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Category: kyrgyzstan

  • HRW Urges Biden To Champion Human Rights After Trump’s ‘Disastrous’ Tenure

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling on President-elect Joe Biden to reinforce the commitment of the United States to human rights after four years of shirking it during Donald Trump’s presidency, and to join broad coalitions that have emerged to stand up to “powerful actors” such as Russia and China that have been undermining the global human rights system.

    Trump was “a disaster for human rights” both at home and abroad, HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth wrote in an introduction to the New York-based watchdog’s annual report on human rights published on January 13.

    [Trump] cozied up to one friendly autocrat after another at the expense of their abused populations…”

    According to Roth, the outgoing president “flouted legal obligations that allow people fearing for their lives to seek refuge, ripped migrant children from their parents, empowered white supremacists, acted to undermine the democratic process, and fomented hatred against racial and religious minorities,” among other things.

    Trump also “cozied up to one friendly autocrat after another at the expense of their abused populations, promoted the sale of weapons to governments implicated in war crimes, and attacked or withdrew from key international initiatives to defend human rights, promote international justice, advance public health, and forestall climate change.”

    This “destructive” combination eroded the credibility of the U.S. government when it spoke out against abuses in other countries, Roth said, adding: “Condemnations of Venezuela, Cuba, or Iran rang hollow when parallel praise was bestowed on Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Israel.”

    But as the Trump administration “largely abandoned” the protection of human rights abroad and “powerful actors such as China, Russia, and Egypt sought to undermine the global human rights system,” other governments stepped forward to its defense, he said.

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    After Biden’s inauguration on January 20, the U.S. government should “seek to join, not supplant” these collective efforts by a range of Western countries, Latin American democracies, and a growing number of Muslim-majority states.

    Biden should also “seek to reframe the U.S. public’s appreciation of human rights so the U.S. commitment becomes entrenched in a way that is not so easily reversed by his successors.”

    China

    According to HRW’s annual World Report 2021, which summarizes last year’s human rights situation in nearly 100 countries and territories worldwide, the Chinese government’s authoritarianism “was on full display” in 2020.

    Repression deepened across the country, with the government imposing a “draconian” national-security law in Hong Kong and arbitrarily detaining Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang region on the basis of their identity, while others are subjected to “forced labor, mass surveillance, and political indoctrination.”

    Russia

    In Russia, HRW said the authorities used the coronavirus pandemic as a “pretext…to restrict human rights in many areas, and to introduce new restrictions, especially over privacy rights.”

    Following a “controversial” referendum on constitutional changes, a crackdown was launched on dissenting voices, with “new, politically motivated prosecutions and raids on the homes and offices of political and civic activists and organizations.”

    Belarus

    The situation wasn’t much better in neighboring Belarus, where HRW said thousands were arbitrarily detained and hundreds were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment as strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka faced an unprecedented wave of protests following a contested presidential election in August.

    “In many cases they detained, beat, fined, or deported journalists who covered the protests and stripped them of their accreditation,” HRW said. “They temporarily blocked dozens of websites and, during several days, severely restricted access to the Internet.”

    Ukraine

    According to the watchdog, the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine “continued to take a high toll on civilians, from threatening their physical safety to limiting access to food, medicines, adequate housing, and schools.”

    Travel restrictions imposed by Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian authorities in response to the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated hardship for civilians and drove them “deeper into poverty.”

    Balkans

    In the Balkan region, HRW said serious human rights concerns remained in Bosnia-Herzegovina over “ethnic divisions, discrimination, and the rights of minorities and asylum seekers,” while “pressure” on media professionals continued.

    There was “limited” improvement in protections of human rights in Serbia, where journalists “faced threats, violence, and intimidation, and those responsible are rarely held to account.”

    On Kosovo, HRW cited continued tensions between ethnic Albanians and Serbs and “threats and intimidation” against journalists, while prosecutions of crimes against journalists have been “slow.”

    Hungary

    Elsewhere in Europe, the government in EU member Hungary continued “its attacks on rule of law and democratic institutions” and “interfered with independent media and academia, launched an assault on members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, and undermined women’s rights.”

    Iran

    HRW said Iranian authorities continued to crack down on dissent, including “through excessive and lethal force against protesters and reported abuse and torture in detention,” while U.S. sanctions “impacted Iranians’ access to essential medicines and harmed their right to health.”

    Pakistan

    In neighboring Pakistan, the government “harassed and at times prosecuted human rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists for criticizing government officials and policies,” while also cracking down on members and supporters of opposition political parties.

    Meanwhile, attacks by Islamist militants targeting law enforcement officials and religious minorities killed dozens of people.

    Afghanistan

    HRW noted that fighting between Afghan government forces, the Taliban, and other armed groups caused nearly 6,000 civilian casualties in the first nine months of the year.

    The Afghan government “failed to prosecute senior officials responsible for sexual assault, torture, and killing civilians,” while “threats to journalists by both the Taliban and government officials continued.”

    South Caucasus

    In the South Caucasus, six weeks of fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region dominated events in both Azerbaijan and Armenia.

    HRW said all parties to the conflict committed violations of international humanitarian law, including by using banned cluster munitions.

    Central Asia

    In Central Asia, critics of the Kazakh government faced “harassment and prosecution, and free speech was suppressed.”

    Kyrgyz authorities “misused” lockdown measures imposed in response to the coronavirus epidemic to “obstruct the work of journalists and lawyers,” and parliament “advanced several problematic draft laws including an overly broad law penalizing manipulation of information.”

    Tajik authorities “continued to jail government critics, including opposition activists and journalists, for lengthy prison terms on politically motivated grounds.”

    The government also “severely” restricted freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion, including through heavy censorship of the Internet.

    Uzbekistan’s political system remained “largely authoritarian” with thousands of people — mainly peaceful religious believers — being kept behind bars on false charges.

    Citing reports of torture and ill-treatment in prisons, HRW said journalists and activists were persecuted, independent rights groups were denied registration, and forced labor was not eliminated.

    Turkmenistan experienced “cascading social and economic crises as the government recklessly denied and mismanaged” the COVID-19 epidemic in the country, leading to “severe shortages” of affordable food.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Elections In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Fail To Satisfy

    There were expectations that the January 10 elections in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan would fail to truly reflect the will of the people in those two Central Asian neighbors.

    Now that preliminary results are in, they look even worse than feared.

    Kazakhstan

    Kazakhstan’s vote was its first parliamentary elections since Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev became president nearly two years ago.

    Campaigning was barely noticeable, but election officials still claimed that more than 63 percent of voters cast ballots.

    Despite Toqaev’s promises of allowing genuine opposition parties to participate in politics, no such parties were registered and allowed on the ballot, though several tried.

    That left five pro-government parties to compete.

    Toqaev also said he would ease restrictions on peaceful demonstrations, but there was no evidence of that in the days leading up to elections or the day of voting.

    Reports from Kazakhstan on election day included members of Oyan Qazaqstan (Wake Up Kazakhstan) and the unregistered Democratic Party of Kazakhstan being surrounded by police in Almaty and forced to remain there in freezing temperatures for more than eight hours.

    Police prevented any of those who were ring-fenced from leaving, forcing some with no choice but to urinate on the ground, and prevented outsiders from bringing tea or food to the demonstrators.

    Two people were taken by ambulance to the hospital, one with frostbite.

    Dozens of activists were detained, arrested, or fined ahead of or on election day.

    Reports said more than 100 people were detained in Almaty alone. Some people planned to protest, but others said they were detained as they left their homes on the way to cast their ballots, thus depriving them of their right to vote.

    The number of independent election observers has been growing in Kazakhstan since the 2019 presidential election. But on January 10, many were prevented from doing their jobs.

    Some were ejected from polling places.

    Some said they were turned away because they didn’t have documents certifying they had been tested and were negative for the coronavirus.

    Activist Roza Musaeva posted on Twitter that she was a “legal observer” but that police detained her and that the head of the local election commission told her that her accreditation had been revoked.

    The outcome of the elections was never in doubt.

    But when the preliminary tally was announced, it also appeared to vindicate the skepticism of those who warned that there would be no difference between these elections and previous Kazakh parliamentary elections.

