Police in Russia used heavy force in detaining more than 3,000 people nationwide as demonstrators took to the streets for a second-straight weekend to demand the release of jailed opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Aleksei Navalny. This is how events played out in the cities of Ufa and Samara. (Current Times TV and RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir service)
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Protesters rallied across Russia on January 31 in support of jailed opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Aleksei Navalny. As people marched through the streets chanting “Freedom for Navalny!” in Yekaterinburg, demonstrators were blocked and detained in Novosibirsk. In Yakutsk, protesters braved temperatures as low as -43 degrees Celsius to hold a demonstration, while in Vladivostok the protest started with a dance on the frozen sea.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Andrei Afanasyev, a freelance correspondent for RFE/RL’s Russian Service, has been detained as he traveled to cover anti-government protests in Russia’s Far East city of Blagoveshchensk.
The journalist was stopped by traffic police on January 31 ahead of nationwide protests against the jailing of prominent activist and Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.
Afansyev, who was in possession of a press pass and proof that he was on assignment, was taken to a local police station.
On January 24, when an estimated 4,000 people were arrested for participating in anti-government demonstrations across the country, Afansyev was briefly detained and members of his family were subsequently questioned about his activities.
Several RFE/RL freelancers were approached by police in the lead-up to demonstrations in 142 cities planned for January 31.
On the day itself, the independent monitor OVD-Info reported that multiple journalists were detained around the country ahead of the scheduled rallies.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
COVID-19 vaccination programs in Ukraine, Georgia, and Iran were given a boost over the weekend as health officials announced progress in getting their populations inoculated.
Ukraine’s deputy health minister, Viktor Lyashko, said on January 30 that his country will receive 117,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in February through COVAX.
The vaccine will be immediately distributed to inoculate employees of hospitals who provide care to patients with COVID-19, Lyashko said on Facebook.
Ukraine will also receive between 2.2 and 3.7 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first half of 2021.
Georgia, meanwhile, will receive the first doses of the Pfizer vaccine at the end of February, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia said on Facebook on January 30..
Gakharia did not specify how many doses would arrive, but he said the vaccination of medical personnel would begin immediately after the first doses arrive.
Gakharia’s announcement came on the same day that several dozen restaurateurs, owners of hospitality businesses, and fitness centers demonstrated in Tbilisi to demand the lifting of COVID-19 measures, RFE/RL’s Georgian Service reported.
The Georgian government has said the regulations will stay in place until the situation improves.
Elsewhere, Iran expects to receive the first batch of Russia’s Sputnik-V coronavirus vaccine by February 4, the IRNA state news agency reported.
“A contract for the purchase and joint production was signed yesterday between Iran and Russia,” said Tehran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, according to IRNA on January 30.
Two more batches are to be delivered later in February, he added.
Despite criticism of the way trials of the vaccine were conducted, Sputnik-V has also been registered in Russia, Belarus, Argentina, Bolivia, Serbia, Palestine, Venezuela, Paraguay, Turkmenistan, the U.A.E., and the Republic of Guinea.
It has also been cleared for emergency use in European Union member Hungary even though it has yet to be greenlighted by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the EU’s drug regulator.
The latest vaccine announcements come as governments in Europe and elsewhere move to curb international travel amid already tight restrictions as virus mutations show signs of spreading to dozens of countries around the globe.
Health officials have expressed concerns over whether vaccines will provide sufficient protection, particularly against virus mutations originally detected in South Africa and Brazil.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The United Nations has urged Iran to halt the “imminent” execution of a member of the Baluch ethnic minority as it rebuked Tehran for a number of recent hangings, including members of the country’s ethnic minorities.
“We urge the authorities to halt the execution of Javid Dehghan, to review his and other death penalty cases in line with human rights law,” the Geneva-based Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on Twitter on January 29.
“We strongly condemn the series of executions — at least 28 — since mid-December, including of people from minority groups,” the UN added.
The UN said Dehghan had been sentenced to death in 2017 for “taking up arms to take lives or property and to create fear.”
Amnesty International said on January 28 that Dehghan, 31, is scheduled to be executed on January 31.
The London-based rights group said Dehghan was sentenced to death in connection with his alleged membership in the extremist group Jaish Al-Adl (Army of Justice) and his alleged role in an ambush that killed two members of Iran’ Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Jaish Al-Adl has reportedly carried out several high-profile bombings and abductions in Iran in recent years.
Amnesty said his trial was “grossly unfair” with the court relying on “torture-tainted confessions” and ignoring abuses committed during the investigation.
“Amnesty International urges the Iranian authorities not to compound the shocking catalogue of human rights violations already committed against Javid Dehghan by carrying out his execution,” the rights group said.
Activists outside Iran have in past weeks expressed concern over the numbers of ethnic Baluch being executed or facing capital punishment in Iran.
Abdollah Aref, the director of the Europe-based Campaign of Baluch Activists, told the BBC earlier this week that in the past two months his group has documented the execution of 16 members of the Baluch minority.
The UN said Iran has launched a crackdown on minorities since mid-December.
“This has included a series of executions of members of ethnic and religious minority groups — in particular Kurdish, Ahwazi Arab, and Baluch communities,” OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said.
Iran is one of the world’s leading executioners.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill approving the extension of the New START nuclear arms-control treaty.
The lower house of parliament, the State Duma, voted unanimously on January 27 to extend the New START for five years. It was then approved quickly in the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council.
The pact, signed in 2010, was set to expire on February 5.
New START, the last remaining arms-control pact between Washington and Moscow, limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550, deployed strategic delivery systems at 700, and provides for a verification regime.
In a statement on January 29, the Kremlin said the extension of the treaty “allows to preserve the transparency and predictability of strategic relations between Russia and the United States.”
On January 27, Putin hailed the extension of the treaty as a positive development in reducing global tensions, saying “no doubt it is a step in the right direction.”
Former President Donald Trump’s administration made a late attempt to negotiate limits on other categories of nuclear weapons and add China to the treaty, stalling negotiations. A bid to agree to a shorter extension also ran into complications, leaving the fate of the treaty to the incoming administration of President Joe Biden.
Biden had long advocated for extending the treaty even if it could not be strengthened and expanded. Biden and Putin confirmed an agreement on the extension during a January 26 phone call — their first direct communication since Biden took office six days earlier.
Speaking on January 29, U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said there is still more to do on arms control with Russia, including its latest weapons that are not covered by the agreement.
The deal “is not the end of the story, it is the beginning of the story on what is going to have to be serious sustained negotiations around a whole set of nuclear challenges and threats that fall outside of the New START agreement, as well as other emerging security challenges as well,” Sullivan said at a virtual conference organized by the U.S. Institute for Peace.
Extending the treaty to allow time for Moscow and Washington to negotiate a new verifiable arms-control arrangement will be welcomed by the United States’ European allies, which were already concerned after Trump withdrew from two other arms-control pacts.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Ukraine’s former national-security chief, Oleksandr Danylyuk, has called the election of Joe Biden “excellent news” for Kyiv but said the new U.S. administration will lay down strict preconditions for cooperation, including pushing out corrupt officials.
Danylyuk told a U.S.-Ukraine Business Council virtual conference on January 27 that Biden’s team knows “Ukraine well” and it will be very difficult for the nation’s officials to “bullshit them.”
