Kyrgyzstan must investigate death threats against human rights defender Kamilzhan Ruziev instead of harassing him for making complaints against the police, said Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders “It is extremely disturbing that authorities began laying criminal charges against Mr. Ruziev after he exposed police torture and ineffectiveness, when they should actually be investigating the death threats made against him,”
As director of the non-governmental human rights organisation Ventus, Ruziev defends victims of torture, domestic violence, and discrimination. In 2019, a police investigator, whom Ruziev exposed for committing torture, reportedly threatened to kill him. When the State Committee for National Security and the Prosecutor’s Office failed to investigate the threats, Ruziev took them to court, only to find himself facing seven criminal charges.
“Kyrgyz authorities must give Mr. Ruziev a fair trial and effectively investigate all allegations of threats and ill-treatment against him and other human rights defenders,” she said. The next hearing on Mr. Ruziev’s case will be on 11 November 2021.
Lawlor said she was also disturbed by reports that Mr. Ruziev was ill-treated while held in detention for 48 hours in May 2020, and denied access to his lawyer.
“Now I hear that his health is deteriorating, and complaints to the authorities about violations committed against him continue to fall on deaf ears,” she added.
In a report to the Human Rights Council earlier this year on threats and killings of human rights defenders, Lawlor warned: “when a human rights defender receives death threats, swift action must be taken to prevent the threats from escalating. Impunity fuels more murders.”
Lawlor is in contact with the authorities of Kyrgyzstan on this issue, and stressed that “Kyrgyzstan must do better to safeguard the environment for human rights defenders to carry out their work.”
New York, November 9, 2021 – Kyrgyz authorities should retract a recently devised bill increasing state control over the country’s public broadcaster and instead enact changes to safeguard the corporation’s editorial independence, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
On October 29, 15 prominent media representatives and advocacy groups issued a statement calling on Kyrgyzstan’s Cabinet of Ministers and Ministry of Culture to withdraw a draft law on OTRK, the state-funded broadcaster, according to the group’s statement and newsreports.
The bill, “On the Kyrgyz Broadcasting Corporation,” has not been made publicly available but CPJ has reviewed a copy. The draft proposes altering the corporation’s official status from a “public television channel” to a “national state agency.”
As part of the changes, the broadcaster’s supervisory council, partially nominated by non-governmental organizations drawn from civil society, would be abolished, meaning the corporation’s general director will be appointed by the Kyrgyzstan president instead of the council.
The media representatives and organizations argue that these measures will remove public control over the broadcaster’s operations and legitimize “unlimited political interference” in its editorial policy.
“Proposals to grant the president the right to appoint the head of Kyrgyzstan’s state-funded broadcaster are deeply concerning and should be discarded at once,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “While recognizing OTRK’s current shortcomings, the bill’s solutions run in entirely the wrong direction, and threaten to undermine journalistic freedom and ensure that the corporation will be nothing but a mouthpiece for state propaganda.”
Kyrgyzstan’s public broadcaster OTRK is the country’s largest and most watched television network, broadcasting on six television channels covering news, culture, sport and children’s TV, and five radio channels, according to newsreports.
The corporation’s status was first altered from a “state” to a “public” broadcaster following Kyrgyzstan’s April Revolution in 2010, when the new authorities wanted to create a more politically impartial state-funded TV. Its 15-member supervisory council was given wide oversight powers over editorial policy and budgetary matters. Under current law, five council members are nominated by the Kyrgyzstan president, five by parliament, and five by civil society groups. The members serve for five years and elect the general director every four years.
Despite the initial success of the reforms, OTRK is frequently criticized inside Kyrgyzstan for alleged unobjective coverage and spreading state propaganda, according to newsreports.
Under the new bill, the general director will be appointed by the Kyrgyzstan president at the nomination of the Ministry of Culture, although the law does not specify a set process. The statement from the 15 media representatives and organizations argues this will replace the transparency and competitiveness of the current appointment procedure with one closed to public scrutiny.
Media representatives fear the changes will grant the president increased power to interfere in broadcast content. Altynai Isaeva, a lawyer at the local independent media advocacy organization Media Policy Institute, told U.S. Congress-funded Current Time TV that under the proposed reform, the broadcaster’s editorial policy will be “totally dependent on [President Sadyr Japarov].”
Kyrgyz officials have given various explanations for the proposed changes. At a press conference on October 23, Japarov stated that reform was necessary because OTRK currently works in the interests of the supervisory council rather than the state and that the corporation ought to broadcast “national ideology.”
In their statement, the media representatives write that, although OTRK today has not become a de facto “public” broadcaster, “this says more about a lack of political will among the country’s leadership, which continues to interfere in the television station’s editorial policy,” and that the answer should instead be to provide reforms that bolster the corporation’s independence from the state.
Proposed changes to OTRK’s status are part of a wider process of legal reform that began with Japarov’s decree in February this year to review over 350 laws, reports stated. Authorities announced plans to revise three other key media laws, including the laws “On Mass Media” and “On Protecting the Professional Activity of the Journalist,” but the Justice Ministry promised to avoid making major changes to these laws for the time being following an appeal by media groups, Nurbek Sydykov, a lawyer with Media Policy Institute, told CPJ by messaging app.
The present drafts of these laws propose only insignificant alterations, Sydykov said.
CPJ emailed the Cabinet of Ministers and the office of the presidency of Kyrgyzstan and called the Ministry of Culture for comment but did not receive any replies.
At least 12,000 women are still abducted and forced into marriage every year in Kyrgyzstan. But pressure is growing to finally end the medieval custom
Aisuluu was returning home after spending the afternoon with her aunt in the village of At-Bashy, not far from the Torugart crossing into China. “It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday. I had a paper bag full of samsa [a dough dumpling stuffed with lamb, parsley and onion]. My aunt always prepared them on weekends,” she said.
“A car with four men inside comes in the opposite direction to mine. And all of a sudden it … turns around and, within a few seconds, comes up beside me. One of the guys in the back gets out, yanks me and pushes me inside the car. I drop all the samsa on the pavement. I scream, I squirm, I cry, but there is nothing I can do.”
At least 12,000 women are still abducted and forced into marriage every year in Kyrgyzstan. But pressure is growing to finally end the medieval custom
Aisuluu was returning home after spending the afternoon with her aunt in the village of At-Bashy, not far from the Torugart crossing into China. “It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday. I had a paper bag full of samsa [a dough dumpling stuffed with lamb, parsley and onion]. My aunt always prepared them on weekends,” she said.
“A car with four men inside comes in the opposite direction to mine. And all of a sudden it … turns around and, within a few seconds, comes up beside me. One of the guys in the back gets out, yanks me and pushes me inside the car. I drop all the samsa on the pavement. I scream, I squirm, I cry, but there is nothing I can do.”
On 12 August 2021 Front Line Defenders came out with an unique report saying rights defenders working in sex industry face ‘targeted attacks’ around the world. The same day Sarah Johnson devoted a piece to it in the Guardian:
Sex worker rights defenders from Yosoa in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Yosoa do health outreach work and provide support after police, client or family violence. Photograph: Erin Kilbride/Front Line DefendersRights and freedom is supported by
Sex worker activists are among the most at risk defenders of human rights in the world, facing multiple threats and violent attacks, an extensive investigation has found.
The research, published today by human rights organisation Front Line Defenders, found that their visibility as sex workers who are advocates for their communities’ rights makes them more vulnerable to the violations routinely suffered by sex workers. In addition, they face unique, targeted abuse for their human rights work.
Drawing on the experience of 300 individuals in Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan, El Salvador and Myanmar, the report focuses oncases of sexual assault, threats from managers and clients, raids on homes and offices, physical attacks and police surveillance endured by sex workers undertaking human rights work.