    The results suggested that the only three parties to win seats in the 2012 and 2016 elections were once again the only parties to be awarded seats.

    In 2012, the state allocated some 5.2 billion tenges (about $34.5 million at the time based on the 2012 average exchange rate of 150 tenges to $1) from the budget for the elections to parliament and local councils, or maslikhats. The result was that the Nur-Otan party, headed by longtime Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, won 83 of the 98 available seats, the Aq Zhol party won eight seats, and the People’s Communist Party of Kazakhstan won seven.

    Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev votes in Nur-Sultan on January 10.

    Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev votes in Nur-Sultan on January 10.

    In 2016, Kazakhstan held early parliamentary elections after authorities said the deteriorating economic situation caused by the fall in the price of oil — Kazakhstan’s major export — demanded a new parliament with fresh approaches to deal with the situation.

    The state allocated 4.8 billion tenges (about $14 million at the March 2016 exchange rate of 340 tenges to $1) for those elections.

    The result was that the Nur-Otan party won 84 seats, while Aq Zhol and the People’s Communist Party of Kazakhstan were each awarded seven seats.

    Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission said in October 2020 that some 15.3 billion tenges (about $34 million at the January 2021 rate of 420 tenges to $1) would be spent on the January 10 elections to parliament and local councils.

    The result was the Nur-Otan party reportedly winning 76 seats, Aq Zhol 12, and the People’s Party of Kazakhstan (they dropped “communist” from their name in November) 10 seats.

    Even if these results were genuine mandates from the masses, the three parties that won seats are neither gaining nor losing much support over the past decade. The government has spent tens of millions of dollars (or tens of billions of tenges) in that time for elections that produced essentially the same results.

    And this continues to happen as the younger generation in particular in Kazakhstan has been calling for change since Nazarbaev stepped down as president in March 2019.

    Kyrgyzstan

    In Kyrgyzstan, fewer than 40 percent of eligible voters participated in the snap presidential election and national referendum on January 10.

    According to RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, Kyrgyzstan has 3.56 million eligible voters, some 1.354 million of whom cast ballots.

    Among 17 candidates, Sadyr Japarov, a man who was in prison barely three months ago, won the election with almost 80 percent of the vote, the second-highest total in a presidential election in Kyrgyzstan’s history after Kurmanbek Bakiev’s 89.5 percent in the 2005 poll.

    According to Kyrgyzstan’s Central Election Commission (CEC), Japarov received 1.1 million votes.

    In the accompanying referendum on whether Kyrgyzstan should have a presidential or parliamentary form of government, almost 81 percent, or some 1.147 million people, voted for a presidential system.

    Both figures look like overwhelming victories for both Japarov and change.

    But looked at another way, it is difficult to see them as the will of the people.

    In part, that is because more than half of eligible voters did not participate.

    Some good reasons have been offered for this.

    Japarov and others in his interim government claim there was less vote-buying and less use of administrative resources. Certainly the former, if true, would be one reason that fewer people turned out on January 10.

    A supporter of Kyrgyz President-elect Sadyr Japarov attends a rally on Ala-Too Square in Bishkek on January 11.

    A supporter of Kyrgyz President-elect Sadyr Japarov attends a rally on Ala-Too Square in Bishkek on January 11.

    Vote-buying plagued the October 4 parliamentary elections and played a large role in fomenting the popular backlash in Bishkek on October 5 that eventually brought down the government.

    Authorities scrapped the use of Form No. 2, a document that allowed people living away from their registered area of residence to vote anywhere in Kyrgyzstan so long as they registered there ahead of election day.

    And perhaps some of the 2 million-plus voters who did not cast ballots were simply disillusioned. Kyrgyzstan held a referendum on constitutional changes in 2016, a presidential election in 2017, and then there were last year’s parliamentary elections.

    It is worth remembering that the population of Kyrgyzstan is around 6.5 million.

    So Japarov is said to have received the backing of 1.12 million people, while the referendum got support from 1.15 million. Each figure represents around 17 percent of the country’s population, which arguably does not qualify as overwhelming popular support.

    Japarov’s amazing rise from prisoner to president is thought by some to be the result of backing from organized criminal groups.

    Such suspicions will likely limit foreign investment in Kyrgyzstan in the coming months, and possibly years, potentially prolonging the deep economic problems that Kyrgyzstan faces.

    Democratic governments have given the lion’s share of Central Asian aid to Kyrgyzstan because it was seen as an “island of democracy” that could set an example for its neighbors of the goodwill that accompanies democratic progress.

    Voting for a presidential system of government could limit such aid in the future.

    Russia has been cautious about the change of power in Kyrgyzstan after October and has withheld promised aid, though President Vladimir Putin did send Japarov a letter of congratulations on January 11.

    Kyrgyz authorities — before and since October 4 — have made repeated requests to China for more time in repaying loans. In so doing, they likely put Kyrgyzstan on Beijing’s list of high-risk countries for future investment.

    And the coronavirus continues to affect Kyrgyzstan’s economy, with little indication so far of when vaccines will be available and the health crisis brought under control.

    Speaking to supporters on Ala-Too Square in Bishkek on January 11, Japarov said time is needed to put the country on the right track.

    But some think Japarov will need to hurry. He has promised a lot, and much of the reason people voted for Japarov was because they wanted change for the better — and soon.

    And in a country that has seen three presidents chased from power by protests since 2005, there already seems to be ample room to bring Japarov’s election and the referendum into question.

    Aigerim Toleukhanova of RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service contributed to this report.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kyrgyzstan Votes In Presidential Election Amid Extreme Cold, Delays

    Kyrgyz citizens went to the polls on January 10 in an election that is expected to confirm nationalist politician Sadyr Japarov’s hold on power. Voters are also choosing between the current parliamentary system and a presidential system in a referendum. There were technical glitches and delays at some polling stations, including at a university in Bishkek, where officials blamed extreme cold for malfunctioning voting machines. The cold weather was also blamed for low turnout.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Majlis Podcast: How Central Asia Dealt With COVID In 2020 And What’s Coming In 2021

    The year 2020 will always be remembered as the year the coronavirus appeared and spread across the globe.

    The virus exposed weaknesses in every country, particularly in health-care systems, but it also affected trade and tested alliances.

    The responses from the five Central Asian countries differed.

    This was most evident in their official reporting on registered cases and deaths, where countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, even though their figures were often questionable, released statistics that showed the countries were facing a serious health crisis, while countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan carefully manipulated figures to ensure an outward appearance of controlling the situation. And then there was Turkmenistan, which chose complete denial and continues its farcical claims that the country has somehow been immune to the coronavirus.

    How did the five countries fare in 2020 and, with various vaccines being developed and gradually being made available internationally, how does 2021 look for Central Asia?

    On this week’s Majlis Podcast, RFE/RL’s media-relations manager for South and Central Asia, Muhammad Tahir, moderates a discussion that looks at these questions.

    This week’s guests are: from Kazakhstan, Gaukhar Mergenova, a public-health specialist; from Kyrgyzstan, Ermek Ismailov, a surgeon at the Clinical Hospital Office of the President and Government of the Kyrgyz Republic; and originally from Uzbekistan but currently a senior journalist for RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, known locally as Ozodlik, and based in Prague, Barno Anvar; and Bruce Pannier, the author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.

    Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ex-Fugitive Japarov Looks To Cement Power In Kyrgyzstan’s Presidential Vote And Referendum

    Nationalist politician Sadyr Japarov will look to cement his hold on power in Kyrgyzstan’s presidential election on January 10, just three months after a popular uprising over a disputed parliamentary vote sent the country into political chaos.

    The Central Asian country of some 6.5 million will also vote on January 10 in a simultaneous referendum to choose between keeping its parliamentary system or reverting to a presidential system. Another option is “against all.”

    A poll conducted in December by the Bishkek-based research group Central Asian Barometer found that 64 percent of respondents intended to vote for Japarov. Only three percent said they would vote for his closest rival and fellow nationalist politician Adakhan Madumarov. The 15 other candidates barely registered in the survey.