Danylyuk said Biden’s victory will be bad news for some current and former Ukraine officials, including those involved in helping the Trump administration look for dirt on Biden’s son, Hunter, who sat on the board of a Kyiv-based gas company.
Trump’s request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a July 2019 call to help him find compromising information on his Democratic competitor led the House of Representatives to charge him with two crimes.
Trump was eventually acquitted by the Senate in early 2020, but the case damaged his administration’s relationship with Kyiv.
“The new [Biden] administration will be effective in communicating, cooperating with Ukraine, but under certain conditions. Certain people involved — for example in the impeachment scandals — will have to go,” Danylyuk told the conference.
He said those officials were operating in their own interest rather than in the interests of Ukraine.
Danylyuk said Zelenskiy’s government was “very weak” and that this could pose a challenge to the United States as it pushes Kyiv to carry out tough reforms.
“It’s very difficult to be a strong partner [to the United States], when the execution is weak. It’s difficult to plan something when you know there’s no one to implement it properly,” he said.
He called anti-corruption and judiciary reform the most important issues that Ukraine needs to tackle and described the annulment of anti-corruption reforms in October as the “worst news” for the country in 2020 aside from the pandemic.
“Unless the key topics of anti corruption and judiciary are tackled, nothing is going to change in the country,” he said. “You can have wonderful economic policy, you can address the energy issues, but these two things impede the development of the country.”
Biden, who oversaw Ukraine policy while serving as U.S. vice president from 2009 to 2017, including traveling to Kyiv six times during that period, has yet to speak with Zelenskiy since taking office on January 20.
Danylyuk resigned in September 2019, after four months on the job, amid concern over corruption in the Zelenskiy administration.
He said he is forming a think tank with two other former officials to create a platform for people “who would like to change the country.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A Taliban delegation has held talks with high-ranking Iranian officials in Tehran amid ongoing peace talks between the Afghan government and the militant group.
Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem tweeted that the delegation led by deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar met with Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and other officials on January 27.
Naeem said the two sides discussed the Afghan peace process, border issues, and Afghan refugees.
Shamkhani was quoted by Iranian state media as saying that Tehran would “never recognize a group that wants to come to power through war,” and urged the Taliban to reach a peace settlement with the internationally recognized government in Kabul.
Baradar was quoted as saying that the militant group does not “trust the United States and we will fight any group that is a mercenary for the United States,” in reference to the Afghan government.
The relationship between Shi’ite-majority Iran and the Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni group, is complex. Iran officially opposes the Taliban, but a number of experts claim that Tehran provides some military support to the Taliban.
The Taliban’s visit to Afghanistan’s western neighbor comes as peace talks in the Gulf state of Qatar remain deadlocked.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s new administration has said it is reviewing an agreement reached with the Taliban last year to determine if the militant group is meeting its commitments, including reaching a cease-fire and engaging in meaningful negotiations with the Afghan government.
Under a U.S.-Taliban deal reached last February, all foreign forces are to leave Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for security guarantees from the militant group, including severing ties with the Al-Qaeda terrorist group.
The Afghan government said it welcomed the Biden administration’s review of the U.S.-Taliban agreement.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Ukrainian authorities say they have exposed a group of hackers who interfered with the computer network servers of several European and U.S. banks, causing losses of $2.5 billion.
The Prosecutor-General’s Office said in a statement on January 27 that since 2014, “hackers from Ukraine” have used malicious software designed to steal personal data such as passwords and logins from servers from private and state banking institutions in Austria, Britain, Germany, Lithuania the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States.
The prosecutors said computer and server equipment were seized in police raids in the Kharkiv region.
The investigation was carried out in coordination with the EU’s judicial cooperation unit Eurojust, the European policing agency Europol, as well as U.S. and German law enforcement agencies, the statement said.
It did not give further details.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Police are searching the apartment of jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, according to Ivan Zhdanov, the director of the opposition politician’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).
“The apartment of Aleksei Navalny is being searched. There are lots of “heavies” [security officers] wearing masks. They started to break down the door. Oleg Navalny [Aleksei’s brother] is in the apartment. We do not know why or on what basis they are conducting the search,” Zhdanov said in a tweet.
Navalny was arrested on January 17 upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent in August that he accuses Putin of ordering.
A court later extended his detention for 30 days to allow for a different court to decide in early February on whether to convert into real prison time the suspended 3 1/2 year sentence that Navalny served in an embezzlement case, which is widely considered trumped up and politically motivated.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Police are searching the apartment of jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, according to Ivan Zhdanov, the director of the opposition politician’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).
“The apartment of Aleksei Navalny is being searched. There are lots of “heavies” [security officers] wearing masks. They started to break down the door. Oleg Navalny [Aleksei’s brother] is in the apartment. We do not know why or on what basis they are conducting the search,” Zhdanov said in a tweet.
Navalny was arrested on January 17 upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent in August that he accuses Putin of ordering.
A court later extended his detention for 30 days to allow for a different court to decide in early February on whether to convert into real prison time the suspended 3 1/2 year sentence that Navalny served in an embezzlement case, which is widely considered trumped up and politically motivated.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
BISHKEK — The trial of the former deputy chief of Kyrgyzstan’s Customs Service, Raimbek Matraimov, who was placed on the U.S. Magnitsky sanctions list for his alleged involvement in the illegal funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars abroad, will start on February 3.
The Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan said on January 27 that the case will be tried in the Bishkek Birinchi Mai district court.
Matraimov was detained on corruption charges in October 2020 and placed under house arrest.
Kyrgyz authorities said at the time that he had agreed to pay about 2 billion soms ($23.5 million) in preliminary damages to the state through an economic-amnesty bill that allows individuals who obtained financial assets through illegal means to avoid prosecution by turning the assets over to the State Treasury. If the court decides not to pursue jail time, it can assess full damages at trial.
In June 2019, an investigation by RFE/RL, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and 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.
In early December 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had slapped sanctions on Matraimov for his role in a vast corruption and money-laundering scheme.
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 Treasury Department said.
The sanctions fell 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 week, a spokesperson for Kyrgyzstan’s state registration service, Damira Azimbaeva, confirmed to RFE/RL that both Matraimov and his wife, Uulkan Turgunova, had changed their surnames.
Earlier reports said that Raimbek Matraimov had changed his last name into Ismailov, and his wife had changed her surname into Sulaimanova, which many considered as a move to evade the U.S.-imposed sanctions.
There have been no official statements from the lawyers of Matraimov’s family to explain the decision to change surnames.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
BISHKEK — In the space of a single month, three Kyrgyz women from different walks of life killed themselves in the northeastern Issyk-Kul region in separate cases linked to domestic violence.
Among them was Aruuzat, a 33-year-old schoolteacher from the city of Karakol who died in the hospital on December 29 after consuming a fatal dose of vinegar.
In a WhatsApp message sent from her deathbed, Aruuzat told her colleagues that she had decided to end her life because her family wanted her to reconcile with her abusive husband despite being beaten by him.
Aruuzat, a mother of three, also sent photos of what she said was her bruised body after the latest abuse at the hands of her spouse.
