though the actual number is thought to be higher.

Abdulloh Rahnamo, a theologian with the Strategic Analytical Center at the office of the president, says that he agrees with the president’s request and that it is the ideas of graduates from foreign religious schools and madrasahs that bring about religious and security problems.

«Unfortunately, experience shows that — along with the science of religion — concepts, ideology or political or religious views also develop,» Rahnamo says. «We cannot condemn any of these beliefs, thoughts, or schools of thought or political rule, however, the social environment of Tajikistan is of one religion and therefore the wanted or unwanted entrance of a non-Hanafi religion into this environment will cause a dispute.»

He adds, however, that the level of religious teaching within Tajikistan is not equal to that of foreign schools.

But independent expert Mahmud Latifi says that the attendance of Tajik students at foreign religious schools is not a problem if they are under the supervision of diplomatic representatives of Tajikistan.

He said that in all foreign countries, including Western countries, there are foreign ideas and that if Tajik students are taught to be patriotic and know themselves they will not adopt radical foreign ideas.

Tajikistan keeps a tight rein on all forms of religion, and has banned at least two religious groups that are not of the Hanafi branch of Sunni Islam — the Salafi and Jamoai Tabligh movements.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Tajikistan_Urges_Parents_To_Recall_Children_From_Foreign_Religious_Scho