    The vote comes after the results of the disputed October 4 parliamentary elections were annulled after opposition supporters took to the streets to condemn large-scale vote-buying campaigns benefitting parties close to then-President Sooranbay Jeenbekov.

    By nightfall on October 5, the protests had turned violent as clashes with police left one protester dead. A day later, the government had been chased from power with Jeenbekov, seemingly in hiding. He resigned soon afterward.

    Meanwhile Japarov, 52, was among several prominent politicians freed from prison by protesters during the unrest. He had been handed a 10-year prison sentence for hostage-taking during a protest against a mining operation in northeast Kyrgyzstan in October 2013. He has steadfastly denied the charge.

    The tumult marked the third time since 2005 that a president and his government had been ousted by protests.

    In the ensuing power vacuum, Japarov became prime minister and was then voted in by lawmakers as acting president.

    In a series of maneuverers that have raised questions over their legality, he used the old parliament to rush through motions for the referendum on a presidential system.

    A second referendum will need to be conducted, tentatively in March, to vote on a new draft constitution.

    Critics, including Human Rights Watch and legal experts, say Kyrgyzstan’s caretaker parliament did not have the legitimacy to initiate far-reaching constitutional amendments because its term had expired. It’s still not clear when new parliamentary elections will be held.

    Meanwhile, in order to skirt a law prohibiting him from running in the presidential vote, Japarov quit both posts in November. Still, his critics say that his campaign has benefited from the resources of the state with his allies occupying key government posts.

    Japarov and his supporters have pushed for the referendum saying the country needs the change to strengthen the role of the president by handing the post extensive legislative and executive powers similar to those in other neighboring Central Asian countries.

    Those powers, critics point out, are often abused in the region and they fear the same will happen in Kyrgyzstan if the referendum is successful and Japarov wins the vote.

    “To maximize his power, he will strive to establish a modern authoritarian police state,” Bakyt Beshimov, a professor at the Global Studies and International Relations at Northeastern University in Boston, commented on Twitter.

    Voters will cast their ballots in 2,470 polling stations across the country, while nearly 50 stations will also open in several Russian regions that host hundreds of thousands of Kyrgyz migrant workers.

    Election officials said that more than 300 international observers have been accredited to monitor the election process.

    With reporting by AFP and TASS.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Questions Arise With Ex-Fugitive Japarov, The Favorite In Kyrgyz Presidential Race

    Kyrgyzstan is holding a crucial presidential election and national referendum on January 10 to determine if the country should revert to a presidential system.

    But because the processes that led to this election day were rushed, questions linger about the legality and legitimacy of decisions that have been made by Kyrgyz officials. It is therefore difficult to escape the feeling that this election will not deliver stability and could even sow the seeds for future problems.

    The elections are a consequence of the mass unrest that broke out after the country held parliamentary elections on October 4.

    Concerns before the election of vote-buying were confirmed when the results showed the two parties suspected of dishonest campaign tactics, Mekenim Kyrgyzstan and Birimdik, received an overwhelming percentage of the votes.

    Unrest then broke out in the capital, Bishkek, on October 5 and a day later the government had been chased from power with the president, Sooronbai Jeenbekov, seemingly in hiding. He would soon resign.

    The tumult marked the third time since 2005 that a president and his government had been ousted by protests and most assumed — as happened in 2005 and 2010 — that opposition leaders would cobble together an interim government.

    But while many opposition figures and groups were anxious to claim a role in the victory of having the faulty elections annulled, they were slow to cooperate in forming an alliance to take up the reins of power.

    A huge power vacuum appeared and a group that did not take part in the October 5 protests came to the fore.

    That group then also pushed for this presidential election.

    From Prison To President?

    There are 17 candidates competing to be president in Kyrgyzstan, the lone Central Asian country where free and democratic elections are held.

    The favorite to win the vote is Sadyr Japarov, who woke up in a prison cell on October 5 where he was about one-third of the way through a 10-year prison sentence he was serving for hostage-taking during a protest against a mining operation in northeast Kyrgyzstan in October 2013.

    Quickly freed from prison overnight on October 5-6 during unrest in Bishkek, within two weeks he would become acting prime minister and acting president of the country. It is still unclear which powerful figures have backed Japarov’s meteoric rise to power, though there are suspicions organized criminal groups have played a role.

    Along with Japarov there are some other relatively well-known people running for the presidency.

    Adakhan Madumarov (file photo)

    Adakhan Madumarov (file photo)

    Adakhan Madumarov is the leader of Butun Kyrgyzstan, the only opposition party that won seats in the October 4 parliamentary elections, garnering 13 of the 120 available.

    Madumarov was a candidate in the 2011 presidential election when he placed second, and in 2017 when he was third.

    Kanatbek Isaev (file photo)

    Kanatbek Isaev (file photo)

    Kanatbek Isaev is the leader of the Kyrgyzstan party, which also won seats in the October 4 elections (16) but was seen as a pro-government party. Isaev was a parliament deputy and served as parliament speaker from October 13 to November 4.

    He should have become acting president when Jeenbekov resigned on October 15 but declined, paving the way for Japarov to take the post. Isaev later said he did not want to be acting president because it constitutionally prohibited him from running for president.

    Klara Sooronkulova (file photo)

    Klara Sooronkulova (file photo)

    Klara Sooronkulova is the leader of the Reforma party, which was created just before October’s parliamentary poll. She is a former Supreme Court judge and since October has led many of the court challenges against the decision to delay new parliamentary elections, allowing Japarov to run for president despite having served as acting president, and the decision to hold a referendum on the constitution.

    Kanybek Imanaliev (file photo)

    Kanybek Imanaliev (file photo)

    Kanybek Imanaliev is a deputy from the Ata-Meken party, an opposition party from the parliamentary elections. He was one of only four deputies to oppose holding the constitutional referendum.

    Abdil Segizbaev (file photo)

    Abdil Segizbaev (file photo)

    Abdil Segizbaev is a former chief of the State Committee for National Security (UKMK) and, as a presidential candidate, has been one of the most vocal critics of Japarov. He has challenged Japarov about his role as a top official in the anti-corruption agency under President Kurmanbek Bakiev (2005-2010), when billions of dollars were taken out of Kyrgyzstan and several successful private firms were taken over by Bakiev’s friends and relatives.

    Nearly all the other candidates have made negative comments about Japarov in a series of debates held on state television in late December.

    Japarov is the only candidate still running who did not participate in the debates, claiming he was too busy meeting with voters.

    The 52-year-old Japarov has received far more donations for his campaign than his opponents.

    According to the Kyrgyz news website Kaktus.media, as of early December Japarov had raised 1.23 million soms (about $15,000), trailing two other candidates: Babarjan Tolbaev (5.2 million soms/$63,000) and Aymen Kasenov (1.454 million soms/$17,000).

    Also Read: Plunder And Patronage In The Heart Of Central Asia

    But by December 25, Kaktus reported that Japarov’s campaign fund had raised 47.4 million soms ($570,000). The candidate with the next most campaign money is Babyrjan Tolbaev, with 9.35 million soms ($112,000). The other candidates have all raised less than 5 million soms ($60,000).

    Japarov has said several times that the money had been donated by the “people of Kyrgyzstan,” but one report said at least 30.9 million soms of his total came from just 10 people and two companies.

    The ‘Khanstitution’

    Holding a constitutional referendum was an idea raised in late October, but it quickly went from just making some reforms to the document to making major changes that amounted to rewriting it.

    By early November, Japarov and members of his Mekenchil party said the current constitution establishing the parliamentary system of government and a division of power between the president and prime minister has not worked. They argued that it is necessary for one person to hold all of the main powers.

    A new constitution was drafted that immediately sparked resistance from several quarters in Kyrgyzstan.

    The draft would make the president the head of state and head of government while including an official role for a kuriltai, or council, that would be a consultative body able to recommend, among other things, the dismissal of officials.

    It was dubbed the “khanstitution” by opponents who said it would legitimize authoritarian rule.

    On November 22, the first of a series of peaceful marches against the constitution started in Bishkek. They have continued every Sunday since then.

