DUSHANBE — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has used her first official visit to Tajikistan to reach out directly to the Tajik people and stress U.S. concerns over religious and other rights there.

Speaking to a gathering of intellectuals in Dushanbe before meeting with top officials, Clinton addressed some of the most heartfelt concerns of her audience as she spoke of the importance Washington places on human rights.

«We strongly support the right of Tajik citizens to receive a decent education, to own land, to enjoy a free and independent media, to participate equally in the political process and enjoy all the universal rights that should be available to any man or woman,» Clinton said.

She also said that Washington «strongly believe[s] that fundamental freedoms, including religious freedom, should be protected for all people, young and old, men and women.»

Ownership of land and freedom of religion are among the most discussed aspects of life in Tajikistan, where human rights activists still wrestle with the country’s Soviet past.

Critics accuse the government of tolerating high levels of corruption among officials who use their position to appropriate private land and sell it for gain. The practice not only exacerbates an already critical housing shortage in Tajikistan. It also complicates the government’s own announced program to put more land into the hands of more ordinary citizens so they can farm it to ease the country’s chronic food shortages.

At the same time, the government puts strict limits on religion, with young people under the age of 18 and all women barred from praying in mosques. The secular government says young people are better served by attending school and that conditions in the mosques are not appropriate for both sexes to worship simultaneously. Many Tajiks, however, see the measures as intended to counter the return of religion to the traditionally Muslim country and prevent it from becoming a force for change.

But Clinton did not only speak about personal freedoms. She also spoke of the need for economic development in Tajikistan, one of the poorest of the ex-Soviet republics.

«We want to help increase economic opportunity here in Tajikistan so that so many of your people do not have to leave home to find work, that there can be a flourishing economy right here,» Clinton said. «Now we know that won’t happen overnight, barriers to trade have to come down, foreign investment must be attracted, so the United States is supporting what we are calling the New Silk Road, a network of transit and trade connections to open up new markets for raw materials and energy and agricultural products that can be traded among all the nations in your region.»

Out-migration of labor remains one of Tajikistan’s greatest problems as the domestic economy is unable to support all those who need to work. The most common destinations are Russia or neighboring Central Asian republics, where illegal migrants are frequently subjected to degrading treatment or slave-like working conditions.

Clinton said that critical to economic development are regional approaches that could help to solve Tajikistan’s chronic energy shortages in the winter time and lay a more reliable foundation for economic growth.

«We are working with the Agha Khan Development Network to support new energy, to build an integrated energy grid along the Tajik-Afghan border,» Clinton said. «We want to spur growth, create jobs, invigorate the private sector and fully integrate Tajikistan into the South and Central Asian economy.»

Many Tajiks say their energy problems are compounded by chronic political feuding between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, both of which hold resources the other wants. Tajikistan has ample water sources, while gas-rich Uzbekistan has ample energy. Regional efforts that could increase sharing between the two neighbors, as well as other countries in the region, could help ease the country’s current economic isolation.

Yet if concerns for personal freedom and economic opportunities dominated much of Clinton’s unprecedented townhall meeting in Dushanbe today, they were not the only subjects which elicited strong interest and periodic outbursts of applause from the audience. So did the sensitive question of women’s right in the still very traditional Tajik society.

Asked by a member of the audience whether she feels women have a right to participate in politics, Clinton reminded her listeners of her own personal story as a recent candidate for president in America.

«I think that woman should be given the opportunity to serve in government as officials and ministers,» Clinton said. «Many of you probably may remember I ran for president because I believe women should compete for all positions in the political system of their country. And it was a very hard fought election and President Obama defeated me but I then was proud to go work for him when he asked me to serve in his government. So, I think that it should be a question of personal choice.»

The town hall meeting was attended by several hundred citizens who crowded into the Cultural Center of Agha Khan in downtown Dushanbe to hear the top U.S. Secretary of State.

One attendee, Tajik journalist Abdugaffor Kamolov, told RFE/RL that the message he took home was one of self-empowerment.

«The message that I got from the meeting with the U.S. secretary of state is that all changes must begin within a person, no one else can bring these changes,» Kamolov said. «That is, we ourselves must build our country and our freedom, our independence by our own hands. Nobody will do it for us. Similarly, when you talk with the Americans, they always say that the freedom and independence which they have were created by the efforts of every American.»

Clinton was in Dushanbe as part of a regional tour that already has taken her to Afghanistan and Pakistan. She goes on to Uzbekistan today.

Rights activists have urged U.S. officials to maintain pressure on Uzbek President Islam Karimov to improve his administration’s poor rights record, which has included accusations of the routine torture of detainees and other grave offenses.

Before arriving in Tajikistan on October 21, Clinton visited Afghanistan and Pakistan to urge increased cooperation against militants responsible for attacks on U.S.-led targets in Afghanistan.

with additional agency reporting

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/clinton_pledges_us_support_human_rights_tajikistan/24367751.html

An important press-freedom case is reaching its conclusion in Tajikistan. Independent journalist Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov has been likened by colleagues to Robin Hood for his efforts to expose governmental corruption. Far from seeing him as a heroic figure, officials contend Ismoilov is a calumniator and want him locked up.

Prosecutors have asked a court in northern Sughd Province to give Ismoilov, a reporter for the independent Nuri Zindagi weekly, a 16-year sentence for insulting officials, defamation, and inciting ethnic tensions. The charges stem from a series of articles he wrote on high-level corruption in the province. Sentencing was scheduled for October 3, but the hearing was unexpectedly postponed. A journalist in Sughd said officials appear concerned by the attention the case has received in recent days.

Ismoilov, 51, has been in custody since November 2010. Watchdogs say his trial is designed to silence a government critic. His articles “were well within the bounds of responsible free expression,” Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a September 30 statement.

“Everything about this prosecution smacks of political revenge rather than normal judicial proceedings,” a RSF statement continued. “The sentence requested is out of all proportion to the charges against Ismoilov. … Although this journalist has been in provisional detention for more than 10 months, the investigators have still been unable to produce any convincing evidence for the charges against him.”

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), meanwhile, called the charges against Ismoilov preposterous. «The Tajik authorities are using the threat of prison to intimidate journalists and shield officials from public scrutiny,» CPJ said in a statement.