They don’t get any support from their relatives, and they also fear disgrace in society. Therefore, most of them go back to their abusive husbands in the end.”
Her colleagues told RFE/RL they had been aware of her situation but that she didn’t want them to report her husband to the police.
“She had told us about the beatings. She said if she ran away, her husband would find her using the phone geolocation and torture her even more,” Aruuzat’s colleague and friend, Nazira, told RFE/RL. “She was terrified of her husband.”
It was only after Aruuzat’s death that her colleagues reported to police about the domestic abuse she had suffered. Despite that, Aruuzat’s mother, siblings, and other relatives still remain silent on the subject.
It’s a long-standing tradition for abuse to be quietly accepted in Kyrgyzstan — a country where divorce is shunned and women are encouraged to keep their marriages intact at almost any cost.
Impunity often remains a norm for domestic violence in the Central Asian country, where some women — like Aruuzat — end up paying the ultimate price.
But the Kyrgyz parliament is finally taking a decisive step to prevent families from putting pressure on the victims of domestic violence and to reconcile with their abusive spouses.
In an unprecedented move, the parliament passed a bill that bans such reconciliation if one of the parties in the marriage subjects his or her spouse to physical or mental abuse.
The bill also calls for harsher punishments for domestic violence.
Lawmaker Ishak Pirmatov, who initiated the bill: “Criminal behavior will continue if there is no punishment.” (file photo)
Initiated by lawmaker Ishak Pirmatov, the amendments to the law on domestic violence were approved by parliament on the second reading on January 20.
Domestic violence has always been a hot topic in Kyrgyzstan, where police record thousands of cases every year. Thousands of other incidents of abuse go unreported.
In 2020, Kyrgyz police recorded 9,025 cases of domestic violence, a 65 percent rise compared to previous years.
But only about 940 of the cases were sent to courts, authorities say. In all other cases, the victims — the majority of them women — withdrew their complaints, telling police they had changed their minds.
“There are many cases in which the victim opts for reconciliation under the pressure of the family. As a result, the case doesn’t go to court, while the victim still remains unprotected,” lawmaker Natalia Nikitenko said during the parliamentary debate.
“Now, the bill introduces new standards that prohibit the reconciliation of the parties if it puts one of the parties in harm’s way, or in cases in which one of the parties has already been subjected to violence,” Nikitenko said.
![Lawmaker Natalia Nikitenko: “It will no longer be possible to hide [the crime] in the name of reconciliation.” (file photo)](https://gdb.rferl.org/efa4cb5f-1b91-4d7d-8698-18b8ace79ecf_cx18_cy21_cw81_w250_r1_s.jpg)
Lawmaker Natalia Nikitenko: “It will no longer be possible to hide [the crime] in the name of reconciliation.” (file photo)
Current law states that if the victim withdraws a complaint, the police can drop the case. Under the new bill, however, police are required to launch a probe into suspected domestic violence even if the alleged victim takes back his or her initial complaint.
According to Nikitenko, “It will no longer be possible to hide [the crime] in the name of reconciliation.”
Some lawmakers spoke against the bill, arguing that marriage is a complex and delicate issue and that the best option for all sides is to save the union.
“Anything can happen in a family,” said lawmaker Kamchybek Zholdoshbaev, who advocated reconciliation at all costs. “Maybe we need to look for other solutions? For example, the [couple’s] elders should be consulted, or a representative of the local councils should get involved.”
But parliamentarian Pirmatov insisted the victims cannot be protected if the perpetrators know they can get away with a crime under the pretext of reconciliation.
“Criminal behavior will continue if there is no punishment,” Pirmatov said.
The bill must pass a third reading and be signed by President Sadyr Japarov for the bill to become law.
Just days after Aruuzat’s death in Karakol, another woman’s life was cut short by domestic violence in the nearby Tyup district.
Issyk-Kul regional police confirmed that 40-year-old housewife Gulmairam Taktasheva was strangled to death by her husband at home in the village of Dolon on January 9.
Gulmairam Taktasheva
“Her husband, Aibek, had been drinking a lot lately,” Taktasheva’s sister told RFE/RL. “When Gulmairam got upset and moved to our parents’ home, Aibek begged her to come back. They reconciled, but soon after he killed her.”
Taktasheva’s husband subsequently committed suicide, leaving the couple’s four children without parents.
On January 12, another woman in Karakol killed herself amid allegations of domestic abuse. The 29-year-old mother of three worked at a local television station. Police said they were unable to open a criminal probe as there were no witnesses, no reports of a crime, and no complaints.
Women’s rights advocates in Kyrgyzstan have welcomed the latest legislation, but they say more is needed to protect domestic violence victims. They are urging the government to set up special crisis centers where abuse victims can seek help with counseling and rehabilitation to recover from the abuse and rebuild their lives. Some of the victims are in desperate need of shelter and employment.
There are only 17 crisis centers for women in a country of some 6.5 million people.
In reality, helping the victims is not always as straightforward as it might seem, said Marina Lichanyu, the coordinator of Karakol’s Center for Rehabilitation and Support, who has extensive experience working with domestic violence victims.
“About 80 percent of the women who approached our center for help don’t have adequate education,” Lichanyu told RFE/RL. “Most of them were married young or ended up in marriage through the bride-kidnapping tradition.”
“It’s difficult to find them jobs and create favorable conditions in which they could independently support themselves and raise their children. They don’t get any support from their relatives, and they also fear disgrace in society. Therefore, most of them go back to their abusive husbands in the end,” she added.
There have also been several dozen cases of men reporting abuse and cruel treatment at the hands of their wives.
Kyrgyz authorities say they are committed to helping the victims. This week, the government launched a hotline — free phone line 117 — for victims of domestic abuse to report a crime and seek help.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling on the European Union to impose further sanctions on Russian officials after “more than 50 journalists were arbitrarily detained” during nationwide anti-government protests last weekend.
The Paris-based media-freedom watchdog made the call on January 26, three days after media covering rallies in support of jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny were subjected to an “unusually extensive and heavy-handed” crackdown to “prevent them from showing the scale of support for a government opponent.”
“The police deliberately targeted certain media, going so far as to enter a private apartment in order to cut off a video feed of the demonstrations, and in a sign of the totally disproportionate nature of the crackdown, even clearly-identified reporters wearing ‘press’ vests or armbands were held for several hours,” Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said in a statement.
Cavelier called on the Russian authorities to end this “blatant obstruction of the freedom to inform.” He also urged the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Teresa Ribeiro, to condemn the “violence and arbitrary arrests” and the EU to adopt “new sanctions against Russian officials.”
Navalny was detained earlier this month upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent in August he accuses President Vladimir Putin of ordering.
A court is expected to decide on February 2 whether to convert into prison time a suspended sentence in a case that is widely considered trumped up and politically motivated.
Meeting in Brussels on January 25, EU foreign ministers agreed to wait to see if Navalny is released before deciding to impose fresh sanctions.
The EU’s foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, said he would go to Moscow next week to urge the authorities to free protesters and Navalny. EU leaders could discuss further action against Russia at a planned summit on March 25-26, he said.
Russia has rebuffed the global outrage and a chorus of international calls calling for Navalny’s release.