    Acting President Talant Mamytov signed a decree on November 20 to establish a constitutional chamber of 89 members to redraft the “khanstitution” and the group quickly fell into disagreement over many points, for example whether the word “secular” should be stricken from the constitution or the name of parliament, Jogorku Kenesh, should be changed.

    In the end, the motion for a referendum on a constitution was adopted by parliament on December 10 — one month before the referendum would be held — after quickly approving it on the second and third readings.

    What voters in Kyrgyzstan are being asked to approve on January 10 is simply whether they want a parliamentary of presidential form of government.

    A second referendum will need to be conducted, tentatively in March, to vote on a new draft constitution.

    Questions Of Legitimacy

    From just after the October parliamentary elections until January there have been a multitude of questions and problems about the decision-making processes of Kyrgyz officials.

    First off, the parliamentary mandates for the deputies expired on October 28, and though deputies voted to extend them until new parliamentary elections are held, they legally should have not been allowed to vote on any matters involving a major policy change, such as the holding of a referendum to change the constitution.

    Therefore every decision parliament approved after October 28 is considered by some legal experts in Kyrgyzstan and many others to have no validity.

    Also, Japarov was named acting president on October 16 and officially took up the duties of that office on October 21, but as former parliament speaker Isaev noted, it is banned by the constitution for an acting president to run for president.

    On October 26, Japarov announced he would step down as prime minister and acting president so he could run for president.

    But two days later, Japarov and other government members took their oaths of office.

    Kyrgyz acting President Talant Mamytov (file photo)

    Kyrgyz acting President Talant Mamytov (file photo)

    On November 14, Japarov finally left his state posts and Talant Mamytov, the parliament speaker since November 4, was named acting president.

    Japarov has also said several times that he would not appoint his friends to government positions, but Mamytov and the current head of the UKMK, Kamchybek Tashiev, were co-defendants with Japarov when they were on trial in 2013 for trying to overthrow the government.

    They were convicted in March 2013 and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

    One of the judges that eventually acquitted the three in an appeals court in June 2013 was Kurmankul Zulushev, who was appointed prosecutor-general on October 21, just days after Japarov became acting president.

    Zulushev was dismissed for the decision to acquit the three deputies and two months later the Supreme Court overturned those acquittals but ruled the three did not have to return to prison.

    There are also questions about the Supreme Court’s abrupt decision to acquit Japarov of the hostage-taking charges and to overturn the guilty verdict against Japarov, Mamytov, and Tashiev for trying to overthrow the government.

    And it is still not clear when there will be new parliamentary elections, even though the annulled October 4 elections led to so much that has happened since then and despite the fact that preparations to hold them began in late October.

    Japarov has variously cited “spring” or “before the end of the first half of 2021” as the time when they would be held.

    In the end, the populist Japarov is the big favorite to win the presidential election and the proposal for a presidential form of government also seems likely to be approved by voters, largely because of Japarov’s support and promotion of it.

    But there are so many aspects of Japarov’s rise to power, and the changes he has been making since then, which are open to legal challenges, leaves many thinking that once his momentum slows and his popularity dissipates — as seems almost certain to happen given the economic and other crises Kyrgyzstan faces — the country is likely to fall back into a political crisis of some kind.

    Gulaiym Ashakeeva of RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, contributed to this report.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Sadyr Japarov: From Convicted Kidnapper To Kyrgyz President?

    Sadyr Japrov is considered the front-runner in Kyrgyzstan’s presidential election on January 10. A little more than three months ago, he was in prison. He said charges that he took part in an attempted hostage-taking scheme were politically motivated. He was freed during unrest surrounding annulled parliamentary elections in October. We look at the up-and-down career of this populist politician.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • At Center Of Scandal, Kyrgyz Tycoon’s Family Lawyer Appointed As Judge

    BISHKEK — A lawyer for the wealthy family of former deputy chief of Kyrgyzstan’s Customs Service, Raimbek Matraimov, who has been implicated in a high-profile case involving the illegal funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars abroad, has been made a judge.

    Acting Kyrgyz President Talant Mamytov said on January 6 that lawyer Leila Baidaeva was appointed to the post at Bishkek’s Sverdlov district court.

    Baidaeva was one of the lawyers for Matraimov’s extended family and their Ismail Matraimov Public Foundation. She assisted them in filing a libel lawsuit in late 2019 against RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, locally known as Azattyk, its correspondent Ali Toktakunov, and the news site Kloop, following an alleged corruption scandal exposed by the media outlets.

    The investigative report showed that a 37-year-old Uyghur businessman from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, Aierken Saimaiti, secretly provided reporters with documents demonstrating how hundreds of millions of dollars were moved out of Kyrgyzstan, much of it via a business network led by Khabibula Abdukadyr, a secretive Chinese-born Uyghur with a Kazakh passport.

    Saimaiti, who was shot dead in Istanbul on November 10, 2020, alleged that Matraimov, while serving as Kyrgyz customs’ deputy chief, was instrumental in providing cover for the Abdukadyr network’s cargo empire in the region.

    After the joint investigative report was made public in November 2019, several protests were held in Bishkek, where thousands demanded the authorities thoroughly investigate the allegations.

    Matraimov and his brother, Iskender Matraimov, have denied all accusations of wrongdoing by the former customs official.

    On October 20, 2020, following anti-government protests over disputed parliamentary elections that ousted the cabinet and forced President Sooronbai Jeenbekov to resign, Matraimov was detained and placed under house arrest.

    The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said at the time that Matraimov had agreed to pay about 2 billion soms ($24.7 million) in damages to the state, and that 80 million soms ($1 million) had already been transferred to its account.

    On December 9, 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions against Matraimov for his alleged role in the vast corruption and money-laundering scheme.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Curious Case Of Bishkek’s $1 Million Deal With Ex-Israeli Intelligence Worker

    Confusion and intrigue have reigned in Kyrgyzstan since compromised parliamentary elections on October 4, 2020, sparked street protests that brought down the government and forced the president of the Central Asian country to resign.

    Now people are scratching their heads over a $1 million international lobbying contract signed on behalf of Kyrgyzstan’s acting president — just days after he got out of jail — by an obscure Bishkek businessman with a self-professed former Israeli intelligence agent living in Canada.

    Ari Ben-Menashe, who claims to have worked for Israeli intelligence in the 1970s and 1980s, registered as a foreign agent in Washington in early November 2020 to help Sapyr Japarov — who came to power in Kyrgyzstan after the failed elections and is now a leading presidential candidate — secure meetings with foreign officials and attract international investment to his impoverished country, U.S. lobbying documents show.

    Ben-Menashe told RFE/RL he was tapped to help Kyrgyzstan by an acquaintance he met in Russia named Abdymanap Karchygaev, who says he is a successful businessman who heads Renaissance, a newly registered Kyrgyz agro-industrial firm.

    The $1 million fee for Ben-Menashe’s services — which was fully paid by December 21, 2020, according to U.S. filings — was partially financed by Karchygaev’s friends in Russia, the Kyrgyz businessman said.

    Karchygaev, who began negotiating the contract in September 2020 when Japarov was still serving a prison term for kidnapping, said he hoped the international lobbying effort would help attract $8 billion in aid and investment to Kyrgyzstan. If accomplished, the amount would exceed the country’s total foreign direct investment in the past 25 years, according to World Bank data.

    “I had [aimed] to set up around 100 companies under the umbrella of the agro-industrial corporation, to bring back hundreds of Kyrgyz wandering around in Russia and create jobs,” Karchygaev told reporters in Bishkek on November 6, 2020. “Bearing in mind this idea, I contacted this consultancy company. I’ve lived in Russia for 10 years, therefore, these are my old acquaintances.”

    Ben-Menashe told RFE/RL in an interview that he met with Japarov in his government office in Bishkek three times in October 2020 to discuss details of the lobbying deal before it was signed by Karchygaev in Japarov’s name.

    The contract does not mention any preferential treatment for Karchygaev or his companies though it does seek to attract investment into Kyrgyzstan’s agricultural industry, which could potentially benefit the businessman.