The services the activists provide to fellow sex workers include: negotiating access to brothels, conducting gender rights training, offering legal and health counselling, reporting experiences of violence, and campaigning for freedom of movement and free choice of employment for those seeking to leave sex work.
Erin Kilbride, research and visibility coordinator at Front Line Defenders and lead author of the report, said: “Sex worker rights defenders take extreme personal risks to protect their communities’ rights to access justice, healthcare, housing and food, while responding to the immediate threats of police and domestic violence, discrimination, criminalisation and structural poverty.”
Often these activists were the only people able and willing to provide health education in locations in which sex was sold, the report found. They ensured treatment for sex workers who would otherwise be left with crippling injuries and life-threatening illnesses.
Activists’ role in creating community networks and defending sex workers’ right to assemble were also highlighted in the repot. “Coming together, even in private, is a radical, resistant, and dangerous act for defenders whose very identities are criminalised,” it said.
Defenders interviewed said they had been subjected to violations above and beyond what are typical for sex workers in their area. These included torture in prison, threats by name on the street, targeted abuse on social media and demands for sex in exchange for an advocacy meeting with a police commissioner. They also faced attacks from clients….
In Tanzania, sexual assaults in detention by the police have become a common occurrence for sex workers. They are often forced to perform sex acts in exchange for release. But human rights defenders have also been forced to perform sexual acts in order to secure other sex workers’ release. If they refuse, they are often tortured. One woman was given electric shocks after she refused to perform sex acts during a one-week detention related to her human rights work.
In El Salvador and other countries, physical attacks by clients and managers began after they learned about a sex worker’s activism, said the report.
In Myanmar, police followed activists to brothels to conduct raids duringhuman rights trainings. Some activists had been forced to change where they sell sex because police surveillance increased after they became known for their human rights work.Advertisement
Activists were often belittled at police stations in front of the sex workers they had tried to help. Htut, an outreach worker for Aye Myanmar Association, a network of sex workers, said: “[The police] let us in to the stations but then use rude words, take money from us, insult us, embarrass us, and made me feel bad about myself. It feels like they want to prove to the other sex workers that being an advocate is a humiliating thing.”
In Kyrgyzstan, sex workers have been paid or threatened by the police to help entrap rights defenders when they go to an area to distribute health supplies.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that sex worker activists have been under threat for their human rights work, much of it is dismissed by people ranging from the police to their own families, who assume such attacks are a result of being a sex worker.
Kilbride said: “Human rights defenders who are sex workers themselves are the best, and sometimes the only, activists and communities workers qualified and capable of accessing the most dangerous locations in which people sell sex.
“The targeted attacks they experience – ranging from sexual assault in detention to raids on their homes and offices – are indicators of how powerful their human rights work is.”
Sex worker activists are among the most at risk defenders of human rights in the world, facing multiple threats and violent attacks, an extensive investigation has found.
The research, published today by human rights organisation Front Line Defenders, found that their visibility as sex workers who are advocates for their communities’ rights makes them more vulnerable to the violations routinely suffered by sex workers. In addition, they face unique, targeted abuse for their human rights work.
Philippe Dam, Advocacy Director, Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, on 2 June 2O21, writes aavout Azimjon Askarov, a 69-year-old human rights defender from Kyrgyzstan, who died in prison after contracting pneumonia. Askarov had been in prison for 10 years, having been given a life sentence following an unjust and unfair trial in 2010, in retaliation for his investigations into the tragic wave of inter-ethnic violence that year in southern Kyrgyzstan. [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/D8B31FA3-E648-4F92-81B9-8C3A4270F80E]
Askarov’s trial in 2010 was marred by serious procedural violations and allegations of torture that were never investigated. A United Nations human rights body ruled in 2016 his detention was illegal and called for his immediate release, but Kyrgyz authorities looked the other way.
Since his death, many have called for a full inquiry into the causes and responsibilities for his death. A toothless internal inquiry ordered by Kyrgyzstan has gone nowhere. The documentary “Last Chance for Justice,” by filmmaker Marina Shupac, is a touching portrayal of the fight by Khadicha Askarova, Askarov’s wife, for justice and his release from prison.
The screening is on June 4 as part of the One World Film Festival in Brussels. The panel discussion of the film will be joined by Eamon Gilmore, the EU’s top human rights envoy; Heidi Hautala, a European Parliament vice-president; and a representative of the Office of the EU’s Special Representative to Central Asia.
On the same day as the screening, the EU is set to hold its highest-level annual meeting with Kyrgyz officials. This is a crucial opportunity for the EU to make it clear that closer ties with Kyrgyzstan will depend on the resolve of Kyrgyzstan President Japarov’s administration to investigate Askarov’s death, clean up his judicial record, and grant compensation to his family.
This week’s high-profile screening makes clear: Kyrgyzstan will continue to be in the international spotlight on Askarov until it fulfils its human rights obligations to account for his death.
Fighting in Kyrgyz-Tajik border areas has died down after deadly clashes in late April, but residents of the Tajik region of Vorukh say tensions remain high. They’re set apart from the rest of their country, surrounded by Kyrgyz territory, and some fear that their freedom of movement and access to resources are far from guaranteed.
When hostilities broke out along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border at the end of April, many countries and organizations were quick to call for an end to the fighting and a peaceful resolution to the long-running border conflict.
No one wanted to openly side with either Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, let alone comment on the violence that left more than 50 people dead.
But in the days following an agreement between Kyrgyz and Tajik officials that halted the fighting, there have been hints of the positions of some leaders through their statements and actions.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon was fortunate to have accepted an invitation months ago to make an official visit to Moscow for the May 9 Victory Day celebrations. Rahmon was the only head of state to attend the Moscow ceremonies but the trip allowed him an opportunity to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 8 and again the next day during the parade on Red Square.
Reports on the meetings of the two presidents did not mention any discussion of the April 28-30 fighting on the border, though Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said days earlier it would be on the agenda, and Putin had offered on April 30 to act as a mediator in the conflict.
Where Moscow Stands
Putin’s comments were interesting, as they seemed to indirectly address the problem between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The topic of Russia’s bases in Tajikistan, where Russia’s 201st Division has been stationed since shortly after the end of World War II, is a perennial whenever Putin and Rahmon meet and with U.S. and other foreign forces withdrawing from Afghanistan. Putin said Russia would “work on strengthening [the bases] and on strengthening the armed forces of Tajikistan.”
The part about strengthening Tajikistan’s military was certainly noticed in Kyrgyzstan, even if Putin said the strengthening was needed because of increased fighting in Afghanistan. Though both sides in the border fighting took substantial losses, the casualty figures show that Kyrgyz took a worse beating in the fighting with the Tajiks.
The Kremlin has made many statements about the need for stability in Kyrgyzstan, where Russia also has a military base and where there have been three revolutions since 2005.
In July 2019, then-Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev met with Putin in Moscow. Atambaev was in the midst of a feud with his successor, President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, but despite technically being under house arrest, Atambaev left Kyrgyzstan on a plane that departed from the Russian military base in Kant.
At the end of the meeting with Atambaev, Putin referred to the 2005 and 2010 revolutions in Kyrgyzstan: “Kyrgyzstan has endured several serious internal political shocks…at least two,” adding, “the country needs political stability.”
Putin also said that as part of achieving stability, the people in Kyrgyzstan should “unite around the current president and help him in developing the state.”
The feud between Atambaev and Jeenbekov did not end and barely two weeks later, elite troops of Kyrgyzstan’s Interior Ministry raided Atambaev’s compound outside Bishkek. After a deadly standoff, Atambaev surrendered and was eventually put in prison.
Then in October 2020, protests over the results of rigged parliamentary elections ousted Jeenbekov. But Moscow’s relations with the new government of President Sadyr Japarov have been icy.