Media rights watchdogs have used the criminal case of a BBC journalist to help draw outside attention to Ismoilov’s case. Urinboy Usmonov of the BBC’s Uzbek-language service was arrested this summer and held for a month in Tajikistan for allegedly belonging to a banned Islamic radical group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
CPJ asserted the charge was “trumped-up,” and his arrest prompted a diplomatic outcry. In response, officials reduced the charges, and the journalist was released on bail. He still faces five years for reportedly having contact with Hizb-ut-Tahrir members. Security officials say Usmonov should have volunteered information he learned during his reporting. His lawyers say journalists are legally protected from revealing their sources.

Defamation and other criminal charges that effectively silence critical media are common in Tajikistan. In addition to facing the possibility of prison, journalists often have to contend with financially ruinous lawsuits and/or physical violence.

In September, Khurshed Atovullo, chief editor of the Farazh weekly, told EurasiaNet.org that a local official was demanding 500,000 somoni ($103,000) for “defamation” after he published an article criticizing the official’s Mercedes. In 2010, his paper was not allowed to use its regular print house in Dushanbe for several weeks after critically reporting on the government’s operations to rout suspected Islamist militants in the Rasht Valley. And on August 31, unidentified men assaulted Atovullo in Dushanbe. Though there is no proof that attack was related to his professional activities, his friends believe the episode was a warning. Atovullo almost died after an attack by unknown assailants in 1995.

In another case, in January a senior Interior Ministry’s official filed a lawsuit against the Asia-Plus weekly magazine, demanding 1 million somoni ($210,000) in moral compensation for “defaming a public official, his dignity and business reputation.” The suit arose out of an article published by the magazine that examined police torture in Sughd. The case is still pending.

Nargiz Zokirova, director of the Bureau of Human Rights and Rule of Law, a non-profit organization based in Dushanbe, said official harassment often succeeds in silencing Tajik journalists.

“One of the most popular periodicals in the country describes a serious problem, after which it is publically accused of cooperating with terrorists,” Zokirova said, referring to a threat the defense minister made last year when journalists criticized government’s operations in Rasht. “It serves as an example not to be followed by other journalists, a lesson to be learned. But in reality, it is an act of intimidation.”

Although Tajikistan has ratified multiple international treaties on human rights, defamation and the “insult” of government officials still remain criminal offenses. Freedom House ranks Tajikistan’s media environment as “not free.”

Observers say the two recent criminal cases expose a double standard. After extensive diplomatic pressure, Usmonov received a rare reduction in charges. Some experts say Usmonov’s association with the BBC was critical in generating international pressure on the government over the case. Independent journalists like Ismoilov, observers add, are far less likely to receive diplomatic assistance, which is effective with Tajikistan’s image-conscious authorities.

“Usmonov has been fortunate in that he can command global attention to his case due to his affiliation with a powerful international network; Ismoilov, obviously, cannot do the same,” wrote blogger “Alpharabius” on neweurasia.net on October 1. “Ismoilov is a soft target, and I suspect the steep sentence he’s facing is intended as either a test of international interest in local reporting and/or as a message to other ‘obscure’ journalists in Tajikistan.”

Editor’s note:
Konstantin Parshin is a freelance writer based in Tajikistan

Konstantin Parshin, EurasiaNet.org

Источник: http://www.eurasianet.org/node/64261

Prosecuting journalists for reporting on sensitive topics is shooting the messenger.

The trial of a BBC reporter accused of links to a banned Islamic group reflects a widely-held official attitude that the media should serve the interests of the state, and the state should define what those are.

The case of Urunboy Usmonov raises serious concerns about the vulnerability of journalists who report on issues that the authorities regard as off-limits unless coverage adheres to their unwritten rules of what is permissible, especially with regard to sensitive topics like Islamic extremism.
Usmonov, 59, is a correspondent for the BBC Central Asian Service in the northern Soghd region of Tajikistan. Arrested in June, he was originally charged with membership of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir and with making subversive statements.

Investigators were unable to make these charges stick, and when he went to trial in mid-August it was for “failure to report a crime” – in other words, for not passing on confidential contacts with Hizb ut-Tahrir to the police. But he is still being tried jointly with four alleged members of the group, despite the altered charges.

Usmonov denies the allegations, and the BBC has said it regards the charges as entirely unfounded. He told the court that his meetings and interviews with Hizb ut-Tahrir members conducted purely in his capacity as a journalist.

The case highlights a prevailing attitude among the law-enforcement agencies – some kinds of reporting are acceptable, but others are not, and it is the police who should be the final arbiters on such matters. In particular, the charges against Usmonov sends a clear signal that when the authorities ban a group like Hizb ut-Tahrir, reporting on it is banned as well, and anyone doing so risks being accused of endorsing the organisation.

That is a long way from the concept of media serving the public interest, unless it is the police themselves who define what that is.

Attempting to muzzle the media does not contribute to curbing extremism and violence. It is not, after all, media coverage of the activities of Islamic groups that spreads their ideology and encourages people to join them.
Many would agree with Abdufattoh Vohidov of the Independent Association of Media, who argues that if Usmonov is persecuted just for doing his job, other journalists will be deterred from reporting on sensitive issues and will lapse into self-censorship.

The international attention surrounding Usmonov’s trial may have contributed to the more serious initial charges against him being shelved, although prosecutors insist this was based on an assessment of the evidence to hand.
The case has certainly placed a dilemma before the Tajik authorities, particularly the Soghd regional branch of the State Committee for National Security. Despite the weight of international condemnation, it is hard for them to back down. They did reduce the charges, but an admission that he is innocent would prompt some hard questions about why the prosecution was brought in the first place.

Usmonov’s trial has been adjourned until his lawyer, who is currently abroad, can attend the proceedings. A verdict is expected at the beginning of October.

Lola Olimova is IWPR editor in Tajikistan.
The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of IWPR.

Lola Olimova, IWPR

Источник: iwpr

The five Central Asian states are marking 20 years of independence this year. The leaders of the five will use their independence days to speak of the great accomplishments they’ve made since the collapse of the Soviet Union — some genuine and some exaggerated.

But there are some events and names the presidents won’t be mentioning in the speeches, and I thought for the sake of balance I’d recall some of them.

Tajikistan celebrates 20 years of independence on September 9. President Emomali Rahmon, formerly Rakhmonov (explanation below), will undoubtedly be standing in Dushanbe, near the world’s biggest flagpole, flying the country’s flag, to recount Tajikistan’s achievements since 1991.