    When the $1 million contract became public following Ben-Menashe’s mandatory registration in the United States, reporters in Kyrgyzstan started to ask questions.

    Japarov first denied having met with Ben-Menashe and dismissed the deal as a bureaucratic mistake by a novice employee. He added that he could barely remember Karchygaev.

    Sapyr Japarov

    Sapyr Japarov

    Japarov said Karchygaev was one of more than 100 investors that have come to his office since October 2020 to discuss investment possibilities.

    He claimed that when Karchygaev then appealed to the nation’s investment promotion agency for help with his endeavor, a new employee “unknowingly” signed a letter and sent it to the Foreign Ministry.

    “This is just a small shortcoming,” Japarov said. “People who wanted to promote black PR blew up this little thing saying that an agreement was signed. No agreement was signed between them and the government.”

    Japarov’s office did not respond to an RFE/RL inquiry — after Ben-Menashe said he met with the then-prime minister — asking to confirm they had met and if he had given his approval for the deal.

    Anna Massoglia, a researcher and foreign-lobbying expert at the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, told RFE/RL that U.S. law does not prohibit an individual from hiring a lobbyist on behalf of another person as long as it is disclosed.

    “It is not uncommon for individuals who are fugitives, subject to sanctions, or imprisoned to have another person acting as a proxy of sorts and listed as the foreign principal in [Foreign Agents Registration Act] filings,” she said.

    U.S., Israel, And Saudi Arabia

    Ben-Menashe is, according to the contract, supposed to arrange meetings for the Kyrgyz president with senior U.S. officials “in short order” to discuss improving relations and to obtain grants for technological development, fighting the coronavirus, agricultural investments, and debt-repayment assistance.

    Furthermore, Ben-Menashe is to set up meetings for Japarov with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; attract investment from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for highways, mines, and oil fields; and schedule meetings with officials in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

    Ben-Menashe will have his work cut out for him on the investment goals.

    Unlike its authoritarian neighbors in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan routinely changes governments and has thrown out three presidents in 15 years. It is also beset with deep-rooted corruption.

    Furthermore, the country’s largest foreign-investment project, the Canadian-owned Kumtor gold mine, has faced threats of nationalization, riots, and hefty lawsuits for ecological damage, setting a poor precedent for potential international investors.

    But there are other hurdles to overcome in Ben-Menashe’s goal of attracting Middle East money for Kyrgyzstan’s natural resources industry, said Ellen Wald, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center and a Saudi expert.

    Aramco and Adnoc, the national oil companies of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E, respectively, have never done any exploration or production of upstream assets outside of their own countries, she told RFE/RL.

    “Aramco has talked about investing in gas assets outside of the kingdom but Kyrgyzstan, a country that has no known oil or gas assets, would be a very questionable choice to initiate that process,” said Wald.

    ‘Terrible’ Timing

    As for the effort to lobby the United States, it has already promised aid to Central Asia to fight COVID-19 and senior officials hold regular meetings with regional leaders through the C5+1 format.

    Eric Stewart, a former Commerce Department deputy assistant secretary who has worked with Central Asian governments, told RFE/RL there are very few instances where it makes sense for a country to hire a lobbyist to get meetings in Washington.

    “Only if there is something very specific [in which] they need help with securing something Pentagon related, for example. But to secure meetings — no,” he said.

    Stewart, who is president of the American Central European Business Association, called the timing of the contract “terrible.”

    The incoming Biden administration will need time to assemble its team and likely won’t focus on Central Asia until late in 2021, he said.

    “It’s nothing against Kyrgyzstan, it’s an amazing country, they just aren’t a strategic or economic priority for the [United States]. They are too far away, too small, and too reliant on China and Russia. An Israeli-Canadian lobbyist won’t change their relevance and, in fact, some in the administration will be turned off by it or even less reluctant to schedule a meeting if there are middlemen involved,” he said.

    Big January Election

    The Kyrgyz parliament eventually named Japarov, 51, prime minister in the chaos that existed shortly after the government collapsed in the wake of street protests over the results of the October 4, 2020 parliamentary elections, in which many votes were alleged to have been bought.

    When President Sooronbai Jeenbekov resigned later that month, parliament also named Japarov acting president.

    He later stepped down as prime minister and as acting president in order to be able to stand for president in the January 10 election.

    Japarov, who was released amid the protests from a Bishkek prison where he was serving a nearly 12-year term for kidnapping, is one of 18 candidates vying for the top post.

    Zimbabwe, Congo, And Libya?

    Kyrgyzstan is just the latest troubled country that Ben-Menashe has represented since setting up his Montreal-based firm Dickens & Madson Canada in 2001.

    His clients over the years have included Zimbabwe’s former authoritarian leader Robert Mugabe; the Republic of Congo’s long-serving president, Denis Sassou Nguesso; Sudan’s military junta; Libya’s Cyrenaica Transitional Council and General National Council; and Venezuela’s left-center Progressive Advance political party.

    Ben-Menashe has stated in some of his FARA filings that he would lobby Russia as well as the United States on behalf of his clients, including Nguesso, Libya’s General National Council, and the tiny Venezuelan party. Russia has influence with all three countries.

    Ben-Menashe was arrested by U.S. officials in 1989 on charges of trying to sell U.S.-made, military cargo planes to Iran, but was acquitted one year later.

    His lawyer told the court that Ben-Menashe was a former intelligence operative who represented Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in an attempted arms-for-hostages deal, according to a 1990 report by The Washington Post.

    But U.S. prosecutors said he was only a translator for Israeli military intelligence.

    A congressional hearing that looked into arms transfers to Iran described Ben-Menashe as a talented liar, according to a 2004 report in The New York Times.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Claims Of Kyrgyz Voter Intimidation Investigated Ahead Of Presidential Vote

    BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan’s Central Election Commission (BShK) has launched a probe after an NGO reported that residents in one district said they were threatened with violence if they didn’t vote for Sadyr Japarov in the upcoming early presidential poll.

    The BShK said it was acting on a report by the group Jalpy Ish (Common Case) over recent alleged voter intimidation in the Kara-Suu district in the southern Osh region.

    The report said young men went house to house telling people to vote for Japarov on January 10, threatening them with violence if they didn’t.

    The BShK also said that it had informed the Central Asian state’s Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor-General’s Office about the incident.

    There’s been no comment from Japarov on the allegations.

    The early presidential election was called following a political crisis triggered by mass protests in early October over the outcome of parliamentary elections that led to the resignation of the government and prompted President Sooronbai Jeenbekov to step down.

    Japarov, who during the October turmoil was released from prison where he was serving a sentence for kidnapping a political rival, was elected prime minister by lawmakers and took over presidential powers following Jeenbekov’s resignation.

    In mid-November, Japarov suspended his duties as acting president and prime minister to become eligible to seek the presidency as Kyrgyz law does not allow anyone serving as president in an interim capacity to run in an election for the post.

    Seventeen candidates have been registered to run in the January 10 vote.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Jailed Former Kyrgyz President Transferred To Penal Colony For Sick Inmates

    BISHKEK — A lawyer for Kyrgyzstan’s former President Almazbek Atambaev says he has been transferred from a detention center in Bishkek to a penal colony where inmates with medical conditions are treated.

    Zamir Jooshev told RFE/RL on January 4 that his client was transferred late last month to the capital’s Correctional Colony No. 47 because he was suffering from fluctuating blood pressure.

    Atambaev, 64, was sentenced to 11 years and two months in prison in June over his involvement in the release of a notorious crime boss in 2013.

    In November, the Supreme Court ruled to send the case back to a Bishkek district court for retrial. A reason for the decision was not immediately given.

    Atambaev has denied any wrongdoing.

    In early October, he was released from custody and rearrested four days later and charged with organizing an illegal demonstration as the country was rocked by mass protests against the official results of parliamentary elections.

    Atambaev was arrested in August 2020 after he surrendered to police following a deadly two-day standoff between security forces and his supporters that led to the death of a top security officer and more than 170 injured.

    The former president and 13 other people were charged with murder, attempted murder, threatening or assaulting representatives of authorities, hostage taking, and the forcible seizure of power.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Analysis: Scandals Increase Tensions Ahead Of Controversial Elections In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan

    Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are holding elections on January 10, the results of which will inevitably be unpopular with segments of the two countries’ populations before and after election day.