Rahmon, on the other hand, has been in power in Tajikistan for nearly 29 years and, for the Kremlin, he represents stability in a country that borders Afghanistan. Russia has put a lot of effort and money into making Tajikistan a country that could hold the line against spillover from Afghanistan.
However, in his meeting with Rahmon on May 8, Putin also spoke about Tajik migrant laborers in Russia. “I know this is a sensitive issue for Tajikistan,” he said. “A significant volume of support for the families [of migrant laborers] is sent from Russia back home [to Tajikistan].”
That is true also for Kyrgyzstan. Hundreds of thousands of citizens of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan work in Russia and send money back to their families. Without these funds the economies of both countries would collapse, and the resulting economic decline would fuel social unrest.
By promising to lend further help to Tajikistan’s military, Putin might be sending a message to Kyrgyz authorities to forget about any thoughts of renewing aggression along the border with Tajikistan, and by mentioning the billions of dollars migrant laborers send back, he sends a message to both countries about the potential leverage Russia can employ against Tajikistan — or Kyrgyzstan — if either side takes measures along their common border that destabilize the situation.
Offering Condolences, Aid
While the Kremlin needs to maintain some sort of balancing act, other countries do not. Again, no country or international organization has come out on the side of either Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. But some have sent messages of sympathy over losses from the fighting.
Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev phoned President Japarov on May 1 to express his condolences to the victims of the fighting in the southern Batken Province, and to say Kazakhstan was ready to render humanitarian aid to Kyrgyzstan.
Toqaev also spoke with Rahmon, who reportedly “informed [Toqaev] in detail” about the history of the border conflict and the current situation. Toqaev also offered to help mediate between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and is scheduled to visit Dushanbe on May 19-20.
On May 4, Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov phoned Kyrgyz counterpart Ruslan Kazakbaev to offer Turkmenistan’s condolences “to family and friends of the deceased citizens of Kyrgyzstan.”
That same day, Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan phoned Kazakbekov with the same message. Ayvazyan also spoke with Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin on May 4, but reports did not mention if Ayvazyan expressed any condolences for Tajik losses.
Japarov spoke with Putin on May 10 and the two reportedly discussed the recent fighting.
Putin promised to provide humanitarian aid for Kyrgyzstan, but a phone call is not the same as two days of meetings in Moscow, even though many of the details of the Putin-Rahmon talks — particularly their discussion of the fighting along the border — remain unknown.
BISHKEK — A Kyrgyz opposition politician and an outspoken critic of President Sadyr Japarov has been arrested on a charge of organizing “mass disorder” in October over anti-government rallies protesting the official results of parliamentary elections.
Jenish Moldokmatov’s lawyer, Kantemir Turdaliev, told RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service on May 10 that his client was arrested and sent to pretrial detention for two months over the weekend.
Turdaliev called the charge “absurd” and said the court’s May 8 ruling will be appealed.
During the court hearing over his arrest, Moldokmatov rejected the charge, calling it politically motivated, his lawyer said.
Moldokmatov was one of the candidates to the Kyrgyz parliament in October who, according to official results, lost the election.
He took part with thousands of others in the mass protests following the election in Bishkek. The rallies led to the government’s resignation and then-President Sooronbai Jeenbekov stepping down.
Current President Sadyr Japarov was among several prominent politicians freed from prison by protesters during the unrest. He had been serving a 10-year prison sentence for hostage-taking during a protest against a mining operation in northeast Kyrgyzstan in October 2013. He maintains the charges against him were politically motivated.
Japarov easily won the presidential election in January.
Moldokmatov’s arrest came three days after Japarov signed into law a bill on constitutional amendments approved by a nationwide referendum in April that has been criticized by his opponents as a move to concentrate more powers in his hands.
The fighting along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border on April 28-30 was a shock, despite the clear signs that tensions were building along that border for years.
It was the first time since the five Central Asian states became independent in late 1991 that militaries of two countries had engaged in combat against each other.
While the skirmishes were over relatively quickly, the fighting was on a scale never seen before in the area and the vast majority of casualties were civilians.
There have been attempts at reconciliation despite the mutual accusations over who is at fault — and the question of marking the last sections of the Kyrgyz-Tajik frontier has gained new urgency.
On this week’s Majlis podcast, RFE/RL Media-Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on what led to the fighting, what happened during those three days, and how the fighting has changed the situation along the border and in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
This week’s guests are: from the United Kingdom, Madeleine Reeves, a senior lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Manchester and also the author of Border Work: Spatial Lives Of The State In Rural Central Asia that draws on Reeves’ extensive research in the exact area where the conflict occurred; from Geneva, Switzerland, Cholpon Orozbekova, a director of the Bulan Institute for Peace Innovations; from Germany, Hafiz Boboyorov, a guest researcher at Bonn University and previously with the Academy of Sciences in Tajikistan; and Bruce Pannier, the author of RFE/RL’s Qishloq Ovozi blog.
As deadly violence erupted on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border last week, two peaceful Kyrgyz-majority districts of Tajikistan — located hundreds of kilometers away from the conflict zone — found themselves dragged into media reports of “evictions” and “deportations.”
Kyrgyz media falsely reported that Tajikistan began deporting ethnic Kyrgyz from its Lakhsh and Murghob districts, sparking a barrage of angry social-media comments.
RFE/RL contacted authorities in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — including local mayors and police — as well as several ethnic Kyrgyz in Lakhsh to establish what was happening. It also contacted several residents of Kyrgyzstan who say they know people who were deported from Tajikistan.
Neither Tajik nor Kyrgyz officials could confirm reports that ethnic Kyrgyz were being sent out of Tajikistan.
But both sides said in recent years and months, Tajik authorities have indeed been telling ethnic Kyrgyz they cannot obtain Kyrgyz passports unless they first renounce their Tajik citizenship.
Tajikistan doesn’t allow dual nationality with any foreign country except for Russia. Kyrgyzstan prohibits dual citizenship with any of its bordering states — Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and China.
“We do indeed tell people that they must choose between the two citizenships,” Faizullo Barotzoda, the mayor of Lakhsh district, told RFE/RL on May 5.
WATCH: Fallen Officers’ Families Grieve In Wake Of Conflict On Kyrgyz-Tajik Border
But the mayor insisted “the requirement is not related to the latest border conflict” between the two Central Asian countries.
Over the past year, about 100 ethnic Kyrgyz from Lakhsh have given up their Tajik citizenship and chosen to keep their Kyrgyz passports, Barotzoda said. About the same number of people decided to renounce their Kyrgyz passports and keep their Tajik citizenship, he added.
Asked about deportations of ethnic Kyrgyz from Tajikistan, Barotzoda said: “There have been cases in which Kyrgyz citizens who violated the immigration rules — a 60-day, visa-free stay — were deported from Tajikistan.”
But he said he wasn’t aware of any such deportation since the border conflict erupted on April 28.
Barotzoda did, however, give RFE/RL a list of 42 Tajik citizens, most of them ethnic Kyrgyz, who were sent back to Tajikistan through the Karamik border crossing between May 3 and May 6.
RFE/RL has asked Kyrgyzstan’s Border Service for comment but had not received a response as of May 7.
The Kyrgyz Interior Ministry claimed it knows of Tajikistan’s “expulsions of Kyrgyz citizens, both those visiting or permanently living in Lakhsh.” But it offered no evidence of the claim.
The ministry added on May 4 that it’s been closely watching the situation since mid-March amid reports of unannounced inspections of ethnic Kyrgyz people’s documents by Tajik authorities in Lakhsh.
Meanwhile, in the town of Murghob in eastern Tajikistan, district Mayor Husniya Rajabzoda said “no deportations” are taking place. Ethnic Kyrgyz make up 60 percent of Murghob’s population of some 16,000 people.