In its statement, RSF said the “extraordinary figure” of more than 50 detentions of reporters, some of whom were “subjected to police violence,” is based on data compiled by the independent political watchdog OVD-Info, the Russian Journalists and Media Workers Union, and information gathered directly by the watchdog.
It cited the case of the independent TV channel Dozhd, which it said was “censored in mid-transmission when police cut the power supply to a Moscow apartment from which its crew was broadcasting.”
Dozhd reporter Aleksei Korostelev and cameraman Sergei Novikov were then detained “on the pretext of verifying their identity.”
Also in Moscow, riot police hit a reporter for the independent triweekly Novaya gazeta, Elizaveta Kirpanova, with their batons “for several minutes,” dealing some blows to her head, although she was “clearly identifiable by her ‘press’ vest and badge,” according to RSF.
The group noted that police had already tried to intimidate journalists and media outlets in the run-up to the unsanctioned demonstrations across Russia, which attracted tens of thousands of people and saw more than 3,700 people detained, according to OVD-Info.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said “extreme” police brutality and “mass” arbitrary detentions during the protests are further evidence of “how low human rights standards have plummeted” in the country.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A prominent hard-line ally of Russian President Vadimir Putin has accused the West of using Aleksei Navalny to try to “destabilize” Russia and says the jailed Kremlin foe must be held accountable for allegedly breaking the law.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council, made the comments in an interview with the online media outlet Argumenty i fakty. The article was published on January 26, three days after tens of thousands of people protested across Russia against Navalny’s jailing and deep-rooted government corruption.
Despite a violent crackdown on the unsanctioned rallies that saw thousands of people detained, allies of Navalny have called for fresh nationwide demonstrations this weekend.
A Russian court will hear an appeal over Navalny’s detention on January 28.
“Yesterday the cogwheels of ‘justice’ began to spin, documents began to be drawn up, and today the lawyers were notified that the appeal against the arrest was scheduled for January 28 — the day after tomorrow. All of a sudden,” a top Navalny aide, Leonid Volkov, said in a post on Twitter on January 26. He attached a picture of the notification in the post.
Navalny was detained on January 17 upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent in August he accuses Putin of ordering.
A court later extended his detention for 30 days to allow for a different court to decide in early February on whether to convert into real prison time the suspended 3 1/2-year sentence that Navalny served in an embezzlement case that is widely considered trumped up and politically motivated.
The suspended sentence ended on December 30, but penitentiary officials appear to be claiming that terms of the sentence were broken when Navalny was flown out of the country on an emergency air ambulance because of the attack.
Referring to the 44-year-old Navalny as “this figure,” Patrushev said he “has repeatedly [and] grossly broken Russian legislation, engaging in fraud concerning large amounts” of money.
“And as a citizen of Russia, he must bear responsibility for his illegal activity in line with the law,” he added.
Patrushev also alleged that “the West needs this figure to destabilize the situation in Russia, for social upheaval, strikes, and new Maidans,” a reference to the pro-European protests in late 2013 and early 2014 that ousted Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovych.
The European Union, the United States, and other countries have called for Navalny’s release and strongly condemned the crackdown on the January 23 nationwide, largely peaceful protests — Russia’s biggest anti-government demonstrations in years.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on January 26 said there could be “no dialogue” with those who joined the “illegal” protests and “took part in riots.”
Allies of Navalny have remained defiant, with Leonid Volkov, a Navalny aide, calling on Twitter for fresh demonstrations across Russia on January 31, “For freedom for Navalny. For freedom for everyone. For justice.”
Asked about the protests during which the independent political watchdog OVD-Info says more than 3,700 people were detained, Putin said on January 25 that “all people have the right to express their point of view within limits, outlined by law.”
Speaking to students via video, Putin also called allegations that an opulent Black Sea mansion belongs to him an attempt to “brainwash” Russian citizens.
“Nothing that’s shown there as my property belongs to me, or my close relatives, and doesn’t and didn’t belong. Never,” he said in a response to one student’s questioning of an investigative report published by Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation on January 19, two days after he was taken behind bars.
The report — A Palace for Putin — showcases a luxurious, 100 billion-ruble ($1.35 billion) estate near the popular holiday town of Gelendzhik that it said belongs to Putin
A nearly two-hour YouTube video accompanying the report went viral on Russian social media, with more than 86 million people watching it.
Navalny alleges that Putin effectively owns the palace via a complex trail of companies.
Peskov said that “one or several [businessmen] directly or indirectly own” the property, adding that the Kremlin “has no right to reveal the names of these owners.”
Putin has often denied having any serious wealth, and his name has never emerged in any publicly available documents that would attest to massive riches or offshore companies.
But several investigative reports, including by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), have alleged some of Putin’s friends and relatives have amassed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets without the corresponding jobs to accumulate such wealth.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Born and raised in New York City, Valentina Duhanaj is a newcomer to Kosovo’s elections.
But she’s no stranger to the country, its culture, or its politics.
Both of Duhanaj’s parents and three of her siblings were born there, and she visits her extended family in their landlocked Balkan homeland. She’s also spent much of the past decade focused on Kosovar and Balkan politics in college and graduate school as she studies for a master’s degree in global affairs.
Duhanaj, a 30-year-old with just U.S. citizenship, expects to vote in the Kosovar elections for the first time on February 14 thanks to the inclusiveness enshrined in that mostly ethnic Albanian country’s election law and its constitution.
“I started seeing chatter on Albanian Twitter with many friends and Kosovar politicians mentioning that children of Kosovar citizens could vote if they could prove at least one of their parents were born in Kosova, so I decided I wanted to,” Duhanaj told RFE/RL.
Kosovo’s law on citizenship — part of the path to voting — extends citizenship to former Yugoslav citizens and residents in January 1998 and their “direct descendants,” regardless of where they live.
But an unusual strategy of screening would-be voters by telephone threatened to upset Duhanaj’s and the efforts of tens of thousands of other Kosovars in the diaspora to collect on that democratic promise.
No Shortage Of Problems
There are other, arguably more conspicuous, challenges piling up ahead of these snap elections in Europe’s newest independent state.
They include conducting mostly in-person voting in a pandemic that has already frayed governments throughout Europe and the region.
Add to that the long shadow of alleged wartime atrocities that has been cast on former influential leaders, at least one candidate, and the national conscience.
And, more unexpectedly, the problems include ensuring a fair and competitive vote after the Central Election Commission last week signaled the likely disqualification of three party lists over prior criminal convictions against several dozen candidates — including the front-running Self-Determination (Vetevendosje) party’s choice for prime minister, Albin Kurti.
Whatever the outcome of opposition appeals that are still pending, critics are sure to attack the resulting vote as rigged and will possibly boycott.
But to some of the hundreds of thousands of people who fled the former province during and since a battle for independence from the Yugoslav constituent republic of Serbia in the late 1990s and their descendants, it won’t matter who’s on the ballot if they can’t even register to vote.
After acting President Vjosa Osmani scheduled next month’s snap national elections to replace a government declared illegitimate by the courts, the Central Election Commission on January 11 gave Kosovars outside the country just 10 days to register to vote.
A day later, the commission added a key verification step to the process: voter registrars must telephone such applicants abroad to confirm their identities and other details before registering them.