    Kazakhstan’s Nur-Otan party, created in 1999 to keep Nursultan Nazarbaev in power and still headed by the now former president, is expected to retain its omnipotent position in parliamentary elections.

    In Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov is also expected on January 10, 2021, to formalize his meteoric rise from prisoner to president in barely three months and will likely enjoy greater powers than previous Kyrgyz presidents as the country also votes on a referendum to move from a parliamentary system of government back to a presidential one.

    Such outcomes are already unpalatable to many people in both countries, but those who seem sure to win in these upcoming elections are connected to recent scandals that are tarnishing the image of their countries and providing their opponents with additional reasons to reject the results of these polls.

    That will almost surely result in a rise in tensions in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

    Same Old, Same Old In Kazakhstan

    Nur-Otan is the party of first Kazakh President Nazarbaev and, as mentioned, has been since the day it was created. The party was originally called Otan, which means “Fatherland,” but in December 2006 party members decided to add Nur (radiant) to the title, which certainly emphasized whose party it was.

    Nur-Otan has won the majority of seats in every election it has participated in; from the first in 1999, when the party won 23 of 77 seats available to the last election in 2016 when the party won 84 of 98 seats at stake.

    It would be remiss not to recall the party’s greatest victory, in 2007, when Nur-Otan took all 98 of the seats, leaving the other six token parties participating in those elections out in the cold.

    It is also important to note that Western election observers have not ever deemed a presidential or parliamentary election in Kazakhstan as “free and fair.”

    With such a background, it is fair to assume the Nur-Otan party will prove equally successful on January 10.

    It will, however, be the first time the party is running without Nazarbaev as president.

    Nazarbaev stepped down from office in March 2019.

    His chosen successor, Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, is officially the president, though many believe Nazarbaev still runs the country.

    The transfer of the presidential office has made little difference in the style of governance in Kazakhstan, but it did reinvigorate a largely dormant opposition in the country that hoped a change in presidents would also lead to a change away from the authoritarian ways of Nazarbaev.

    There have been visible signs of discontent ever since Toqaev took over, including some of the biggest demonstrations Kazakhstan has seen in some 20 years.

    One of the candidates from Nur-Otan in the upcoming elections is Darigha Nazarbaeva, the unpopular daughter of Nazarbaev.

    She was the chairwoman of Kazakhstan’s Senate, the position next in line to the presidency (having taken over for Toqaev when he moved to the president’s office) until May, before scandals surrounding her brought much unwanted international attention on Kazakhstan.

    There were reports in foreign media about expensive property she and her oldest son Nurali owned in Britain, including one building that served as the address of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

    And her younger son, Aisultan, who had drug-abuse problems, had taken to posting on social networks again at the start of 2020, claiming once that his father was really Nazarbaev, who is his grandfather, and also alleging that someone in his family wanted him dead.

    It was not the first time Nazarbaeva had to leave the political scene.

    She also took a hiatus from politics after she divorced her first husband, Rakhat Aliev, in 2007 and she stayed away while her former husband hurled serious accusations from self-exile in Europe about the corrupt and criminal practices of Nazarbaev and his government. She only returned as a candidate for Nur-Otan in the 2012 parliamentary elections.

    Her ex-husband Aliev died under mysterious circumstances while being held in an Austrian prison in 2015. Officially ruled a suicide, there were many credible reports that suggest Aliev was killed.

    Her son, Aisultan, died of a heart seizure allegedly caused by cocaine usage in August of this year.

    But it seems Darigha is now returning to politics.

    Timur Kulibaev is the husband of Dinara Nazarbaeva, ex-President Nazarbaev’s second daughter.

    It is well known that Kulibaev is rich and he and Dinara are regularly listed as being among the wealthiest people in Kazakhstan.

    On December 4, the Financial Times reported Kulibaev received millions of dollars from a pipeline scheme involving purchases of steel from China that went to Ukraine and Russia for processing into pipeline segments that were sold to companies building the Central Asia-China natural-gas pipelines.

    The report only mentioned $53 million and some people think Kulibaev has made a lot more shady money than that in his far-flung business dealings. But the report in the Financial Times again brought unwanted attention on Kazakhstan.

    On December 9, Kulibaev called on Kazakhstan’s prosecutor-general to investigate these allegations, though it is difficult to say who would be persuaded by Kulibaev being cleared by Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor-General’s Office.

    Is Darigha Nazarbaeva returning to politics?

    Is Darigha Nazarbaeva returning to politics?

    And there is Nazarbaev’s longtime friend, Bulat Utemuratov, whom one of the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks said was rumored to be Nazarbaev’s “personal finance manager.”

    On December 1, The Wall Street Journal reported the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales had ordered some $5 billion in assets to be frozen “including stakes in luxury hotels, cash in bank accounts in half a dozen countries, and a Burger King franchise” that are connected to Bulat Utemuratov.

    The assets are part of a legal battle that involves an opposition figure in exile, fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, who has been “pursuing a personal feud against Nazarbaev” for a decade.

    The coronavirus global pandemic has hurt economies around the world and Kazakhstan has been no exception.

    It has been a tough year for many in Kazakhstan and all these reports of millions and billions of dollars belonging to a few people all connected with Nazarbaev will not engender much goodwill toward the first president, his family, and his friends.

    But regardless, on January 10, Nazarbaev’s Nur-Otan party is going to again win the most seats in parliament and his daughter, Darigha, seems sure to return to the country’s political scene.

    Worries In Kyrgyzstan

    Kyrgyzstan’s situation is more complicated.

    January 10 will mark slightly more than three months since Kyrgyzstan conducted parliamentary elections (October 4) that were marred by allegations of vote buying and the use of administrative resources that led to unrest in the capital, Bishkek, and saw a crowd storm state buildings and bring down the government, eventually including the president.

    A huge void was created and a group that played no role in bringing down the government came to power with Sadyr Japarov — freed from prison one day after the elections — becoming the apparent leader.

    How Japarov went from a prison cell, where he was serving time for hostage-taking, to being appointed prime minister and then, simultaneously acting president, in barely two weeks is a question still being debated but he clearly had support from influential people in Kyrgyzstan. Many believe much of that support came from organized criminal groups.

    Raimbek Matraimov, a former deputy chief in Kyrgyzstan’s Customs Service, is suspected of being one of the leading criminal figures in the country and his connection to the Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party that took the second-largest amount of votes in the October 4 parliamentary elections helped fuel the unrest that led to those results being annulled.

    Matraimov and some of his family members and business associates have been the subject of several lengthy investigative reports from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Kyrgyzstan’s Kloop media outlet, and RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk.

    Their latest reports on the Matraimovs were released on December 14.

    After becoming prime minister, Japarov vowed to crack down on organized crime and Matraimov was taken into custody on October 20, though quickly released and put under house arrest.

    According to the investigative reports, Matraimov was a central figure in a smuggling and money-laundering scheme in which hundreds of millions were funneled from Kyrgyzstan, and there is testimony alleging he may be connected to some murders linked to the major money-laundering scheme. He has denied those charges in comments to RFE/RL.

    Japarov said in an interview on October 21 that there is nothing to be gained by putting Matraimov in prison.

    “[Matraimov’s] arrest won’t solve the problem,” Japarov said. “If he is in prison, no one will be able to get even a som from his assets…. How many corrupt figures have [already] been detained? None of them paid any money.”

    Japarov said Matraimov had promised to bring back 2 billion soms (about $24 million) and put it in a special bank account for recovered funds. Much of that has reportedly been returned to state coffers.

    Though Japarov spoke about corruption in the interview, he never specifically said Matraimov was involved in it or offered a clear reason why Matraimov — who has professed total innocence of the allegations made against him — was paying back any money at all.

    The current chief of the State Committee for National Security (UKMK), Kamchybek Tashiev, is a longtime friend of Japarov.

    In an interview with Azattyk less than two weeks before being appointed head of the UKMK, Tashiev criticized the media for “blackening” Matraimov’s image.