In Kyrgyzstan, the border service of the State Committee for National Security denied statements by the head of a Russian human rights organization that some Tajiks flying in from Russia had been beaten at airports in Bishkek and Osh since the border violence in late April.
Valentina Chupik, a Moscow-based human rights activist, said Kyrgyz officials should “do something with their employees” at the airports to prevent the harassment, which she claimed included beatings and extortion.
Tajikistan doesn’t allow dual nationality with any foreign country except for Russia.
Tajik citizen Khursandmurod Khomidov, who flew from Russia to Osh on his return to Tajikistan on April 30, said he and several others were ordered to pay money at the Osh airport and later were beaten by Kyrgyz border guards at the border.
And Nuriddin Ilyosov, a Tajik citizen studying at Osh University, told RFE/RL that Kyrgyz guards extorted money from him at the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border crossing at Dustlik.
Well-Integrated Communities
In Lakhsh, ethnic Kyrgyz schoolteacher Bakhtiyor Aitmatov told RFE/RL that Kyrgyz and Tajiks communities live peacefully and are unaffected by the border violence that occurred some 700 kilometers away from his village.
“I didn’t hear about anyone being kicked out of their homes. I’m hearing it for the first time now from you,” Aitmatov said, when asked about reports of deportations from Lakhsh.
Ethnic Kyrgyz make up just over half of the Lakhsh district’s 57,000 people, which was previously named Jirgatol and is located in Tajikistan’s Rasht Valley.
“Kyrgyz and Tajiks are very much integrated [and] mixed marriages are very common in Lakhsh,” Aitmatov said.
Aitmatov lives in the Lakhsh town of Jirgatol, where he works at a school attended by both Kyrgyz and Tajik students. He said several people in his extended family have married ethnic Tajiks, and their children consider themselves both Kyrgyz and Tajik.
The family keeps close contact with Aitmatov’s elder brother and two uncles who moved to Kyrgyzstan permanently several years ago and received Kyrgyz citizenship.
Under a program called Kairylman (a returnee), Kyrgyzstan offers citizenship for ethnic Kyrgyz who move to the country from abroad. Tens of thousands of ethnic Kyrgyz have obtained citizenship since the program was launched in 2007.
Separately, thousands of ethnic Kyrgyz relocated from Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan during the Tajik civil war in the 1990s.
During that war, Kyrgyzstan also offered asylum for hundreds of Tajiks who fled the violence in their home country.
‘Six Hours To Leave’
Akimalidin Kalbekov, a resident of Kyrgyzstan’s Chui Province, offers a different story.
Citing a friend from Lakhsh, Kalbekov told RFE/RL that ethnic Kyrgyz who don’t want to give up their Kyrgyz passports are being forced to leave Tajikistan immediately.
“[Tajik authorities] give them six hours to leave the country. Around 100 citizens are leaving Jirgatol,” Kalbekov said on May 5. “My friend came from Jirgatol.”
A list of deportees
Kalbekov didn’t want to give his friend’s name over concern of possible retaliation against his relatives in Tajikistan. He said the friend’s wife has decided to stay in Lakhsh for the time being.
Another Chui resident, Rakhimbek Kasymov, said he worries about the “hardship” awaiting those deported from Tajikistan.
“When they come to Kyrgyzstan they have nowhere to live,” Kasymov said on May 5. “Some stay in relatives’ houses and have many difficulties.”
Kyrgyz-Tajiks Expelled
The Lakhsh local government says that 19 Tajik citizens — most of them ethnic Kyrgyz students — were deported by Kyrgyz officials to Tajikistan late on May 3. Twenty-three more reportedly were also returned to their home country through the same border crossing between Batken and Lakhsh on May 6.
After being tested for the coronavirus, they are currently staying in quarantine in Lakhsh.
Contacted by RFE/RL, several of them said Kyrgyz officials told them they should return to Tajikistan because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Among them are at least five people who have both Kyrgyz and Tajik passports.
It’s not known how many ethnic Kyrgyz Tajiks have obtained a Kyrgyz passport while keeping their Tajik citizenship, though some sources estimate some 10,000 Kyrgyz just from Lakhsh and Murghob have done so. It’s unclear if they have told Kyrgyz authorities that they have not renounced their Tajik nationality or vice versa.
The Jirgatol region of the Rasht Valley in Tajikistan
An official at the Internal Affairs Department in Lakhsh told RFE/RL that some of those “dual citizens” who chose to keep Tajik citizenship are farmers.
“They have up to 10 hectares of farmland leased from the state and they don’t want to lose that,” the official said. “If they chose Kyrgyz citizenship they would have to obtain a residency permit and face completely different rules for renting the land and [paying] taxes.”
The official, who is directly involved in the “inspection of documents,” spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Many other ethnic Kyrgyz Tajik citizens use their “second” Kyrgyz passports to get jobs in Kyrgyzstan, with the large southern city of Osh being a popular destination.
Some ethnic Kyrgyz hope that Bishkek and Dushanbe reach an agreement on dual-citizenship or a special arrangement for citizens to work and subsequently claim pensions and other social benefits in the neighboring state.
But with the ongoing tensions and deadly violence that has occurred, it’s unlikely the neighbors would consider such a step in the near future.
RFE/RL correspondent Maksat Zhangaziev contributed to this report in Bishkek
Hasan Akbarov, a 31-year-old Tajik border guard, was shot dead the day before he was set to celebrate his sister’s wedding. In Kyrgyzstan, border officer Isfana Bekzod Yuldashev died in the same conflict days before his 31st birthday. Their families are among those whose lives were shattered by two days of violence.
DUSHANBE — Tajik authorities say 19 people were killed and 87 injured in clashes along a disputed segment of the border with Kyrgyzstan last week, in their first official data on the violence.
The official statement by the authorities of the northern Sughd region on May 6 said that all of the victims were from villages close to the border. It did not provide any more details.
RFE/RL correspondents from the area have reported that 20 people, including 11 military personnel, were killed during the violence.
Tajikistan’s official statement comes after the deadly violence erupted on April 28 and lasted for almost three days after the Tajiks tried to install security cameras on disputed territory near the border of the two Central Asian states.
Kyrgyz authorities have said that 36 Kyrgyz citizens died in the skirmishes, while 189 people were injured and 58,000 were evacuated.
Like many other border areas in Central Asia, almost half of the 970-kilometer-long Kyrgyz-Tajik border has not been demarcated, leading to tensions over the past 30 years. The latest fighting was the heaviest in years and raised fears of a wider conflict between the two impoverished neighbors.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov on May 6 visited villages in the southwestern Batken Province that were heavily affected by the clashes.
In the wake of the violence, Japarov discussed the situation with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, who invited the Kyrgyz leader to the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, to discuss border issues.
After the phone call, it was officially announced that Japarov will visit Tajikistan in late May.
However, during a meeting with residents of the village of Margun, Japarov said he will not visit Tajikistan “until Kyrgyz-Tajik border issues are resolved.”
The European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Russia have all urged both sides to respect the cease-fire agreement.
Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan host Russian military bases.
Prosecutors from both countries have launched criminal cases over the deadly violence, accusing each other of deliberately “encroaching” into each other’s territory.
BISHKEK — Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has signed into law a bill on constitutional amendments approved by a nationwide referendum last month that has been criticized by his opponents as a move to concentrate more powers in his hands.
The signing ceremony held on May 5 started with a minute of silence to commemorate 36 Kyrgyz nationals killed in last week’s clashes along a disputed segment of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.
Japarov addressed the nation after the signing ceremony, calling the April 28-29 violence along the border “an attempt to violate Kyrgyzstan’s territorial integrity” and vowing to assist affected villages to get back to normal as soon as possible.