Unfortunately for Tajikistan and its citizens, the first 10 years were a period of intense violence and suffering, starting with the 1992-97 civil war.

Rahmon will probably not wish to recall that he became head of state after the country had three presidents between September 1991 and November 1992.
And Rahmon won’t want to remind Tajikistan’s people that leaders of the Popular Front — paramilitary groups essentially serving warlords — selected him to be speaker of parliament (effectively head of state at that time) at a meeting at the Urukhojayev state farm in Khujand in early November 1992. One Popular Front leader would later say that Rahmon, who had been the chairman of the Kulob provincial council, was only chosen because the group agreed he would be easy to dispense with once he had served his purpose.

With presidential elections due in 2013, this Independence Day is probably not the correct time to remember the 1994 election for the newly recreated post of president, when Rahmon won 60 percent of the vote and his opponent — Abdumalik Abdullojonov — won 35 percent, the closest presidential election in post-Soviet Central Asia’s history. And observers said the poll was rigged in Rahmon’s favor.

Rahmon is unlikely to mention the 1999 presidential election, either. For the first presidential election held after the end of the civil war, the OSCE, UN, and a number of individual countries made great efforts to help Tajikistan hold a poll that would restore the people’s confidence in government and put the civil-war days far behind. Instead, all three of Rahmon’s contenders withdrew less than one month before election day. In the end, Davlat Usmon of the Islamic Renaissance Party appeared on the ballot but said in interviews on election day that he was not a candidate.

The Tajik president will not speak of Dodojon Atavullo, a leading critic and the editor of the newspaper «Charoghi Ruz,» which was banned in Tajikistan. He’s been living in Moscow trying to organize the Tajik diaspora into an opposition movement.

Nor will Rahmon bring up the name Mahmud Khudaiberdiyev, the renegade colonel of the Tajik Army’s First Brigade who tried overthrow Rahmon — twice. Absent from Rahmon’s Independence Day speech will be any reference to First Brigade’s battle with the Eleventh Brigade in late 1995 and early 1996. Khudaiberdiyev defied Rahmon’s orders not to attack another army unit and after he achieved victory over the Eleventh Brigade Khudaiberdiyev was made deputy commander of the presidential guard.

There won’t be time for Rahmon to name any of the more than 100,000 people who were killed during the civil war or in the shaky reconciliation process that followed. But here are some names that should be remembered:

— UN observer Austrian Lieutenant Wolf Sponner, killed investigating a clash between the 1st and 11th brigades in September 1995.

— BBC journalist Muhiddin Olimpour, murdered in December 1995.

— ORT correspondent Viktor Nikulin, killed in March 1996.

— Tajikistan’s chief Mufti Fatkhullo Sharifzoda, shot dead along with three members of his family and a religious student in January 1996.

— Otakhon Latifi, a journalist by profession and former «Pravda» correspondent who became a leader of the democratic wing of the United Tajik Opposition, the group fighting Rahmon’s government, and later a leader in the reconciliation commission, shot dead outside his home in September 1998.

— French aid worker Karen Main, captured by a criminal group and killed in an attempted rescue in November 1997.

— UN military observers Richard Shevchuk of Poland, Adolfo Sherpegi of Uruguay, Yukata Akino of Japan, and driver-translator Jurajon Mahramov, stopped by gunmen on a remote mountain road and shot dead in July 1998.

Actually, no one in Tajikistan wants to remember those days.

Rahmon should thank international organizations and individual countries for providing aid to Tajikistan throughout the last 20 years.

But he won’t bring up the time in 2003 when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) discovered Tajikistan had obtained three loans worth $31.63 million based on false information. Or the time in early 2008 when the IMF said Tajikistan’s central bank provided misleading information about the country’s finances to receive $47.8 million in loans.

Rahmon won’t need to tell anyone in Tajikistan that in April 2007 he officially removed the Russian «-ov» from his name and became not Rakhmonov but Rahmon. But the Tajik president might not have noticed the slight alteration changed him into a moral and style guide.

He was President «Rahmon» for less than one week when he banned miniskirts and veils for female students. Before the end of that month he made clear he didn’t want Tajikistan’s citizens spending money on extravagant weddings or funerals. At the end of 2007 he said he didn’t like vehicles with steering wheels on the right-hand side. In 2008, students at the country’s Islamic university were prohibited from having beards and required to wear neckties on campus.

Lip-singing or recorded accompanying music were banned from live performances in May 2008.

And recently, minors have been banned from attending mosques and parents are legally responsible for ensuring their children do not cause any problems.

Modesty will prevent Rahmon from recalling he personally went to bandit country in eastern Tajikistan (Obigarm) in February 1997 to negotiate the release of hostages (UN workers, Russian journalists, a Red Cross worker and his security minister).

One thing sure to go unmentioned will be the «flag incident» of August 30. With great pomp and ceremony, the sort Rahmon prohibited his people from indulging in at weddings and funerals, a large flag was raised up the world’s biggest flagpole, in Dushanbe. The problem was that the flag did not unfurl properly, putting a damper on an otherwise spectacular event. Several people found themselves in a great deal of trouble for that.

Visit «Chaikhana» before Turkmenistan marks its 20th anniversary of independence on October 27. You won’t want to miss memories of Turkmenbashi and life under «Arkadag.»

Bruce Pannier, RFE/RL

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan_independence_celebrations_rahmon_history/24322679.html

Another journalist has come under pressure by the authorities in Tashkent, in a fashion that has become familiar to independent reporters who dare overstep boundaries set by officials.

Yelena Bondar, a 23-year-old freelance journalist and Uzbek citizen, faces misdemeanor charges of failing to fully declare goods upon her arrival at Tashkent’s international airport.

The airport’s customs department issued the following statement:

«During the search of Elena Bondar’s hand luggage, the following items were found that were not declared by her on the customs’ declaration form and also during verbal questioning: 3 DVDs, a compact disc, 4 memory sticks and 2 videocassettes.»

Bondar was briefly detained at the airport on August 22 upon her return from Bishkek, where she attended a journalism course organized for young Central Asian reporters by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

The journalist told local media that she was held for some four hours, during which border guards, customs officers, and other officials searched her luggage and confiscated the discs and memory sticks.