    “[Matraimov] is an ordinary citizen who has never held any high posts,” Tashiev said.

    The Kyrgyz Prosecutor-General’s Office has dragged its feet in taking any action against Matraimov.

    On December 10, Prosecutor-General Kurmankul Zulushev said an investigation is under way but added that the investigation involved “other parties guilty of economic crimes” and that “Raimbek Matraimov has made a deal with the investigation.”

    Sadyr Japarov: from prisoner to president

    Sadyr Japarov: from prisoner to president

    Zulushev was speaking the day after the U.S. Treasury Department announced it had put Matraimov on the Magnitsky Act sanctions list.

    Matraimov’s wife was added to the list on December 11.

    And U.S Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Donald Lu had already offered help in the Kyrgyz investigations of organized crime on December 3 and, two days later, repeated the offer, saying the journalistic investigation of Matraimov was the most important event in Kyrgyzstan in the last 18 months.

    These reports have been widely reported in Kyrgyzstan.

    With all of this background, Japarov remains the favorite going into the January 10 presidential election, which will have 18 candidates.

    But his and other officials’ attitudes toward Matraimov and the thus far soft treatment of other underworld figures such as Kamchy Kolbaev — who is also on the U.S. Treasury list of Specially Designated Nationals — has only deepened suspicions that organized crime is in charge or at least far too influential in Kyrgyzstan.

    And if the referendum is passed Japarov, as president, will have greater powers than his predecessors pending a referendum to be held the same time as the election.

    It was difficult to see how Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan would be able to hold these elections without protests.

    The addition of these latest scandals seems to ensure problems could occur before and after the votes are tabulated.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • After Long Delays, Kyrgyzstan Announces New Biometric Passports

    BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan has announced the introduction of long-awaited biometric passports for its citizens — passports embedded with a microchip containing information that can be read and authenticated electronically.

    The move comes after months of speculation that Kyrgyzstan’s inclusion on a U.S. partial travel ban list may have been linked to delays in fully switching to a biometric system.

    The State Registration Service (MKK) in Bishkek said on December 18 that new biometric passports made by a German company — Muhlbauer ID Services GmbH — will be available starting on January 1.

    According to the MKK, the passports will consist of 34 pages and cost citizens just under $5. It says those who frequently travel can obtain a 52-page biometric passport at a cost of about $5.30.

    The White House announced in late January that it was suspending the issuance of visas that can lead to permanent residency for citizens of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania.

    It said the move would not impact nonimmigrant visas for visitors to the United States from the listed countries.

    U.S. officials said the six countries had failed to meet U.S. security and information-sharing standards.

    Without specifying concerns about each country, Washington noted issues ranging from substandard passport technology to the failure of governments to adequately exchange information about terrorist suspects and convicted criminals.

    Weeks before the White House’s announcement, media reports said that the United States was planning a total travel ban against citizens from Kyrgyzstan.

    At the time, Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Chyngyz Aidarbekov said the lack of biometric passports could have been the reason Kyrgyzstan was included on the list.

    Kyrgyzstan had planned to start issuing biometric passports in 2019. But the introduction of the technology was delayed after the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security (UKMK) canceled the results of a tender on who would produce the documents.

    In February 2019, the MKK announced that a Lithuanian company, Garsu Pasaulis, had won the tender.

    But in April 2019, the UKMK annulled the decision and launched an investigation into alleged irregularities that bolstered the bid by the Lithuanian firm.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kyrgyz Protest Violence Against Women After Acquittals In Rape Of Schoolgirl

    Kyrgyz are aghast at rampant gender-based violence and impunity in the courts, illustrated by the recent acquittal of men accused in the repeated rape of a 13-year-old schoolgirl.

    On December 12, a march was held in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, as part of an annual 16-day UN campaign against gender-based violence around the world.

    The march, held in subfreezing temperatures, came a day after a court acquitted two of three suspects in the rape of a 13-year-old schoolgirl in the Issyk-Kul region.

    One of the suspects received a light sentence of 7 1/2 years from the judge, who fell asleep several times during the trial.

    The girl, who had to have an abortion after becoming pregnant from one of the rapists, remains in a psychological trauma center.

    According to her family, the three men raped her for six months, filmed her, and threatened that they would show the videos to her classmates.

    “I never even thought that my daughter’s life would turn out so that her future would simply be trampled upon,” the girl’s father told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. “It turns out that there is no justice. My daughter says she wants to die.”

    Violence against women is rampant in Kyrgyzstan. Kloop, an independent Kyrgyz news site, cited a study showing a quarter of women suffer from domestic violence. An astonishing 83 percent of women have experienced psychological, physical, or sexual violence in the family at least once, according to one study.

    One survey showed that one in three women in Kyrgyzstan believes that there are justified reasons for a husband to beat his wife, such as for leaving the house without his permission, burning food, refusing sexual acts, or not doing household chores.

    In recent years, Kyrgyzstan has taken steps on paper to deter domestic violence, including adopting a stronger domestic violence law. However, domestic violence is a misdemeanor rather than a criminal offense, and often goes lightly or completely unpunished, according to Human Rights Watch.

    In a report released on December 10, the American Bar Association said that Kyrgyzstan’s legal system fails to protect women and instead actively impedes their access to justice.

    “Women in Kyrgyzstan who survive gender-based violence face barriers to accessing justice and are often denied justice entirely,” the association of lawyers and legal professionals said.

    “This is evidenced by the rarity of investigation and prosecution of domestic violence complaints, the shaming of survivors who speak out, and the many obstacles that survivors face in the judicial system.”

    With reporting by Current Time and Kloop.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kyrgyzstan ‘Ready To Closely Work’ With U.S. After ‘Meddling’ Accusation

    BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Ministry appears to be trying to calm simmering tensions with the United States after a senior official criticized the top U.S. diplomat in Bishkek for his statements on the Central Asian nation’s problems with corruption.

    About a dozen activists gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek on December 11 in support of U.S. Ambassador Donald Lu after the deputy chairman of the Kyrgyz parliament, Mirlan Bakirov, accused the U.S. diplomat of “meddling in Kyrgyzstan’s internal affairs” because of his statements regarding disputed parliamentary elections in October and the arrest of Raimbek Matraimov, a wealthy and influential political player in the Central Asian nation.

    Bakirov’s comments came after the U.S. Treasury Department announced on December 9 that it had slapped sanctions on Matraimov for his role in a vast corruption and money-laundering scheme that saw hundreds of millions of dollars funneled out of the country.

    Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry spokesman Nurlan Suerkulov said on December 11 that “Kyrgyzstan is ready to closely work along with the United States and other countries against corruption.”

    “The Kyrgyz side is grateful to the U.S. for its goodwill and proposal to cooperate in that direction…. Along with that, we think that such cooperation, as any other ties, must be carried out in frames of current legal norms and principles of interstate relations, one of which is noninterference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state,” Suerkulov added.

    On December 5, Lu criticized proven cases of vote buying during controversial October 4 parliamentary elections that led to mass protests which ousted the government, led to the resignation of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, and caused a deep political crisis in the country.

    “This has been like a Hollywood mafia movie. But you don’t yet know how the movie will end,” he said of the situation, adding that while the government has taken some steps in the battle against graft, “they are not enough.”

    The sanctions against Matraimov fall under the Magnitsky Act, a piece of legislation passed by the United States in 2012 that penalizes individuals responsible for committing human rights violations or acts of significant corruption.

    Last year, a joint investigation by RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), and the Kyrgyz news site Kloop, implicated Matraimov 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 assassinated in Istanbul in November 2019.

    Matraimov is one of three brothers from what is rumored to be one of the wealthiest and most-powerful families in Kyrgyzstan.

    He was a key financial backer for political parties and presidents, including Jeenbekov and the Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party, which dominated the controversial October 4 parliamentary elections along with a party called Birimdik, which listed Jeenbekov’s brother among its ranks.

    The $700 million scheme involved a company controlled by Matraimov bribing officials to skirt around customs fees and regulations, as well as engaging in money laundering, “allowing for maximum profits,” the U.S. Treasury Department said.