“None of presidents before me faced economic problems of the current proportions. I inherited a devastated economy, a state treasury with a deficit of 20 billion soms ($236 million),” Japarov said, adding that despite “economic hardships that have deepened due to pandemic crisis,” he will do “everything I can to revive economy and business activities.”
Kyrgyz citizens approved the bill on constitutional amendments on April 11, but the full text of the amended constitution is yet to be made public.
The new constitution reduces the size of parliament by 25 percent to 90 seats and gives the president the power to appoint judges and heads of law enforcement agencies. It also calls for establishing “a consultative and coordinating body” that would be controlled by the president. Critics say it could act as a parallel parliament and a way for the president to exert more power.
The referendum came three months after Japarov was elected president following a tumultuous period that saw the ouster of the previous government amid protests over October parliamentary elections and months of political wrangling over the future of the Central Asian country.
Japarov proposed drafting a new constitution in November 2020 as he emerged from the turmoil as acting president in the wake of the resignation of then-President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.
He easily won the presidential election in January, while a referendum held in tandem saw voters opt for a presidential system that was the centerpiece of the proposed constitutional amendments.
Some in the former Soviet republic have criticized Japarov, saying the new constitution was being rushed through to create an authoritarian system while concentrating too much power into the hands of the president.
Japarov was among several prominent politicians freed from prison by protesters during the October unrest. He had been serving a 10-year prison sentence for hostage-taking during a protest against a mining operation in northeast Kyrgyzstan in October 2013. He maintains the charges against him were politically motivated.
May 5 has been marked in the country as the Constitution Day since the first constitution was approved by the parliament of independent Kyrgyzstan on that day in 1993.
The latest deadly clashes on the long-restive Kyrgyz-Tajik border drastically alter the situation there and change how the two countries see themselves and each other — with consequences for the leaders in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Previous violence along the border stretching back some 15 years was always localized, involving several villages on opposite sides of the poorly marked or unmarked sections of the frontier. The hostilities usually centered around work near water sources or the construction or alteration of roads, fences, and walls.
The latest conflict on April 28 began much like previous conflicts did.
A group of Tajiks were installing a camera at a water-intake station on Kyrgyz territory that distributed water to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The events followed a familiar script: Harsh words were exchanged, people gathered from villages on both sides of the border, stones were thrown, border guards arrived, and gunfire broke out.
Gunfire has become increasingly common in these disputes in recent years, but usually local officials from the two countries quickly arrive, calm the feuding villagers, and the groups go back to their sides of the border.
But what began on April 28 went in a different direction.
There was an exchange of gunfire early on April 29 in the area of the intake station. Each side blames the other for starting the shooting.
Tajik forces then launched a coordinated attack along several sections of the border, many kilometers apart, and entered Kyrgyzstan.
More than a dozen villages in Kyrgyzstan came under fire from a mix of machine guns, mortars, and even rockets.
Tajik military helicopters were in the air near some of these villages, with Tajik authorities saying they were used to evacuate Tajik citizens from areas cut off from Tajikistan by the fighting. But photos from the Kyrgyz village of Ortoboz show rockets on the ground that could only come from attack helicopters.
Kyrgyz forces counterattacked and some villages in Tajikistan came under heavy fire as well, with reports of some Kyrgyz troops also temporarily operating on Tajik territory.
With the exception of isolated gunshots along the border, the fighting finally ended on April 30.
But the casualties and the damage from the violence were unprecedented, with at least 36 Kyrgyz and 18 Tajik citizens killed, along with more than 200 injured. Additionally, dozens of homes, shops, and other structures were destroyed or damaged and tens of thousands of people were displaced.
And accusations were flying from both sides about the wanton destruction carried out by the other country’s forces.
Reports from the area indicate that the majority of the material losses were on the Kyrgyz side of the border.
Photo Gallery:
Homes, Schools Destroyed After Worst Violence In Decades On Kyrgyz-Tajik Border
People inspected the charred remains of their homes, schools, and other buildings in villages on both sides of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border after deadly armed clashes along the frontier on April 28-29. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan completed the withdrawal of their military units from the border on May 3 as a cease-fire appeared to be holding.
Both countries are preparing legal cases against the other over the violence, but little is likely to result from that.
Despite their known problems, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are similar in some ways.
Both are poor, mountainous countries that have roughly the same territory with comparable populations. There are about 6.5 million people in Kyrgyzstan and some 9.5 million in Tajikistan.
Tajikistan also borders Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and China, while Kyrgyzstan also shares borders with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and China — all countries that are much larger, more populous, and far better armed than the small militaries in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
These similarities give the countries reasons to work together and have good relations.
But after this latest round of fighting, any kinship that existed has been lost as there are feelings among the Kyrgyz that Tajikistan has attacked Kyrgyzstan, inflicted losses, and that Kyrgyzstan did little to stop it.
And that has angered many Kyrgyz citizens.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly warned Tajikistan not to repeat any aggression against Kyrgyzstan, but otherwise no foreign allies have publicly sided with Bishkek or Dushanbe in this dispute.
Most messages of condolence from other countries have been directed toward Kyrgyzstan, though Bishkek cannot count on more than that, as questions are being raised about how the situation turned out so badly and who among government officials is to blame.
Kamchybek Tashiev, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security, on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border on May 2
On May 1, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security (UKMK), Kamchybek Tashiev, and his Tajik counterpart, Saymumin Yatimov, met in Kyrgyzstan’s border province of Batken and signed a deal cementing a cease-fire and withdrawing all forces back to their home bases.
Tashiev is a longtime friend of new Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov; his appointment as head of the UKMK owes much to this relationship.
Tashiev said on May 2 that Kyrgyzstan would not make any claims for compensation from Tajikistan for damage done to property in Kyrgyzstan. He added that an agreement on demarcating another 112 kilometers of the border would be ready by May 9.
That would be welcome news, as the root of these violent conflicts are almost always related to a dispute over the shared border, with some 450 kilometers of the 970-kilometer Kyrgyz-Tajik frontier still not demarcated.
But Tashiev has a recent history of prematurely declaring progress on border issues.
After a visit to Uzbekistan in late March, he said the border issue with Uzbekistan was resolved “100 percent.” But that quickly fell apart when villagers on the Kyrgyz side of the border refused to accept proposed land swaps included in the agreement.
Tashiev has also said there was information prior to the April 28-30 fighting that the border situation was worsening, suggesting he knew what could happen but did nothing to prevent it.
Tashiev also failed to explain exactly why he left Kyrgyzstan on April 28. The trip was reportedly to seek medical treatment abroad, though some social-media comments suggested that he traveled to Spain, where his son celebrated a birthday.
There could also be disappointment among Kyrgyz in the country’s new president.
Japarov came to power with populist messages about a Kyrgyzstan that was going to be stronger, something that appealed to his many nationalist supporters.
He has already appeared on state television appealing for calm and a return to good ties with Tajikistan, an indication that Kyrgyzstan is going to just have to accept what happened along the border and move on.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon visited the Vorukh exclave near the Kyrgyz border in early April.
It will not help that another rumor going around Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is that Tajik President Emomali Rahmon initially refused to take Japarov’s phone calls after the fighting started.
Japarov and other officials have also pledged to fund reconstruction in the region and to restore communities devastated by the violence. Already deeply in debt, it will be tricky for Japarov to keep this promise and still attend to the country’s arrears.
It is difficult to see where Kyrgyz authorities will find funding to completely rebuild homes, gas stations, stores, schools, and other structures damaged or destroyed in the fighting. They also must compensate people for the loss of their livestock, something that has not yet been discussed.