Keep Those Phones Handy
Duhanaj was “skeptical of the commission’s motives,” she said, in part because she heard lots of criticism of that decision among Kosovars on social media. Plus, she said, it simply seemed “anti-democratic that a diaspora member’s application can be tossed out if they simply miss a call.”
“It’s not that this process takes so much time, so much as missing this call seems to be a disqualifying factor for the application process,” Duhanaj said.
Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairwoman Valdete Daka suggested that officials would call just three times. “The CEC will verify the application process for registration by contacting all applicants by telephone,” the commission said in its decision. “If the applicant is not notified by phone, then his application is rejected.”
Osmani quickly urged the commission to reconsider the phone-call requirement as risking a “flagrant violation” of the right to vote.
Liza Gashi, a former deputy foreign minister of Kosovo who also founded an umbrella NGO for the Kosovar diaspora, called it an attempt “to suppress the vote from abroad.”
Her former NGO, Germin, filed a complaint with the Election Panel for Complaints and Appeals (ECAP) alleging that the commission’s decision contravenes four articles of the Kosovar Constitution, the national election law, and the Election Commission’s own guidelines.
After the ECAP rejected its petition, Germin on January 15 appealed to Kosovo’s Supreme Court to strike down the requirement.
Lots Of Work To Be Done
Kosovo’s population is about 1.9 million.
And in a small, partly recognized country with around one-third of its population abroad, even tens of thousands of potential expat voters can easily swing an election.
Support among the diaspora was thought to have helped swing the 2019 election for Kurti’s Albanian nationalist Self-Determination party, upsetting more than a decade of political dominance by former guerrillas of Kosovo’s war of independence in the late 1990s.
Kurti’s hold on government lasted just two months before his junior coalition partner, the Democratic League, jumped ship to trigger nine months of caretaker administrations and political uncertainty.
Now, polls suggest Self-Determination is the front-runner heading into the February vote and the diaspora could once again prove decisive.
Any eventual government will immediately face the ongoing challenges of an unprecedented public-health crisis caused by COVID-19, a looming presidential vote in parliament, and economic malaise that predated the pandemic but has been exacerbated by it.
It must also confront brain drain and other demographic challenges stemming from decades of emigration, and potentially divisive fallout from expected war crimes trials in The Hague of prominent Kosovar leaders, including ex-President Hashim Thaci.
Washington and Brussels will meanwhile expect Pristina to provide new momentum to internationally mediated talks on normalizing relations with powerful neighbor Serbia, which still refuses to recognize the 2008 declaration of sovereignty by its former province.
And as Osmani — who could be poised to compete for the presidency — has already signaled, Pristina will be eager to seed relations with one of Kosovo’s staunchest allies, the United States, as President Joe Biden’s new administration gets out of the blocks.
Silencing The Diaspora?
Its authorities estimate that around 800,000 Kosovars live abroad, many of them unregistered.
The NGO Germin has complained for years that officials need to do more to “overcome obstacles and to widen the possibilities for out-of-country voting.”
Some critics would argue that the conditions for Kosovars to vote abroad were already tight enough.
Prizren-born Kosovar Hilmi Gashi has lived in Switzerland for 32 years and has always tried to vote.
Twice, however, he was prevented from voting.
After his complaints to ECAP went unanswered, he traveled to his homeland to ensure he could cast a ballot in the 2019 elections.
Since then, in December, the Constitutional Court overturned a decision by the country’s Supreme Court that would have ensured that ballots sent by mail from abroad would be counted even if they arrived after the deadline.
In this vote’s case, that’s February 12. Strict adherence to such a preelection-day deadline could especially be a problem for voters in neighboring Serbia, whose postal service doesn’t formally cooperate with Kosovo’s due to Belgrade’s ongoing refusal to recognize Kosovar sovereignty.
Gashi says he’s critical of the process this time, too. “It’s incomprehensible that they make deadlines so short and expect people to apply on time,” he told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service. “[Or] people apply on time but the documentation gets to them too late.”
He echoed expat groups’ particular scorn for the three-phone-calls-and-you’re-out verification requirement.
In Switzerland, he said, many employers prohibit people from using their personal mobile phones at work. “My sister, who works at a company, hands over the phone in the morning at 6 a.m. in the changing room,” Gashi said. “She has no access to the phone all day.”
An organizer of Kosovars in Germany, teacher Muhamet Idrizi, said he was similarly unable to use his phone if the commission called during work hours. “It’s not clear here whether I can then contact the CEC and tell them, ‘You called me, but I couldn’t [pick up the phone], but can you verify my right [to vote]?”
Busy Signals
Back in New York, Duhanaj got her phone call around midday five days after applying, although she’d been prepared for the worst because of the time difference. “I was also worried they would call in the middle of the night so I kept my phone on loud, as I am six hours behind [Kosovo’s time] on [my] Eastern Standard Time [zone in New York City],” she said.
In the end, she added that the process “was only a slight inconvenience” and was perhaps aided by the fact that she was working from home due to the pandemic. Once a registrar employee reached her, it took only about a minute and a few perfunctory questions to satisfy the verification process.
When she last was in contact with RFE/RL, the day after the voter-abroad deadline and less than four weeks ahead of the elections, she said her other family members were still waiting for their e-mails and phone calls so they could take part in the elections.
And she was still “slightly skeptical” of the process.
“It worries me that thousands of phone calls will need to be made,” she e-mailed RFE/RL, adding: “I am [also] waiting to see what the actual ballot process is like. I have not yet received a ballot and could not find it online, not sure when it will be available.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Ukraine has protested against the BBC’s inclusion of Moscow-annexed Crimean cities on a list of Russian cities where demonstrators rallied to support jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.
The British broadcaster’s Russian service published the map on January 23 as tens of thousands of people rallied across Russia, saying the demonstrations were held in 122 “Russian cities” including two major Crimean cities, Simferopol and Sevastopol.
The BBC marked the map with an explanation saying that “Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.”
Despite the explanation, Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko called on the BBC’s Russian service not to “promote Russian narratives.”
“Sevastopol and Simferopol have never been Russian cities…International law matters,” Nikolenko wrote on Twitter on January 24.
Moscow illegally annexed Crimea in early 2014 and weeks later threw its support behind pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s east, where some 13,200 people have been killed in an ongoing conflict.
Others also criticized the BBC for adding the two Crimean cities to the list of “Russian cities.”
Refat Chubarov, the leader of the Crimean Tatars’ self-governing body, the Mejlis, challenged the BBC on Facebook, asking whether its Russian service “wants to help Russia to annex Crimea.”
A BBC representative did not comment on the map controversy.
Tens of thousands of protesters across Russia on January 23 demanded the release of Navalny, who was arrested six days earlier and sent to pretrial detention after returning to Russia following his recovery in Germany from poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent.
Police dispersed the protests, sometimes violently, detaining more than 3,700 people.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
If it wasn’t obvious from the heavy police presence and official warnings how the Kremlin would respond to anti-government protests across Russia, the sound of an OMON officer’s swift kick to Margarita Yudina’s stomach and her pained screams as her head hit the pavement helped provide clarity.