Bondar said she believes officials at the airport knew of her return from Bishkek and «were prepared» to find a pretext for detaining and questioning her.

A few days later, Bondar was summoned by officials, who questioned the reporter about her trip to Bishkek and the content of the 10-week journalism course.

«They asked whether we were taught how to organize velvet revolutions,» the journalist told ferghana.ru, an independent news site.

Bondar said she was asked to sign a pledge that she would not leave the country and was told that the content of information in the discs and memory cards was being analyzed by «experts.»

Bondar has said the information consists of several articles from regional papers, a draft of a video report on art, and a few photos taken in Bishkek.

The charge of failing to declare goods to customs officials carries a financial penalty, but this is not the main concern of Bondar and free-media advocates in Central Asia.

The way Bondar was detained, as well as the charges, are all too familiar to Uzbek journalists.

Umida Niyazova, an independent reporter, was questioned in a similar fashion at Tashkent airport in 2006 and accused of failing to declare her portable computer. Niyazova, too, was returning from an OSCE-sponsored seminar for Central Asian journalists in Bishkek.

She was subsequently sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of illegally entering the country, carrying contraband, and fostering unrest with the help of foreign funding. One week later, an appeals court upheld the verdict but suspended the sentence and she was released.

Last year, Umida Ahmedova, an Uzbek photographer and documentary filmmaker, had the content of her work «analyzed.»

Ahmedova was found guilty of slandering and insulting the Uzbek people for her depiction of the lives of ordinary people in Uzbekistan. Ahmedova, who faced up to three years’ imprisonment for the conviction, was granted amnesty.

Engaging in independent journalism comes at a high price in Uzbekistan, where the government has tightened its grip on the media, especially after its bloody response to the 2005 popular uprising in the eastern city of Andijon.

The situation led many leading Uzbek journalists, including Galima Bukharbaeva and Natalya Bushueva, to leave the country. Journalist Jamshid Karimov — a nephew of Uzbek President Islam Karimov — was placed in a psychiatric clinic for criticizing government policies.

The list of journalists persecuted by Uzbek authorities is long, and expanding.

The government has closed down the offices of international media organizations in Tashkent, including the BBC, Voice of America, and RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, among others.

Ferghana.ru, a news agency that employed Elena Bondar as a freelance contributor during her student years, has expressed concern over the authorities’ handling of Bondar.

Farangis Najibullah, RFE/RL

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/

Ever since social networks have come under greater scrutiny for their role in the Arab Spring — and indeed in the U.K. riots — repressive governments have been scrambling to find ways to rein in the unruly kids and their social networks.

Shutdowns aren’t always good things (except in times of crisis) as they generate bad headlines, so instead there has been a push from some governments to create their own sanitized networks. A new social network called Muloqot is being launched in Uzbekistan in conjunction with the state telecom monopoly. Muloqot can be translated as “dialogue” or “conversation”.

This from the Central Asia Newswire:

The Muloqot (“Dialogue”) web site will be available starting September 1, to coincide with the country’s 20th anniversary of independence.

The social network “will create conditions…for the formation of high morals, for creation of spurs to successful development of modern knowledge and achievements of technical progress, with objective of realization of the idea of the comprehensively developed person,” BBC News on Friday reported Uzbek authorities as saying.

In recent years, many young Uzbeks have gravitated toward global social networks, such as Facebook or Odnoklassniki. A reported 350,000-400,000 people a day use Odnoklassniki, whereas 85,000 people in Uzbekistan have signed up for Facebook, which has become a place where Uzbek opposition and human rights groups are active.

So how will Muloqot work? To register you need an Uzbek mobile phone number (so fewer interfering foreigners). The service, which is in the Uzbek and Russian languages, then sends you a text message, which you have three days to respond to, otherwise your account will be deleted.

The usability is clean, easy to navigate, and with all the usual social-networking functionality: messaging, chat, pictures, music uploads etc. With over half of Uzbekistan’s 7.7 million Internet users accessing through cell phones, the site is well-optimized for mobile.

Colleagues in RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service managed to register on the first day and post RFE/RL content (blocked in Uzbekistan) to a general Wall (at that point there were only about 400 users). Within 15 minutes, however, their profiles were deleted. Another RFE/RL staffer posted some comments praising the president’s daughter, Gulnara Karimova, and their profile has remained active.

But is it likely to catch on? A week after what seems to be a soft launch it has 1,700 users. Even in democracies, it’s not always easy to get young people to sign on to government-led projects, especially when they know they will be under the watchful eyes of the authorities.

But as the director of RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, Alisher Sidikov, points out, one advantage Muloqot will have is that it benefits from the state telecom monopoly. Sidikov says the authorities can attract users with free, fast services, including generous email storage and music and movies download. Above all, with the site’s sleek design and easy-to-use navigation, it looks like the government above all has understood that it needs to be competitive.

It is another manifestation of a broad trend I have followed on Tangled Web: the attempt to enclose the global commons of the Internet, often under the guise of protecting the moral health of the nation’s youth. (Some background in this post, “Cyber-Westphalia And Its Disruptors”)

There are plenty of precedents for what the Uzbek government is trying to do here. China is the gold standard in offering state-sponsored local-language social-networking services. Last year, the Vietnamese authorities followed suit and tried a similar thing with go.vn, a government-sponsored alternative to Facebook, the only catch being that users have to log in with their full names and government-issued identity numbers.

Iran is more explicitly linking the greater controls with a moral crusade by attempting to set up a “Halal Internet,” supposedly a sanitized worldwide network with content adhering to Islamic principles. The purity of Islam is probably the least of their worries here, but rather their perception of the dangers of what they see as the American-led, Twitter-powered Arab Spring.

What most worries activists in Uzbekistan, though, is that the launch of Muloqot is merely a prelude to a ban of Facebook, which represents the global connected society the Karimov regime is so afraid of. If there was such a ban, the Uzbek authorities would hope that instead of dealing with thousands of angry social-media-starved young people, they would all just pipe down and head on over to Muloqot.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan_launches_its_own_facebook_except_its_not_for_everyone/243089

The Tajik president, Emomali Rahmon, has recently been awarded «the highest European Cultural and Political Honor» by the European Council on International Relations (ECIR). In «a rare ceremony with academics, intellectuals, and political leaders,» the Tajik ambassador to the EU, Rustamjon Soliev, accepted the prize on behalf of his boss. Tajik state media was all over the story.