All of this comes as a host of other problems besets Kyrgyzstan, from growing unemployment and rising inflation to a drought and economic issues related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, in Tajikistan, the unpopular autocratic president seems ready to gain from the latest outcome of the border battles in which his military appeared to act strongly.
Rahmon has worked for years to crush independent media and opposition groups. In the process, his family has amassed a fortune in a country where the average monthly salary is less than $100.
Furthermore, the nearly 70-year-old Rahmon has been grooming his oldest son, Rustam, to take over the presidency, hoping the succession will be accepted by Tajiks.
The recent events along the border provided an unexpected moment of approval that could both ease and accelerate his move toward creating a dynasty in Tajikistan.
Funerals were held on both sides of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border after armed clashes on April 28-29 claimed more than 50 lives. The fighting erupted amid tensions over water facilities in disputed territory. With a cease-fire in place since May 1, evacuees have begun returning home, but many have found their houses damaged or destroyed by fighting and looting.
BISHKEK — Four men will face trial in Kyrgyzstan for their role in a deadly bride-snatching case that shocked the Central Asian country in April.
The lawyer for Aizada Kanatbekova’s family, Nurbek Toktakunov, told RFE/RL on May 4 that an investigation into the case had been completed and that the materials of the case had been sent to a Bishkek court for trial.
According to Toktakunov, a fifth man, Zamirbek Tengizbaev, will be tried posthumously, as he committed suicide following Kanatbekova’s death.
“Tengizbaev will be tried posthumously on charges of murder and rape. An autopsy revealed that the victim was raped. Aizada fought and resisted the assault. Experts found bruises and traces of violence on her arms and legs,” Toktakunov said.
Toktakunov also said that he filed papers with the court over the “unprofessional handling of the case” by police and what he called “police attempts to cover up their misdeeds by forging documentation related to the case.”
Kanatbekova, 26, was abducted by three men on April 5 and found dead two days later in a car along with the body of her 36-year-old abductor.
Investigators say Tengizbaev strangled Kanatbekova to death with a T-shirt and then killed himself by cutting his carotid artery.
Authorities said at the time that Tengizbaev had been convicted in Russia three times for various crimes.
The case sparked a public outcry as it turned out that police were reluctant to pursue it even though the abduction was recorded on security cameras and the vehicle’s make, model and license plate were clearly visible on the recordings.
Relatives of Kanatbekova have described the approach by investigators as “casually dismissive.” They say the investigators failed at a crucial juncture as the tragedy unfolded, when the young woman was still alive and able to call them.
More than 40 police officers, including the Bishkek city police chief, were fired following the tragedy.
Fluent in four languages, Kanatbekova was an only daughter and a graduate of the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University in Bishkek.
Kyrgyzstan sees thousands of “bride kidnappings” each year despite the criminalization of the practice in 2013.
The UN Development Program and rights groups have highlighted the contining prevalence in Kyrgyz society of the practice, which they say often leads to marital rape, domestic violence, and other ills.
One of the most-notorious cases involved the stabbing death in 2018 of 20-year-old university student Burulai Turdaaly Kyzy by a man who was trying to force her into marriage.
BISHKEK — The situation on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border remains stable after deadly clashes in recent days as both sides continue to blame each other for the violence.
Kyrgyzstan’s Interior Ministry said on May 4 that police were in control of the situation in the southwestern Batken Province that borders Tajikistan’s Sughd Province a day after both sides announced the withdrawal of military units from the border. . According to the ministry, Kyrgyz experts are working on liquidating unexploded shells near the village of Aktatyr after fighting broke out over water facilities in territory claimed by both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Deputy Health Minister Aliza Soltonbekova said on May 4 that a total of 36 Kyrgyz citizens died, 189 people were injured, and 58,000 were evacuated during the violence that erupted on April 28 and lasted for almost three days, Kyrgyz officials say, over the Tajik move to install surveillance cameras on the disputed part of the border.
According to Soltonbekova, 51 injured people remain in hospitals in Bishkek and 49 individuals injured in the clashes are being treated in hospitals in the Batken region.
Tajik authorities have not published information on casualties but correspondents of RFE/RL’s Tajik Service have reported from the area that at least 16 Tajik citizens, including several military officers, were killed, 90 people were injured, and a number of private houses were destroyed or damaged in the villages of Khojai Alo and Somoniyon during the armed clashes.
Like many other border areas in Central Asia, almost half of the 970-kilometer-long Kyrgyz-Tajik border has not been demarcated, leading to tensions over the past 30 years.
The latest fighting was the heaviest in years and raised fears of a wider conflict between the two impoverished neighbors.
The European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Russia have all urged both sides to respect the cease-fire agreement.
Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan host Russian military bases.
Prosecutors from both Central Asian states have launched criminal cases into the deadly violence, accusing each other of deliberately “encroaching” into each other’s territory.
People inspected the chard remains of their homes, schools, and other buildings in villages on both sides of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border after deadly armed clashes along the frontier on April 28-29. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan completed the withdrawal of their military units from the border on May 3 as a cease-fire appeared to be holding.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says legal amendments being considered by Kyrgyz lawmakers would put the political opposition and human rights groups at greater risk in the Central Asian nation.
The rights group said in a statement on May 3 that the amendments — proposed by the Interior Ministry and approved by Kyrgyz lawmakers in the first reading last month — would broaden the scope for the criminal prosecution of organizations deemed “extremist” to include those found to incite “political enmity,” along with national, ethnic, or racial enmity, and to make financing such “extremist” organizations a criminal offense.
“Adding vague language about ‘extremism’ and ‘political enmity’ to Kyrgyz law will open the door to abuse, putting peaceful groups critical of government policy at enormous risk,” said Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at HRW. “Kyrgyz authorities should not introduce overbroad criminal law provisions that endanger freedom of association and speech.”
The draft law will enter into force after it passes two more parliamentary readings and is signed by President Sadyr Japarov, who took over the former Soviet republic in the wake of a deep political crisis sparked by mass protests against official results of parliamentary elections in October that led to resignation of Japarov’s predecessor, Sooronbai Jeenbekov.
HRW said in the statement that it had found that, despite some reforms, existing Kyrgyz laws on countering extremism have been applied unevenly and that its overly broad definition allowed for its misuse against political opponents, journalists, and religious and ethnic minorities.
“The Kyrgyz Criminal Code already contains articles that provide severe penalties for political crimes, such as attempting to violently overthrow the government,” the HRW statement said.
“Following months of political tensions, the Kyrgyzstan government should show its citizens and the world that it still supports strong human rights standards. These amendments to the legal codes should be rejected if Kyrgyzstan hopes to stay true to its international human rights commitments,” Sultanalieva said.
Japarov has praised the constitutional changes, which he initiated, saying they are needed to create a strong central branch of government to “establish order.”
In a March report, the watchdog Freedom House singled out Kyrgyzstan as being among nations recording the biggest losses in scores for political rights and civil liberties.
The report said Japarov has “advanced a new draft constitution that could reshape Kyrgyzstan’s political system in the mold of its authoritarian neighbors.”
BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have completed withdrawal of their military units from the border following deadly clashes last week, the Kyrgyz Border Service said on May 3.
The national-security chiefs of the two Central Asian neighbors agreed to the pullback in a crisis meeting on May 1.
The Kyrgyz Border Service said that after the withdrawal of the military units the situation in the area is calm and stable.
“The sides have completed the withdrawal of additional military units and equipment from the border…. The joint military commission consisting of officers from the defense structures of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan continue inspecting the areas left by the additional military forces and equipment,” the Kyrgyz Border Guarding Service’s statement said.
On May 2, the head of Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security, Saimumin Yatimov, said when visiting the country’s Vorukh exclave within Kyrgyzstan that Tajik military forces had been withdrawn from the border.