VIDEO: WARNING VIOLENT CONTENT
https://www.currenttime.tv/a/margarita-yudina/31066205.html
The violence employed by Russian security forces against the 54-year-old St. Petersburg resident was far from an isolated incident — thousands of protesters were rounded up and taken into custody, and there were scores of images showing police taking a heavy-handed approach to tamp down the largest anti-government protests in Russia in years.
But none captured the moment like the short clip showing Yudina stepping in the path of three riot police as they led a young protester away in central St. Petersburg, one of many cities nationwide where Russians had risked assembling in groups to protest the jailing of opposition politician and staunch Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.
“Why did you grab him?” Yudina asked as she stepped into Nevsky Prospect, the city’s main thoroughfare, with the OMON officers in full riot gear several meters away. “Get out of the way!” came the reply, with one emphasizing the point in stride with a boot to her stomach.
The force of blow caused Yudina to double over and fly backward, striking her head on the pavement and reportedly leaving her unconscious and in intensive care to treat a skull injury.
Russian officials were quick to go into crisis-management mode as they attempted to touch up the bad image left by the video as it spread quickly on the Internet.
The local Interior Ministry branch promised an investigation into the incident, while state-friendly media outlets were flooded with audio published by the Telegram channel Mash of a local police official apologizing to Yudina during a visit to her hospital room. https://t.me/breakingmash/2314
“These are not our methods; this is not our system!” Colonel Sergei Muzika, head of the ministry branch’s department for protecting public order, can be heard saying. “We stand guard over law and order.”
The further aftermath of the incident also caused controversy, with government critics voicing skepticism about the narrative of apology and forgiveness that played out in reports from media organizations close to the state.
Yudina reportedly accepted Muzika’s apology, and Kremlin-friendly REN TV showed footage in which she appeared to be pleased with the flowers brought to her hospital room on January 24, reportedly by the unidentified officer who took responsibility for kicking her.
Explaining that he was suffering from the effects of being tear-gassed and a fogged-up helmet visor, the masked officer is seen in REN-TV footage saying that he “did not see what was happening” and that when he found out what had happened to her he took it as a “personal tragedy.” https://ren.tv/news/v-rossii/795206-politseiskii-izvinilsia-pered-postradavshei-na-aktsii-v-peterburge-za-udar
Yudina, who has since been transferred to another facility, is shown commenting on the chrysanthemums and telling the officer not to worry.
The St. Petersburg news agency Fontanka later cited her as saying that she forgave the officer — whose visor is partially raised in the video footage of him kicking her — because she was an Orthodox Christian and that “I understand that our young people are in a difficult situation.”
https://www.fontanka.ru/2021/01/24/69721911/
Some pro-Kremlin commenters were touched by the apologetic tone taken by the authorities, with one suggesting on Telegram that this was “commendable” and suggesting that Yudina had essentially rushed into the path of a tank. https://t.me/kononenkome/29423
But observers both inside and outside Russia were incredulous.
Dmitry Aleshkovsky, co-founder of the media organization Takiye Dela, expressed bewilderment that the use of violence could be so easily forgiven with an apology.
“What, so this was possible?” he wrote on Twitter, alluding to protesters who were jailed on what they said were fabricated charges of violence against police at an anti-government demonstration on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration to a third presidential term in 2012 and rallies related to Moscow elections in 2019.
“The prisoners of Bolotnaya and those who received sentences for the Moscow Case, should they just ask forgiveness and give flowers to the riot police?”
https://twitter.com/aleshru/status/1353376699849830400
Despite obvious evidence to the contrary and media estimates that more than 100,000 people protested nationwide, state and state-friendly media have pushed the Kremlin narrative that the rallies on January 23 drew minimal crowds,
In Moscow, city officials claimed that just 4,000 people took to the streets in support of Navalny — the Kremlin critic who was arrested upon his return to Russia on January 17 after receiving treatment abroad for a near-deadly poisoning in Siberia that he blames on the Federal Security Service and Putin himself — while Reuters reported its own tally of about 40,000. Nationwide, the OVD-Info group, which tracks police actions, reported that more than 3,700 people were detained for participating in the banned mass demonstrations.
https://ovdinfo.org/
The level of violence was high, with videos showing police beating protesters with truncheons and some demonstrators pelting police with snowballs and in some cases fighting with officers.
The heavy-handed response to the protests – which were unsanctioned because rallies of more than one person are not allowed in Russia without official permission — have drawn condemnation from the United States and other Western countries.
Nongovernmental organizations, too, were sharply critical of Russia’s actions, with some suggesting they could further stoke anti-government sentiment.
“Ultimately this repression of basic human rights only galvanizes people and deepens their grievances,” Damelya Aitkhozhina, Russia researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch said on January 25. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/25/russia-police-detain-thousands-pro-navalny-protests
And Kremlin critics within Russia also suggested that events had played out as planned.
“It is clear that the government wanted violence, the government provoked violence, from my point of view, and the government is obviously preparing a repressive response for the near future,” opposition politician and political scientist Leonid Gozman told Current Time in a video interview on January 24. https://www.currenttime.tv/a/gozman/31066541.htm
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
If it wasn’t obvious from the heavy police presence and official warnings how the Kremlin would respond to anti-government protests across Russia, the sound of an OMON officer’s swift kick to Margarita Yudina’s stomach and her pained screams as her head hit the pavement helped provide clarity.
The violence employed by Russian security forces against the 54-year-old St. Petersburg resident was far from an isolated incident — thousands of protesters were rounded up and taken into custody, and there were scores of images showing police taking a heavy-handed approach to tamp down the largest anti-government protests in Russia in years.
But none captured the moment like the short clip showing Yudina stepping in the path of three riot police as they led a young protester away in central St. Petersburg, one of many cities nationwide where Russians had risked assembling in groups to protest the jailing of opposition politician and staunch Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.
WARNING: Viewers May Find The Images In This Video Distressing
“Why did you grab him?” Yudina asked as she stepped into Nevsky Prospect, the city’s main thoroughfare, with the OMON officers in full riot gear several meters away. “Get out of the way!” came the reply, with one emphasizing the point in stride with a boot to her stomach.
The force of blow caused Yudina to double over and fly backward, striking her head on the pavement and reportedly leaving her unconscious and in intensive care to treat a skull injury.
Russian officials were quick to go into crisis-management mode as they attempted to touch up the bad image left by the video as it spread quickly on the Internet.
The local Interior Ministry branch promised an investigation into the incident, while state-friendly media outlets were flooded with audio published by the Telegram channel Mash of a local police official apologizing to Yudina during a visit to her hospital room.
“These are not our methods; this is not our system!” Colonel Sergei Muzika, head of the ministry branch’s department for protecting public order, can be heard saying. “We stand guard over law and order.”
The further aftermath of the incident also caused controversy, with government critics voicing skepticism about the narrative of apology and forgiveness that played out in reports from media organizations close to the state.
Yudina reportedly accepted Muzika’s apology, and Kremlin-friendly REN TV showed footage in which she appeared to be pleased with the flowers brought to her hospital room on January 24, reportedly by the unidentified officer who took responsibility for kicking her.
Explaining that he was suffering from the effects of being tear-gassed and a fogged-up helmet visor, the masked officer is seen in REN-TV footage saying that he “did not see what was happening” and that when he found out what had happened to her he took it as a “personal tragedy.”