Not all, however, is what it seems. Very little is known about the European Council on International Relations (ECIR), not to be confused with the well-respected European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
On its website, the ECIR is described as «an independent, non-partisan, pan-European organization, known as European Union leading academic think tank.» But there is no telephone number, e-mail, or postal address for the organization even though it appears that it is operating out of Bucharest. It has no Brussels office, the Romanian EU embassy has never heard of it, and neither has any other EU diplomat or Brussels wonk that I spoke to.
On the website, the ECIR’s director, Professor Anton Caragea, explained that the prize was bestowed upon Rahmon because of Tajikistan’s sustainable economic growth, his investment in the country’s health, environment, and education sector and his transformation of «Tajikistan into a secure state, with safe borders.»
Others might disagree. Rahmon has ruled the poorest of the Central Asian republics with an iron grip since 1992. He and his family control most of Tajikistan’s big businesses and he has been accused of the usual human rights abuses: staged elections, torture of political opponents, and severe restrictions of media freedoms.
Getting comment from the ECIR has not proved to be easy. Caragea, the only person that seems connected to the ECIR, writes that he is an expert in international relations and history and the author of 300 articles. He is also a professor of Spiru Haret University in Bucharest, an institution described as «a diploma mill» by several Romanian journalists.

After two days of searching for his contact details, he seems to be as elusive as the organization he is heading. No mean feat considering that he is not only a member of the International Napoleonic Society but also was awarded the title “Man of The Year” in 2010 for organizing a summit on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Bucharest in 2010. That summit, which has the appearance of an official OSCE event, was co-sponsored by the Kazakh authorities. Regardless, it isn’t clear exactly who awarded him the “Man of The Year” title.

Caragea certainly likes his prizes. As a director of another think tank, the Institute of International Relations and Economic Cooperation of Romania, he awarded the “Man of the Year” title to Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov in 2010.
It’s a safe bet that it will be Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s turn next year.

Rikard Jozwiak, RFE/RL

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/tha_shady_think_tank_honoring_the_tajik_president/24302099.html

By Farangis Najibullah

President Emomali Rahmon was on a regional tour, and by all appearances it was cause for celebration in towns across Tajikistan.

Streets were hastily cleaned and adorned with billboards featuring giant portraits of the president. Blooming flowers were planted alongside busy roads.

Upon Rahmon’s arrival, he was welcomed in each town he visited this month by young children — girls clad in traditional dress and boys parading in starched-white shirts. They recited poetry comparing their leader to a revered 10th-century Tajik king, as well as legendary heroes.

A select few — hand-picked and invited to meet Rahmon — dutifully commended the «esteemed president’s» services to the nation.

Scratch the surface, however, and people have begun to complain that what the president sees during his tours of the regions is no more than a mirage, and has nothing to do with the realities of life in a poverty-stricken nation engulfed in unemployment and hopelessness.

Those who sought to discuss everyday issues with the president, however, were fended off.

Increasingly Inaccessible

«A group of intellectuals had been for months waiting to meet the president and they had concrete questions and problems to discuss with him,» says Shohin Ravshan, a journalist in the northwestern city of Panjakent. «But they were not allowed anywhere near Emomali Rahmon when he arrived in the town.»

«Regional officials were afraid these people would criticize them in front of the president or ask serious questions and demand answers.

«Recently, provincial Governor Qohir Rasulzoda visited Panjakent and this group challenged him with tough questions. Fearing the same scenario, they prevented Panjakent intellectuals from meeting Rahmon.»

Some accuse regional leaders of creating a false illusion of prosperity that prevents the president from getting an accurate picture of people’s lives.
While the president received the red-carpet treatment as he participated in ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new schools, hotels, markets, and cultural centers, regional officials made sure that access roads were blocked and cordoned off.

One could put this down to the need for greater security, but the efforts to keep the president completely inaccessible go beyond ordinary security arrangements.

In the southern town of Qurgon-Teppa, a girl called Mutabar desperately pleaded with city officials to let her speak to the president during his recent visit.

Mutabar, the teenage daughter of impoverished villagers in the southern Vakhsh district, claims she was raped by a high-ranking official two years ago. But police and court dismissed her complaint. Mutabar, who declined to give her full name, said she wanted to talk to the president because «no one else listens to me.»

She was sent away by police officers guarding the area, where the president was busy opening a new market and listening to flattering speeches followed by poetry readings.

Rahmon also took part in opening ceremonies for a string of other buildings and businesses, including a press center in Khujand, a five-star hotel, a nursery school and library in Qurgon-Teppa, and the Palace of Culture in the southern district of Bokhtar.

Behind The Facade

It is traditional for the president to participate in ribbon-cutting ceremonies while on regional tours. But locals half-jokingly note that many of the buildings or businesses are far from completion.

During a trip to the northern province of Sughd two years ago, for example, a cement factory was officially opened by Rahmon, but today it stands unfinished and unused.
Referring to the president’s most recent trip, local journalists say, only the facades and a few rooms of Khujand’s press center and Qurgon-Teppa’s nursery schools were completed.

It is what the president doesn’t see that has ordinary citizens worried. The impoverished nation of some 7 million people is plagued by widespread poverty, corruption, and unemployment that has forced nearly a million Tajiks to become migrant laborers in Russia.

Free speech and media are stifled by authorities intolerant of almost any criticism of government policies. Outspoken journalists have been sent to prison, prompting others to censor themselves.

And Rahmon — in power for nearly two decades — is virtually off-limits when is comes to public criticism. During the president’s latest trip to Khujand, journalists were invited to his meetings but were not given a chance to ask the president any questions.

«In the past, we could at least shout a question and the president would answer,» says a local journalist in Khujand, who didn’t want to give his name. «This time everything took place so swiftly under the watchful eyes of local officials.»

Who’s To Blame?

Despite the obstacles, a number of Tajik intellectuals have called on officials and state-run media not to prevent the president from seeing the scope of real-life problems among his people.

Mumin Qanoat, a prominent Tajik poet, warned against praising the president too much.

Even during routine reports and conversations, Rahmon is referred to as «his excellency» and as «esteemed president» by officials and state media. The president has in the past sought to forbid officials from bestowing him with flattering titles or pasting his portraits on city billboards.