Kyrgyzstan says that during the April 28-29 clashes, 34 Kyrgyz citizens were killed, 178 were injured, and 50,000 people fled the area.
According to Bishkek, 78 private homes, two schools, one medical point, two border checkpoints, a kindergarten, 10 gasoline stations, a police building, and eight shops were destroyed in Kyrgyzstan’s southwestern region of Batken.
Tajik authorities have yet to give an official casualty toll.
Correspondents of RFE/RL’s Tajik Service in the area reported that at least 16 Tajik nationals were killed and at least 90 were injured.
The violence followed a dispute over the installation of surveillance cameras at a water distribution point near the Vorukh exclave, drawing in security forces from both countries.
Kyrgyz security officials at one point accused Tajik forces of using MI-24 helicopter gunships to shoot at Kyrgyz villages.
The meeting of the Tajik and Kyrgyz delegations followed a telephone conversation between Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rahmon.
The European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Russia have all urged both sides to respect the cease-fire agreement.
Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan host Russian military bases.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged an immediate investigation to hold either side responsible for laws-of-war violations against civilians.
Like many other border areas in Central Asia, almost half of the 970-kilometer long Kyrgyz-Tajik border has not been demarcated, leading to tensions for the past 30 years.
Both sides have reported calm on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border as a day-old cease-fire appeared to be holding and more than 40 people were being mourned from some of the worst clashes in decades on their disputed frontier.
A joint Kyrgyz-Tajik military commission reported finding an unexploded rocket embedded in a residence in the area as the group inspected the scene of 24 hours of intense violence on April 28-29.
Kyrgyzstan is observing two days of official mourning for 34 people who died in Batken Province. One hundred and seventy-eight more were reported injured on the Kyrgyz side, seven of them still in grave condition.
Some 30,000 Kyrgyz villagers were reportedly evacuated from their homes.
Fifteen people were thought to have been killed on the Tajik side and 90 more injured, according to RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, although Tajik authorities did not disclose casualty figures.
The Kyrgyz Interior Ministry said in a statement on May 2 that “the situation in all districts and villages of Batken Province on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border is stable and calm.”
The violence followed a dispute over the installation of surveillance cameras at a water-distribution point near Tajikistan’s Vorukh exclave, drawing in security forces from both countries.
Kyrgyz security officials at one point accused Tajik forces of using MI-24 helicopter gunships to shoot at Kyrgyz villages.
Kyrgyz reports say about 100 structures, including dozens of homes, three border checkpoints, a medical center, a police station, and two schools, were damaged.
The heads of national security for the post-Soviet, Central Asian neighbors agreed to the pullback during a crisis meeting on May 1.
The meeting of the Tajik and Kyrgyz delegations followed a telephone conversation between Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rahmon.
The European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Russia have all urged both sides to respect the cease-fire agreement.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan both host Russian military bases.
Human Rights Watch has urged an immediate investigation to hold either side responsible for laws-of-war violations against civilians.
Like many other border areas in Central Asia, almost half of the 970-kilometer-long Kyrgyz-Tajik border has not been demarcated, leading to tensions for the past 30 years.
Kyrgyz authorities say the situation on a disputed border area with Tajikistan remains “tense” after more than 40 people were reported killed, including civilians, and dozens of others wounded in the worst such clashes in at least three decades.
Kyrgyzstan’s Border Service said in the early afternoon of May 1 that it had registered the movement of Tajik military equipment in the direction of the border, and that Tajik forces were blocking a road linking two Kyrgyz areas in Batken region.
Tajik troops opened fire on residential homes that had been previously evacuated in the Leilek district, while Kyrgyz border units took up defensive positions.
Tajik officials did not immediately comment on the allegations.
The clashes began on April 28 after a violent dispute between residents on both sides of the border over the installation of surveillance cameras at a water distribution point near Tajikistan’s Vorukh exclave drew in security forces from both countries.
A cease-fire was announced after some 24 hours of violence — the worst and most widespread fighting the region has seen since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Kyrgyzstan says 31 of its citizens were killed and 154 others were injured. Authorities said some 20,000 people, mainly women and children, were evacuated from villages near the border.
Tajikistan, an authoritarian state with tight control over the flow of information, said that nine of its citizens were wounded. Two of them were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, officials said.
However, RFE/RL correspondents reported from the area that at least 12 Tajik citizens were killed and dozens of others injured in the violence.
Both sides blamed each other for the escalation.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov signed a decree on May 1 to declare a two-day period of nationwide mourning, during which national flags will fly at half-mast across the country and at its diplomatic missions abroad.
Cultural institutions, as well as television and radio channels were asked to cancel entertainment events and programs.
In Tajikistan, a prayer for peace was read in mosques across the country during the previous evening.
Mahmud Sangaliyev, a representative of Tajikistan’s Council of Ulema, told RFE/RL that the prayer called for the preservation of calm in the border areas and “mutual understanding with neighbors.”
Like many other border areas in Central Asia, almost half of the 970-kilometer long Kyrgyz-Tajik border has not been demarcated, leading to tensions for the past 30 years.
Japarov and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon held a “constructive” telephone conversation on April 30, during which they discussed measures to quickly de-escalate the situation, the Kyrgyz presidential office said.
Tajikistan’s Khovar state news agency reported that Rahmon invited his Kyrgyz counterpart to Dushanbe to discuss border demarcation plans, and Japarov accepted the invitation.
The visit’s date had not yet been determined, the report said.
Meanwhile, the lead spokesperson for the European Union’s Foreign Affairs and Security Policy urged Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on April 30 to “undertake all the necessary steps to avoid any conflict in the future.”
“The EU stands ready to provide, if needed, technical assistance through its regional programs dealing with border management and water management, as well as continued political support for a stability and prosperity in the region,” Peter Stano said in the statement.
Calling the situation along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border “alarming,” Helga Maria Schmid, the secretary-general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said the cease-fire agreement between Dushanbe and Bishkek was “a step in the right direction.”
“I encourage adherence to #OSCE commitments through continued efforts and negotiations to further de-escalate the situation,” she tweeted.
Kyrgyzstan raised to 13 the number of people killed in clashes along a disputed segment of its border with Tajikistan before a cease-fire was announced by both sides.
Kyrgyzstan’s Health Ministry said on April 30 that 134 people were also injured in the clashes, which started on April 28 after residents on both sides of the border started throwing stones at each other.
The situation rapidly escalated, leading to Kyrgyz and Tajik forces exchanging gunfire in the Leylek district of Kyrgyzstan’s southwestern Batken region.
Late on April 29, the two countries’ foreign ministries announced they had agreed to a cease-fire and would pull back troops while resolving the conflict through diplomacy.
Local authorities in the Batken region said 13,500 Kyrgyz were also evacuated from villages along the border.
Kyrgyz police in the Batken region blamed Tajik citizens for the escalation, saying they started shooting at a military unit located in the village of Kok-Tash, while gunfire was also reported from the Tajik side near the Kyrgyz village of Ak-Sai.
Tajikistan’s Border Guard Service rejected the Kyrgyz account, saying that Kyrgyz military personnel were the first to shoot when they opened fire at Tajik border units near the Golovnoi water distribution center, located in territory that Tajik authorities claim jurisdiction over.
Tajikistan, an authoritarian state with tight control over information, has been more quiet on the extent of causalities, saying only that two Tajik citizens sustained gunshot wounds and were taken to the hospital on April 29 and another seven locals were injured in clashes.
Many border areas in Central Asia have been disputed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, with numerous incidents involving deadly gunfire.
The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan meet.
BISHKEK — Raimbek Matraimov, the controversial former deputy chief of the Kyrgyz Customs Service who was placed on the U.S. Magnitsky sanctions list for his involvement in the illegal funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars abroad, has withdrawn his libel lawsuit against RFE/RL, its former correspondent, and two other media outlets.