Yudina, who has since been transferred to another facility, is shown commenting on the chrysanthemums and telling the officer not to worry.
Incredulous Observers
The St. Petersburg news agency Fontanka later cited her as saying that she forgave the officer — whose visor is partially raised in the video footage of him kicking her — because she was an Orthodox Christian and that “I understand that our young people are in a difficult situation.”
Some pro-Kremlin commenters were touched by the apologetic tone taken by the authorities, with one suggesting on Telegram that this was “commendable” and suggesting that Yudina had essentially rushed into the path of a tank.
But observers both inside and outside Russia were incredulous.
Dmitry Aleshkovsky, co-founder of the media organization Takiye Dela, expressed bewilderment that the use of violence could be so easily forgiven with an apology.
“What, so this was possible?” he wrote on Twitter, alluding to protesters who were jailed on what they said were fabricated charges of violence against police at an anti-government demonstration on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration to a third presidential term in 2012 and rallies related to Moscow elections in 2019.
“The prisoners of Bolotnaya and those who received sentences for the Moscow Case, should they just ask forgiveness and give flowers to the riot police?”
Despite obvious evidence to the contrary and media estimates that more than 100,000 people protested nationwide, state and state-friendly media have pushed the Kremlin narrative that the rallies on January 23 drew minimal crowds.
‘The Government Wanted Violence’
In Moscow, city officials claimed that just 4,000 people took to the streets in support of Navalny — the Kremlin critic who was arrested upon his return to Russia on January 17 after receiving treatment abroad for a near-deadly poisoning in Siberia that he blames on the Federal Security Service and Putin himself — while Reuters reported its own tally of about 40,000. Nationwide, the OVD-Info group, which tracks police actions, reported that more than 3,700 people were detained for participating in the banned mass demonstrations.
The level of violence was high, with videos showing police beating protesters with truncheons and some demonstrators pelting police with snowballs and in some cases fighting with officers.
The heavy-handed response to the protests – which were unsanctioned because rallies of more than one person are not allowed in Russia without official permission — have drawn condemnation from the United States and other Western countries.
Nongovernmental organizations, too, were sharply critical of Russia’s actions, with some suggesting they could further stoke anti-government sentiment.
“Ultimately this repression of basic human rights only galvanizes people and deepens their grievances,” Damelya Aitkhozhina, Russia researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch said on January 25.
And Kremlin critics within Russia also suggested that events had played out as planned.
“It is clear that the government wanted violence, the government provoked violence, from my point of view, and the government is obviously preparing a repressive response for the near future,” opposition politician and political scientist Leonid Gozman told Current Time in a video interview on January 24.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The operations at two human rights organizations in Kazakhstan have been suspended and they may face closure amid a crackdown on rights groups in the Central Asian state.
The head of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule Of Law (KMBPCh), Yevgeny Zhovtis, told RFE/RL that tax officials in Almaty ruled on January 25 to suspend the group’s activities for three months and ordered it to pay 2 million tenges ($4,700) in fines, citing “financial irregularities.”
According to Zhovtis, the officials did not give a detailed explanation for the action.
“We will appeal the decision in court, but if the decision is politically motivated there is not much hope for us,” Zhovtis said.
Amangeldy Shormanbekov, chief of another group, the International Rights Initiative, told RFE/RL that tax authorities in Almaty had also suspended his organization’s activities for three months and ordered it to pay the same fine as KMBPCh.
“This is a political order, persecution. It looks like the authorities do not want us to have links with the UN, OSCE, the European Union member states. They want to keep our mouths’ shut so that nobody in the country can talk to international structures,” Shormanbekov said, adding that his organization faced a full shutdown if the decision is upheld in court.
The two groups are the latest of more than a dozen of nongovernmental organizations that have faced inspections by tax authorities across the country since November 2019.
Rights groups say the inspections and restrictive decisions have intensified in recent weeks.
RFE/RL has officially asked tax authorities to explain the situation but has yet to receive an answer.
The organizations facing pressure are involved in monitoring elections, defending human and civil rights, and promoting the rule of law.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said in a statement that alleged financial-reporting violations cast “serious doubt” that Kazakhstan’s leadership is working on improving its human rights record.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Ihar Losik, a popular Belarusian blogger, says he has ended a hunger strike he began more than two months ago to protest charges that he helped organize riots over a disputed presidential election that has triggered a wave of protests — and a harsh crackdown by the officials under Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the authoritarian leader who has held power since 1994.
“I have decided to end my hunger strike. Why have I done so? I did it on my own volition…. I was simply moved by the unbelievable wave of solidarity,” he said in a statement via his lawyer on January 25.
“Also, because of the hundreds and thousands of requests by Belarusians for me to end it, so that we can await our common victory in a healthy state. I also know that many have begun hunger strikes in solidarity with me. I cannot take on the weight of that responsibility. I don’t want people to suffer for my conscious decisions.”
Losik was arrested on June 25 and accused of using his popular Telegram channel to “prepare to disrupt public order” ahead of an August 9 presidential election that Lukashenka claimed he won by a landslide amid allegations of widespread fraud.
Since then, Belarus has witnessed nearly daily demonstrations whose size and scope are unparalleled in the country’s post-Soviet history.
While awaiting his trial, the 28-year-old was sent to the Akrestsina detention center in Minsk, which Amnesty International has described as “synonymous with torture.”
Former detainees have spoken of brutal beatings by guards at Akrestsina and other jails in Belarus. If convicted, Losik faces a possible three-year prison term.
Then, on December 15, Losik, a consultant for RFE/RL on new-media technologies, was slapped with fresh charges that could result in an eight-year prison term if he is convicted. In protest, Losik, who has been recognized as a political prisoner by rights activists, launched his hunger strike.
On January 15, his wife, Darya Losik, told Current Time that her husband’s health was deteriorating and that medical attention was minimal.
Losik’s statement on January 25 did not give details on his current health status.
Western governments have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote, and imposed sanctions on him and his allies, citing election rigging and the police crackdown.
Lukashenka has refused to step down and says he will not negotiate with the opposition.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says “extreme” police brutality and “mass” arbitrary detentions during weekend protests across Russia are further evidence of “how low human rights standards have plummeted” in the country.
“Ultimately this repression of basic human rights only galvanizes people and deepens their [protesters’] grievances,” Damelya Aitkhozhina, the Russia researcher at the New York-based watchdog, said in a statement on January 25, two days after thousands of Russians were detained during protests against the arrest of Kremlin foe Aleksei Navalny and deep-rooted government corruption.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities across the country on January 23 in Russia’s biggest anti-government demonstrations in years.
The independent political watchdog OVD-Info reported that more than 3,700 people were detained during the largely peaceful protests, which the authorities had refused to sanction, often citing restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Russia’s ombudswoman for children’s issues, Anna Kuznetsova, said that about 300 minors were among those detained, including 70 in Moscow and 30 in St. Petersburg.
HRW cited “numerous” reports of excessive use of force by police, noting that video footage showed officers “beating people with batons, pushing people to the ground, and kicking them.”
TASS quoted a source in the law enforcement as saying 38 adults and five teenagers sought medical aid in Moscow alone after the protests.