«By sucking up to the president, those close to him are causing the president to become unaware of what is really going on in Tajikistan and the world,» Qanoat says.

Suhrob Sharifov, head of the presidential Strategic Research Center in Dushanbe, argues that sycophancy toward the president and trying to «please him» has become culturally ingrained in the country’s elite.

«It is the political elite’s way of showing their respect to the President,» he says. «During his trips to regions they try to keep him happy, as a sign of respect.»

Not everyone, however, is convinced that only officials are to blame. «If a person doesn’t like people sucking up to him, it’s not difficult to stop them,» says Mukhtor Boqizoda, an independent journalist. «It seems sycophants have melted his heart.»

RFE/RL’s Tajik Service contributed to this report

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/tajik_president_behind_the_facade/24298855.html

It’s a sunny day in central Bishkek as instructor Natasha Yefimova greets her small group of summer-school students, all young journalists from across Central Asia.

With some gentle prodding, she manages to get them animatedly discussing the subject of conflict, an issue that has a special resonance throughout the region.

From land and water disputes to last year’s ethnic clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan, many of the problems that plague Central Asia are the result of neighbors who see each other more as rivals than allies.

But institutions like the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, which co-funds the summer school along with German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, are trying to reverse that trend by providing rigorous educations for future politicians, entrepreneurs, and civil-society workers, while also encouraging them to think beyond their national borders by considering the Eurasian region in its entirety.

Yefimova’s class are undergoing an intensive 10-week program in which they study the basics of TV, print, and radio journalism, together with meaty issues like consumer rights, health, and the importance of local media.

The idea is to help these working journalists examine their responsibilities and rights as the newest generation of Central Asian news-gatherers.

As a center for specialized post-graduate studies based in the Kyrgyz capital, the OSCE Academy is part of a growing group of programs and institutions — including the University of Central Asia and the American University of Central Asia — that some observers are hoping will build a new generation of bright, engaged, and regionally minded Central Asians at a time when the post-Soviet Eurasian neighborhood is increasingly plagued by rising nationalism and ethnic resentment.
Now in its second year, much of what the summer school offers is strictly tool-kit journalism, which helps students learn how to write a reader-grabbing lead, for example, or when to trust a source.

But, according to Yefimova, much of the class’s value comes in the rare opportunity it offers Central Asians from across the disparate region to come together in a single room and begin looking beyond their usual borders.

«You had a girl from Tajikistan writing a story about the border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and how it affects regular people,» she says.

«A girl from Uzbekistan was writing about selective justice after the June events in Kyrgyzstan and how it was particularly hurtful for Uzbeks.

«Another Uzbek girl was writing about Uzbek-language schools in Kyrgyzstan. So there was this idea of trying to bring events in one of the Central Asian countries closer to your own home readership.»

Creeping Nationalism

The Soviet Union, with its «friendship of nations» ideal, created innumerable opportunities for its nationalities to mix, using universities, sports schools, and even the army to diversify its ranks and tamp down any creeping nationalism in the process.

The breakup of the USSR — which saw its genesis 20 years ago this week, with the failed coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — brought an abrupt end to the orchestrated cross-pollination.

In Central Asia, as elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc, many countries have spent the past two decades eagerly rebuilding a notion of national identity.

The results haven’t always been pretty. Border disputes and the uneven distribution of water and wealth have sabotaged ties between many of the neighbors, three of which — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan — are still lorded over by Soviet-era rulers eager to keep a lock on power. (A fourth, Turkmenistan, received its first post-Soviet leader in 2006, but has lost none of its repressive zeal.)

And it is Kyrgyzstan, once seen as the region’s sole emerging democracy, that in recent years has succumbed most dramatically to internal strife.

Last year’s clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the country’s south left more than 400 people dead and raised concerns about future violence in the restive Ferghana Valley, whose long-standing communities of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz do not always cleave to Soviet-drawn borders.

‘A Very Turbulent Neighborhood’

Anna Matveeva, a visiting fellow with the Crisis States Research Center at the London School of Economics, recently worked as head researcher for the international inquiry commission investigating the Kyrgyz clashes. She describes Central Asia as a troubled region destabilized by even more troubled neighbors:

«It’s a very turbulent neighborhood,» she says. «Afghanistan, Iran on the southern borders of the region, of course, cause a lot of apprehension among the Central Asian states.»

«Then there are historical claims to territory and identity, and new claims in terms of sharing resources. Everybody wants to have their share of the cake in terms of transit and transport fees.

«So that makes it very tense between the neighbors, especially the neighbors in the eastern part of Central Asia.»
But not everyone is feeling the tension. Savrinoz Fayzova, a 24-year-old native of Tajikistan, has traveled outside her native country for the first time to attend the summer school in Bishkek.

A freelancer back home for papers like «Vecherny Dushanbe» and «Digest Press,» Fayzova believes her studies abroad have given her a professional step up as well as personal insight into an entire region populated by people whose concerns, it turns out, aren’t all that different from her own:

«We have a lot in common,» she says. «Each of the countries has the same problem — access to information…[At the summer school] I could see that the laws and restrictions we have [in Tajikistan] were the same things they were facing in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan as well.»

Nurturing Post-Soviet Elites

The Central Asian states may be slow to push through political reforms. But in many cases, they have been eager to nurture their first generation of post-Soviet elites. Very often, this means sending their best and brightest abroad.

Energy-rich Kazakhstan, in particular, has poured massive resources into scholarship programs, sending thousands of students to the United States and Europe for undergraduate and graduate-level studies.

Such moves are seen as shaping a new, contemporary leadership class — something that may, through attrition, gently deliver reforms to Central Asia that its current rulers are reluctant to impose.

Such programs are designed to return students to their home countries armed with an internationally competitive skill set but nationally minded loyalties.

By contrast, institutions like the OSCE Academy — which was founded in Bishkek in 2002 through an agreement between the Kyrgyz government and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) — are hoping to instill their graduates with a commitment to democratic principles, which can be applied not only locally, but within the neighborhood as a whole.

Counterbalancing Nondemocratic Forces

Academy organizers say the school — which offers a master’s degree in political science, as well as professional training in areas like human rights and public policy — is meant to feed the region’s government and civil-society ranks.