Lawyer Akmat Alagushev — who represents RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Radio Azattyk, its former reporter Ali Toktakunov, and the Klopp and 24.kg news agencies — told RFE/RL that a court in Bishkek ruled on April 27 that the case had been closed due to a move by Matraimov’s lawyers to withdraw the lawsuit.
Matraimov and his family filed the libel lawsuit after the media outlets published a 2019 investigation by RFE/RL, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and Kloop implicating him in a corruption scheme involving the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars out of Kyrgyzstan by Chinese-born Uyghur businessman Aierken Saimaiti, who was subsequently assassinated in Istanbul in November 2019.
“RFE/RL’s award-winning investigative reporting into Mr. Matraimov’s corrupt dealings has always spoken clearly for itself,” the broadcaster’s president, Jamie Fly, said in a statement.
“Our intrepid journalists reported this story despite months of serious threats, online harassment, and an organized pressure campaign. We continue to call on the Kyrgyz government to investigate those who threaten journalists and hold them accountable for their actions,” he added.
The court decided to stop the libel suit less than two weeks after Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said that the corruption probe against Matraimov had been halted, as investigators failed to find any cash or property belonging to Matraimov or members of his family abroad.
When Matraimov was rearrested in February, the UKMK said he was being held as a suspect for laundering money through the purchase of real estate in China, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates.
A Bishkek court in February ordered pretrial custody for Matraimov in connection with the corruption charges after hundreds of Kyrgyz protested a previous ruling mitigating a sentence after a guilty plea to no jail time and fines of just a few thousand dollars.
The court justified the mitigated sentence by saying that Matraimov had paid back around $24 million that disappeared through schemes that he oversaw.
That decision was based on an economic-amnesty law passed in December that allows individuals who obtained financial assets through illegal means to avoid prosecution by turning the assets over to the State Treasury.
The idea of economic amnesty was announced in October by Sadyr Japarov, then acting Kyrgyz president, just a day after Matraimov was detained and placed under house arrest.
Japarov has since been elected president on a pledge to stamp out graft and enact reforms. Japarov also championed a new constitution — approved by voters earlier this month — that expands the power of the president.
Critics say the amnesty legislation was proposed and hastily prepared by lawmakers to allow Matraimov and others to avoid a conviction for corruption, while the constitutional changes create an authoritarian system and concentrating too much power in the hands of the president.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the estimated $700 million scheme involved a company controlled by Matraimov bribing officials to skirt customs fees and regulations, as well as engaging in money laundering, “allowing for maximum profits.”
A U.S. report on human rights around the world, released in March, spotlighted threats to freedom of expression and a free press in Kyrgyzstan.
In a section on respect for civil liberties, including freedom of the press, the State Department noted threats to journalists involved in that report, which implicated Matraimov.
In January, the 49-year-old Matraimov changed his last name to Ismailov, while his wife, Uulkan Turgunova, changed her family name to Sulaimanova. The moves, confirmed to RFE/RL by a spokesperson for Kyrgyzstan’s state registration service, were seen as an attempt to evade the U.S.- imposed sanctions.
There has been no official statement from Matraimov or his lawyers to explain the name change.
BISHKEK — Kyrgyz and Tajik authorities are blaming each other for the latest clashes and shootings along a disputed segment of the border between the two Central Asian countries.
Police in Kyrgyzstan’s southern region of Batken said on April 29 that Tajik residents had started shooting at a military unit located in the village of Kok-Tash, adding that gunfire also came from the Tajik side near the Kyrgyz village of Ak-Sai.
An RFE/RL correspondent reported from the site that two Kyrgyz nationals were wounded and rushed to hospital on April 29.
Tajikistan’s Border Guard Service contradicted the Kyrgyz account in a statement, saying that it was Kyrgyz military personnel who were the first to shoot, when they opened fire at Tajik border units near the Golovnoi water-distribution center, located on territory under Tajikistan’s jurisdiction.
The standoff started the previous day, after local residents on both sides of the border clashed, throwing stones at each other.
Kyrgyz officials said that four Kyrgyz nationals were injured in the clashes, one of whom sustained a gunshot wound.
Tajik authorities said seven Tajik citizens were injured, and that the clashes had been instigated by Kyrgyz officials, which Bishkek rejected.
Local Tajiks and Kyrgyz clash near the border on April 28.
The clashes come amid the installation of surveillance equipment at the Golovnoi water-distribution center by Tajik officials.
Many border areas in Central Asia have been disputed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, with numerous incidents involving deadly gunfire.
. The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan meet.
Earlier in April, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said during a visit to Tajikistan’s Vorukh exclave within Kyrgyzstan that agreements on almost half of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border had been reached during more than 100 rounds of negotiations between Dushanbe and Bishkek since work on border delimitation started in 2002.
A meeting occurred in Central Asia on April 23 that hasn’t ever happened before.
The governor of Uzbekistan’s eastern Ferghana Province met with the Tajik and Kyrgyz governors of the adjoining provinces for talks on economic cooperation.
Hosted in the city of Ferghana by Hayrullo Bozorov, the meeting was attended by the governor of Tajikistan’s Sughd Province, Rajabboi Ahmadzoda, and the governor of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken Province, Omurbek Suvanaliev.
Nearly 30 years after the three countries became independent, the meeting marked the first time the heads of the three neighboring provinces had ever gathered for such a meeting.
The three provinces are all in the populous Ferghana Valley, an agriculturally rich area that has also become a major smuggling route and, since independence, has seen more deadly violence along its borders than any other area in Central Asia.
And one of the interesting aspects of the business forum, officially called Integration Of Borders – The Key To Development, is that it was purely about trade and cultural relations, not border demarcation.
Batken Province Governor Omurbek Suvanaliev (file photo)
Suvanaliev told RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, that although “the matter of defining the borders is being decided, it is necessary for us also to strengthen economic ties.”
And he made clear that the vital demarcation of the three countries’ borders “is the work of intergovernmental delegations.”
All three governors were accompanied by delegations from local industrial and agricultural businesses and there was also an exhibit of their products.
The only document reportedly signed was a memorandum of cooperation between the Ferghana and Sughd provinces.
It was ironic that the venue for the landmark business forum was the Islam Karimov Theater.
Late Uzbek President Islam Karimov
While Karimov was Uzbekistan’s first president, his country set up long barbed-wire fences and dug ditches along extensive stretches of its borders with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. During incursions by Islamic militants in the summer of 2000, Uzbekistan even put land mines at places along its borders with its two eastern neighbors.
When Karimov died late in the summer of 2016, Uzbek troops were occupying some areas of Kyrgyzstan.
His successor, Shavkat Mirziyoev, removed those troops as one of his first moves after becoming Uzbekistan’s leader.
Mirziyoev also reversed Karimov’s policies toward Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and visits by Uzbek officials and business delegations to the neighboring countries are a common occurrence now.
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev visiting Ferghana Valley last year.
Those meetings have gone a long way towards improving Uzbekistan’s relations with its two neighbors.
The business forum in Ferghana took this new spirit of cooperation a step further by bringing together the representatives of the three countries that share the fertile Ferghana Valley region.
Though the forum did not result in the signing of large amounts of contracts, the big achievement was the meeting itself.
Though there has been some progress in demarcating and marking the borders in the region despite difficult negotiations, the process is likely to continue to be problematic in the years to come as territory is exchanged and people’s property affected.
While border negotiations continue, there is no reason why three of the areas involved in these talks should not move forward by improving economic ties.
The Ferghana business forum was the first step.
And a better economic situation locally should make all three parties more amenable to compromises in their future border negotiations.