    U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a December 10 tweet said sanctions had also been imposed against Matraimov’s wife, Uulkan Turgunova.

    Records leaked from the Turkish investigation into Saimaiti’s killing showed that he had named Matraimov as one of two people who would be responsible should something happen to him, according to a subsequent report by RFE/RL.

    The other individual was Khabibula Abdukadyr — a Chinese-born Uyghur cargo magnate with a Kazakh passport for whom Saimaiti said he had laundered money.

    Kyrgyz authorities said in October, following Matraimov’s arrest, that the tycoon had agreed to pay about 2 billion soms ($23.5) million in damages to the state, and that 80 million soms (almost $1 million) had been transferred to its account.

    Matraimov and his family have denied any links to Saimaiti or corruption in the Kyrgyz customs service, and filed a libel suit over the investigation, demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Radio Azattyk, its former correspondent Ali Toktakunov, Kloop, and the 24.kg online newspaper as compensation for the alleged damages.

    The hearing into the lawsuit was scheduled to resume on December 11 but because Judge Jyldyz Ismailova did not show up, the hearing was postponed to an unspecified time.

    Toktakunov, who has received death threats in connection with the reporting, which has triggered street protests in Kyrgyzstan following its publication last year, said to RFE/RL on December 11 that since Matraimov accepted responsibility and agreed to compensate the financial damage to the state treasury, the lawsuit he filed must be withdrawn.

    With reporting by Akipress

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CIS Foreign Ministers Approve Draft On Closer Military, COVID-19 Cooperation

    Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have approved a draft concept on further developing cooperation in several areas, including the coronavirus pandemic.

    The Kazakh Foreign Ministry said in a statement that ministers approved a number of documents at the December 10 meeting, including a concept of military cooperation between CIS member states to 2025.

    It added that the Council of the CIS leaders will be held online on December 18.

    “The participants discussed a wide range of integration cooperation issues within the CIS, with a special emphasis on joint actions to overcome the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said after the meeting.

    CIS members are former Soviet republics — Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan has an associate status in the grouping.

    Ukraine quit the grouping in 2018, four years after Russia forcibly annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in March 2014 and started backing separatists in Ukraine’s east in a conflict that has killed more than 13,200 people since April 2014.

    Ukraine was an associate member of the CIS since the grouping was established following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

    Earlier, in 2009, another former Soviet republic, Georgia, quit the CIS following a five-day Russian-Georgian war in August 2008, after which Russia has maintained troops in Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and recognized their independence from Tbilisi.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • HRW Urges Kyrgyzstan To Lift Barriers To Education For Disabled Children

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) says thousands of Kyrgyz children with disabilities are “segregated” in the country’s residential institutions, where the New-York-based group says they can experience “neglect, inappropriate medical treatment, and discrimination.”

    In a report published on December 10, which marks International Human Rights Day, HRW says children with disabilities are subject to “discriminatory government evaluations that often lead to segregation in special schools or at home.”

    By ratifying the United Nations Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD) in 2019, Kyrgyzstan has committed to allow children with disabilities to “study in mainstream schools in the communities where they live,” said Laura Mills, researcher at HRW and the report’s author.

    “However, the government still needs to turn this pledge into a reality for children across the country,” where 3,000 children with disabilities remain in special institutions, she added.

    The study, titled Insisting On Inclusion: Institutionalization And Barriers To Education For Children With Disabilities In Kyrgyzstan, documents how children are denied quality, inclusive education in which children with and without disabilities study together in mainstream schools.

    HRW says it interviewed 111 people between October 2019 and July 2020, including children with disabilities, teachers, and staff at residential institutions and special schools, parents, and disability rights activists. The watchdog also visited six residential institutions and schools for children with disabilities in four regions.

    It found that these institutions had “insufficient personnel,” resulting in “neglect or lack of individualized attention.”

    Staff “regularly use psychotropic drugs or forced psychiatric hospitalization to control children’s behavior and punish them.”

    Children in residential institutions and special schools receive “either a poor education or no education at all.”

    Meanwhile, mainstream schools “often deny enrollment” to children who were recommended for special school or home education.

    And children who live at home “encounter significant, discriminatory obstacles to their education” in these schools.

    Parents of children with disabilities who receive education at home complained that teachers “come for very few hours and are often not trained in teaching a child with a disability.”

    Kyrgyzstan has pledged to close or transform several residential special schools, but Mills said that the authorities first need to “begin dismantling the obstacles that exclude them from schools in their communities.”

    “The government should ensure that children with disabilities study together with their peers and provide them with the tools they need to succeed.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Majlis Podcast: Fighting To Stop Violence Against Women

    November 25 was the International Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women and it started 16 days of activism that concludes on December 10.

    Violence against women is a problem in Central Asia, and while the issue is receiving somewhat more attention, progress in combating abuse has been slow — and efforts by authorities have often been no more than superficial.

    On this week’s Majlis podcast, RFE/RL’s Media-Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion about what changes have and are taking place in Central Asia to address the scourge of gender violence, and some of the challenges that still lie ahead.

    This week’s guests are: from Kazakhstan, Khalida Azhigulova, the director of the Research Center for Human Rights, Inclusion, and Civil Society and an associate professor at the Eurasian Technology University; from Uzbekistan, Irina Matvienko, a feminist activist and founder of Nemolchi.uz, which loosely translates as “don’t remain silent” and is an organization dedicated to the prevention of violence against women and helping victims; and Bruce Pannier, the author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.

    Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Majlis Podcast: Fighting To Stop Violence Against Women

    November 25 was the International Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women and it started 16 days of activism that concludes on December 10.

    Violence against women is a problem in Central Asia, and while the issue is receiving somewhat more attention, progress in combating abuse has been slow — and efforts by authorities have often been no more than superficial.

    On this week’s Majlis podcast, RFE/RL’s Media-Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion about what changes have and are taking place in Central Asia to address the scourge of gender violence, and some of the challenges that still lie ahead.

    This week’s guests are: from Kazakhstan, Khalida Azhigulova, the director of the Research Center for Human Rights, Inclusion, and Civil Society and an associate professor at the Eurasian Technology University; from Uzbekistan, Irina Matvienko, a feminist activist and founder of Nemolchi.uz, which loosely translates as “don’t remain silent” and is an organization dedicated to the prevention of violence against women and helping victims; and Bruce Pannier, the author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.

    Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kyrgyz Supreme Court Cancels Atambaev’s Conviction, Sends Case Back For Retrial

    BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court has canceled the conviction and prison sentence of former President Almazbek Atambaev that was handed to him in June over his involvement in the illegal release of notorious crime boss Aziz Batukaev in 2013.

    Atambaev’s lawyer Zamir Jooshev told RFE/RL late on November 30 that the Supreme Court ruled to send the case back to the Birinchi Mai district court in Bishkek for retrial. A reason for the decision was not immediately given.

    In August, the Bishkek City Court upheld a ruling sentencing Atambaev to 11 years and two months in prison in the high-profile case.

    Atambaev has denied any wrongdoing.

    Aziz Batukaev, who was unexpectedly released from prison in 2013 and immediately left the Central Asian country for Russia, was convicted of several crimes — including the murders of a Kyrgyz lawmaker and an Interior Ministry official.

    Atambaev was arrested in August 2019 after he surrendered to police following a deadly two-day standoff between security forces and his supporters.

    The move to detain Atambaev was sparked by his refusal to obey three summons to appear at the Interior Ministry for questioning involving Batukaev’s release.

    The standoff between security forces and his supporters resulted in the death of a top security officer and more than 170 injuries — 79 of them sustained by law enforcement officers.

    After the arrest, Atambaev and 13 associates and supporters were charged with murder, attempted murder, threatening or assaulting representatives of authorities, hostage taking, and the forcible seizure of power.

    The trial on those charges is currently under way and has been postponed several times since March due to Atambaev’s health problems, the failure of some defense lawyers to appear, and because of the state of emergency imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

    On October 6, during mass protests against the official results of parliamentary elections two days earlier, Atambaev was released from a detention center in Bishkek.

    He was rearrested on October 10 and additionally charged with organizing an illegal demonstration in Bishkek on October 9.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.