In so doing, supporters say such centers may also act as a counterbalance to the rising influence of nondemocratic forces in Central Asia — including radical Islam, China, and — most worryingly, says Academy director Maksim Ryabkov — deepening nationalism:

«The region is divided, not only by economic and inherited divisions, but also by simply not knowing each other and perceiving each other as unfair rivals,» he says.

«So there’s a lot of prejudice against your neighbor. I hope and believe that by having many students from different countries together, we’re building an elite that doesn’t have these prejudices, that is capable of overcoming them and somehow counteracting this trend.»

The Academy is small, usually taking on just several dozen graduate students in any given year, some from as far away as Afghanistan and Poland. But its enjoys a high loyalty rate, with as many as 89 percent of its alumni remaining in Central Asia, many going on to hold positions in government or NGOs.

Some of the center’s most successful graduates include Zahidullah Jalali, who has gone on to work in Afghanistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry; Atajan Yazmuradov, a native of Turkmenistan who now works in the UN’s department of political affairs; and Dildora Hamidova, a project coordinator for a minority affairs NGO in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. (One Academy publication describes the center’s goal as helping to create «highly competent, trans-regional, democratically oriented, and inter-ethnically friendly» networks of elites.)

Some instructors at centers like the OSCE Academy and the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), another Bishkek-based school, admit that many students are lured by the draw of a good education and the potential for a successful career, as much as by higher principles of regional good works.

Jon Mahoney, an associate professor of philosophy who spent a semester teaching at AUCA on a Fulbright grant, maintains that many of his students were distinctly apolitical — a sign, he says, of the post-Soviet contempt for government that lingers in many Central Asian states.

But even as they balked at the notion of public service or a political career, Mahoney claims many of his students were troubled by increasing tensions between the states in the region, and the apparent unwillingness of their leaders to address it.

«I certainly get the impression that they have a sense that there’s an option for dealing with problems in Central Asia that isn’t being pursued,» he says, adding that the students realize this alternative approach is «detached from squabbles about ethnic identity or squabbles about regionalism or going back to some kind of nationalistic forms of identity.»

Pan-Eurasian Unity

Many students, meanwhile, have found their own ways of addressing the social and economic problems they see mounting in Central Asia.

Nadezhda Pak, an AUCA student in business administration, in 2010 helped found the Unity Fund, a humanitarian group focusing on child-welfare issues in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Pak, an ethnic Korean born in Uzbekistan, resettled in Kyrgyzstan as a teen. But she says it was her experience as a high school student while on a foreign exchange in the United States that made her aware of the importance of ethnic tolerance and diversity.

Until then, she says, she was focused on a career in business. But after living in the U.S., with its enormous mix of nationalities, she says she was deeply affected by the ethnic clashes in her own country last year.

The fund, which provides material aid and support to orphanages and children’s hospitals in the south, is almost entirely run by young volunteers from Central Asia, China, South Korea, Macedonia, Britain, and the United States.

Pak, who is currently completing a work-exchange program in the southern U.S. state of Georgia, maintains that while the Unity Fund got its start in Kyrgyzstan, it hopes to broaden its reach to include countries like Afghanistan in the near future:

«Our fund is really diverse,» she says. «The co-founders are from Kyrgyzstan and from China. The girl from China is one of the most motivating people in our fund.»
«We’re just a group of people who couldn’t stand aside and just be indifferent to things. I couldn’t say it’s because of the nationality thing in particular; it’s just the personality of each person.»

Efforts to forge a kind of pan-Eurasian unity raise difficult questions at a time when many post-Soviet citizens feel that after 70 years in the USSR, they have finally earned the right to put national concerns before regional or even global ones.

It’s a conundrum that Bakyt Omurzakov, a Kyrgyz studying international affairs as a Muskie fellow in the United States, understands perfectly. At 36, Omurzakov — who hopes to work on migration and development issues once he returns home — is both old enough to recollect a time when his identity was not Kyrgyz or Central Asian, but Soviet:

«[E]veryone — not only Kyrgyz, but all nationalities, all ethnicities — thought of themselves as Soviet people,» he says. «There was no southern Kyrgyz, northern Kyrgyz, or any of these other minorities and ethnicities. Our identity was pretty much determined for us.»

Omurzakov, who hopes to receive his master’s in political science from Kansas State University this December, says he also remembers the joy he felt at being free to explore Kyrgyzstan’s rich history once the Soviet Union collapsed.

«Our minds and our vision changed completely with independence,» he says. But at the same time, he claims that many of the Kazakh, Tajik and Uzbek students he has encountered during his studies agree on the importance of moving toward better cooperation between the Central Asian states. «We need it,» he says. «Everyone feels it.»

Kubat Kasymbekov of RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service contributed to this report from Bishkek

By Daisy Sindelar, RFE/RL

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/building_a_new_generation_of_central_asians_to_remedy_regional_ills/242

By Yovshan Annagurban

During March’s Norouz celebrations in Tehran, when Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov’s received a two-seater airplane from his Iranian counterpart, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Jumageldi Mulkiyev made some odd scenes.

Upon the editor in chief of «Turkmen World’s» return from Iran, Mulkiyev was dismissed from his position and put into a psychiatric hospital in Ashgabat. He was then released after eight days.

At the time, 80-year-old pensioner and civic activist Amangelen Shapudakov was already sitting in another psychiatric hospital. Fortunately, thanks to international pressure, he was released after 43 days. According to his account, doctors did not force him to take any medication. But, when he returned home, several elders and the local village leader’s father came to his house to tell him to stop criticizing the authorities.

Both cases are demonstrative of a tried and true tactic of the Turkmen regime: sending critics to mental institutions.

Although both of the above incidents appear politically motivated, Mulkiyev’s «madness» is a bit different. He did not try to form a political party or criticize the government. To the contrary, he was a loyal adherent of former President Saparmurat Niyazov’s personality cult, becoming editor in chief of «Turkmen World» in the process. But it seems that he made a grave mistake in publishing his historical novels.

Under Niyazov, the publishing of Turkmen writers ceased completely because only one book was promoted, Niyazov’s own «Ruhnama» (Book of the Soul). However, thanks to his successor’s repeated demands for more readable books, Mulkiyev became one of the first writers to be published after the death of Niyazov in 2006. Nevertheless, one never knows what might trigger trouble in a lawless country.

Deputy Prime Minister Maysa Yazmuhammedova threatened Mulkiyev by saying that «he first got paid by publishing his novels in a state journal, and then later made money by publishing them in a state publishing house, and that his eyes will be opened in prison.»

According to Mulkiyev’s former colleague, after hearing this, he couldn’t sleep and made «madman’s» gestures during the Norouz celebration in Tehran. Some others say that Mulkiyev might have feigned insanity in order to avoid being sent to prison. After his release from the psychiatric hospital in Ashgabat, according to local journalists, Mulkiyev was taken to Mary province by his relatives to rest. As a Turkmen saying goes, «Stay away from the kicker» or «Bail out your head from the bad.»

Little Room For Dissent

Shapudakov has a different story. He traveled to Ashgabat to complain to the Interior Ministry about local corruption. As he told RFE/RL, police officers in the Kopetdag district of Ashgabat beat him up, drove him back to his home village of Garrygala, and told him that if he returned to Ashgabat again, worse would happen to him.

Sazak Durdymyradov, a civic activist from Baherden and the leader of the unregistered Advantage Party, was also forcibly put into a psychiatric hospital for two weeks in 2008.

Shapudakov and Durdymyradov, two «inconvenient» people, are known to international human rights groups, as they have been held in mental institutions for voicing their criticism ever since Berdymukhammedov came to power over four years ago. However, because Turkmenistan is a closed country, there are cases where people put into mental institutions or imprisoned for their opinions go unnoticed.

One such instance is that of Nurmuhammed Agaev from the Kahka district, who has been held in a psychiatric hospital in Boynuzyn since 2006. The reason for his detainment was selling radio receivers that receive RFE/RL signals. One day, a man approached Agaev in the bazaar, asking for such radio receivers. When Agaev replied that he sold them, he was immediately taken to a madhouse.

The case of 69-year-old pensioner Kakabay Tejenov’s case is another untold story. On January 4, 2006, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for writing critical letters to the government. However, the following month, the Turkmen delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe claimed in a statement that Tejenov «has never been detained and he is not confined in any medical institution.»

This assertion was contradicted, however, when Gurbandurdy Durdygulyyev, another outspoken critic of the government, was released from the psychiatric hospital in Boynuzyn on April 11, 2006, and revealed that Tejenov was indeed being held there. (When Tejenov was released, he told RFE/RL that, as a side effect of medications he was given, his urinary tract was blocked and he was forced to undergo surgery at a urology department of the hospital in Turkmenaba).

Durdygulyyev had been forcibly confined to a psychiatric hospital in 2004, after asking President Niyazov for authorization to hold a peaceful political demonstration. He was only released after 54 U.S. congressmen wrote an open letter to Niyazov protesting his imprisonment.

…Or Political Opposition

The carting off of political dissidents to mental hospitals is not something that started with the detainment of Durdygulyyev seven years ago. In the mid-1990’s, Niyazov twice committed a senior teacher of Turkmenistan’s Polytechnic Institute, Durdymyrad Hojamuhammedov, to a psychiatric hospital.

Hojamuhammedov was the co-chairman of the Democratic Party, which attempted to gain official recognition in 1991 soon after Turkmenistan became independent. Hojamuhammedov’s second stay in hospital abruptly ended in April 1998, just before an official visit by Niyazov to the United States. At the same time, however, the Turkmen government was holding other dissidents such as Meretmuhammed Berdiyev, Valentin Kopisev, and Rufina Arabaova in psychiatric hospitals as well.

The other leader of the unregistered Democratic Party, Handurdy Hangeldiyev, had been put into a psychiatric hospital in 1982 for criticizing the government and the ruling Communist Party. But he was released three months later upon the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Hangeldiyev’s freedom, however, did not last for more than a week, as he was recommitted to the hospital after criticizing the appointment of a local party official in the Gazanjyk district.

Hangeldiyev was told that the appointment was made not because of party machinations but because the «people had spoken.» Hangeldiyev replied: «Gazanjyk is my birthplace. If I start a campaign, perhaps people will elect me.» For this, was put back into a psychiatric hospital, and released after a month.

After his second release, he focused on writing scientific papers. However, he didn’t get a chance to defend his dissertation due to political obstacles that the authorities put in front of him. When he wrote complaints to the Kremlin, he was confined to a psychiatric hospital for a third time. Doctors released him after four months with a final warning that if he continued to dissent, he would be sent to a more rigorous mental institution in Tashkent.

Ultimately, Niyazov did not allow the recognition of Hojamuhammedov’s and Hangeldiyevs’s Democratic Party. But he borrowed one idea from them, renaming Turkmenistan’s Communist Party the Democratic Party and bestowing membership on almost all former communists.

‘A Home For The Sane’

In 1984, a young colleague of mine published a collection of poems by Annasoltan Kekilowa, who had been forcibly put into a psychiatric hospital, and where she passed away 12 years into her institutionalization. In the book, he presented a note written by doctors at the hospital: «The patient recovered, stopped writing complaints, and admitted that her former thoughts about our party’s mistaken policies and her involvement in politics were due to her own health issues.»

My old colleagues tell me that in the 1960s, another Turkmen poet also faced this kind of death. Payzy Orazov attempted to form the People’s Party and was consequently imprisoned in Moscow’s Butyrka prison. His rescue came in the publishing of a poem titled «Long Live Castro» in the «Izvestia» daily. In truth, he was released with the support of the editor in chief of «Izvestia» at the time, Aleksei Adzhubei (Nikita Khrushchev’s son-in-law). But he was subsequently put into a psychiatric hospital in Turkmenistan. Orazov ultimately had to move to Tajikistan after being released.

Finally, there is the case of Bazargeldi and Aydjemal Berdiyev, who got rich in the construction business and consequently attracted the attention of the regime. In late 1998, they were unlawfully detained, beaten, and their assets were unlawfully confiscated. Aydjemal, who was pregnant, suffered a miscarriage. Their search for justice, and their battle to retrieve their property, resulted in Aydjemal being placed into a psychiatric hospital as a result of her interview with RFE/RL.

Paradoxically, Turkmenistan’s mental institutions have become a home for the sane.

Yovshan Annagurban is a broadcaster with RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service. The views expressed in this commentary are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/commentary_short_distance_sanity_madness_turkmenistan/24280051.html