The independent Trade Union of Journalists and Media Workers said it reported more than 50 incidents of police assaulting journalists and detaining them in at least 17 cities.
Russian authorities have also launched criminal cases against individuals accused of calling for mass riots, violence against police, and violating coronavirus-related public-health rules.
In previous years, the Russian authorities retaliated against participants in mass protests with “showcase witch-hunt trials, which resulted in long prison terms,” according to HRW.
“Time and time again, Russian authorities have suppressed free speech and peaceful protest through police brutality, violence, and mass arrests and January 23 was no exception,” Aitkhozhina said.
She said the Russian authorities “understand their obligations to respect fundamental human rights and choose not just to ignore them but to trample all over them.”
Navalny was detained a week ago upon returning to Russia after he flew back to Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent in August.
A court is expected to decide on February 2 whether to convert into prison time the suspended 3 1/2-year sentence that the opposition leader and anti-corruption crusader served in an embezzlement case that is widely considered trumped up and politically motivated.
Navalny, whose suspended sentence ended on December 30, says it is a trumped-up case designed to silence him.
EU foreign ministers are considering on January 25 their response to Navalny’s arrest and the police crackdown on protesters.
Russia has rebuffed the global outrage over the police violence and the chorus of international calls calling for Navalny’s release.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Hundreds rallied in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on January 24 to call for the government to relax coronavirus-related restrictions. The rally’s main slogan was “Open Up The Country!” The demonstrators pledged to continue to rally until the government reopens schools and tourism-related businesses.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Kremlin has accused the United States of interfering in Russian domestic affairs after U.S. officials in Washington and Moscow criticized the police crackdown on protesters backing jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.
The comments by spokesman Dmitry Peskov, made in an interview broadcast on January 24, echoed earlier remarks from the Foreign Ministry, which alleged that the U.S. Embassy had sought to encourage protesters by publishing an alert warning Americans about the location of the Moscow protest.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other major cities in support of Navalny, who was jailed a week ago after returning to Russia following his recuperation in Germany for poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent.
“Of course, these publications are inappropriate,” Peskov told state TV. “And, of course, indirectly, they are absolutely an interference in our domestic affairs.”
It wasn’t clear what Peskov was specifically referring to.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators braved brutally cold weather and police crackdowns across Russia on January 23 to call for the release of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, a Kremlin critic jailed last week upon returning to Moscow after medical treatment in Germany for poisoning.
Ahead of the protests, the U.S. Embassy published a fairly routine alert on its website as a warning to U.S. citizens about the potential danger for unrest. The Russian Foreign Ministry alleged that constituted support for the protests.
The U.S. Embassy also published a statement just prior to the start of the Moscow protests that said: “The U.S. supports the right of all people to peaceful protest, freedom of expression. Steps being taken by Russian authorities are suppressing those rights.”
An embassy spokeswoman did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.
Later, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department condemned the heavy police crackdown, which resulted in the detention of nearly 3,500 Russians nationwide, with nearly half that number coming in Moscow.
Spokesman Ned Price also called on authorities to release Navalny and “credibly investigate his poisoning.”
Other Western nations also criticized the Russian government’s response. France’s foreign minister offered support for the protesters and called for new sanctions.
European Union foreign ministers were scheduled to discuss the bloc’s next steps on Russia at a meeting on January 25.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
On January 20, Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States. How might the new U.S. leadership change policy toward Central Asia? What might the Central Asian states be looking for from the Biden administration? And what aspects of U.S.-Central Asian relations are likely to remain the same?
On this week’s Majlis podcast, RFE/RL media-relations manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on those questions and more.
This week’s guests are: from Bishkek, the former Kyrgyz ambassador to the United States, Kadyr Toktogulov; from Washington, the former U.S ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and later Uzbekistan, Pamela Spratlen; also from Washington, the former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and later Georgia, William Courtney; and from Prague, 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.
On January 20, Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States. How might the new U.S. leadership change policy toward Central Asia? What might the Central Asian states be looking for from the Biden administration? And what aspects of U.S.-Central Asian relations are likely to remain the same?
On this week’s Majlis podcast, RFE/RL media-relations manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on those questions and more.
This week’s guests are: from Bishkek, the former Kyrgyz ambassador to the United States, Kadyr Toktogulov; from Washington, the former U.S ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and later Uzbekistan, Pamela Spratlen; also from Washington, the former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and later Georgia, William Courtney; and from Prague, 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.
U.S. Republican and Democratic lawmakers called for new sanctions against Moscow if the Kremlin moves to enforce stringent restrictions and punishing fines that threaten RFE/RL’s news operations in Russia.
The letter, dated January 22, also called on President Joe Biden’s administration to do more to bolster RFE/RL’s operations in Belarus, which has been roiled by months of anti-government protests following Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s declaration of reelection in August.
Opposition groups say that vote was rigged and many Western nations have refused to recognize Lukashenka’s declaration.
Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor announced this month it was imposing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines on RFE/RL’s operations in Russia, accusing it of failing to comply with new restrictions under the country’s “foreign agent” law.
Among other things, the law requires certain news organizations that receive foreign funding to label content within Russia as being produced by a “foreign agent.”
The law also puts RFE/RL journalists at risk for criminal prosecution.
An independent nonprofit corporation that receives funding from the U.S. Congress, RFE/RL has not complied with the order. The mounting fines could potentially force the company to shutter its presence within Russia.
Russian regulators have singled out RFE/RL, whose editorial independence is also enshrined in U.S. law, over other foreign news operations in Russia.
“If Moscow proceeds with these actions, then we are prepared to work with your administration in considering using existing” U.S. laws to punish Russia, said the letter, which was signed by Representatives Greg Meeks and Michael McCaul, the top Democrat and top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Three other lawmakers also signed.
Those laws include the Magnitsky Act, the Global Magnitsky Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act — all of which have been used heavily over the past nine years to target Russian officials with visa bans and freezing assets.
The Biden administration has signaled that it plans to take a new approach in U.S. relations with Russia, extending a major arms-control treaty while also voicing support for opposition groups, including anti-corruption crusader Aleksei Navalny.
However, Russian officials have already made several aggressive moves, including accusing Washington of being behind the massive anti-government protests that swept across Russia on January 23 in support of Navalny.
Navalny was jailed a week ago when he flew to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from a poisoning attack that he blames on Putin. The Kremlin has denied any involvement.
Read our coverage as Belarusians take to the streets to demand the resignation of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and call for new elections after official results from the August 9 presidential poll gave Lukashenka a landslide victory.
RFE/RL’s news operations “are a crucial tool to strengthen our allies’ democracies and prevent the democratic backsliding that opens the door for Russia, China, and other autocratic competitors to advance their own nefarious interests,” the letter said.
Since early in Vladimir Putin’s presidency, the Kremlin has steadily tightened the screws on independent media. The country is ranked 149th out of 180 places in the World Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders.
Following the August presidential election, Belarusians took to the streets, accusing Lukashenka and government authorities of falsifying the vote. The protests, unprecedented in their size, have continued on a near-daily basis, despite a government crackdown.
The election result has been rejected by many Western countries, who have called for a new vote.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
DUSHANBE — Mavjuda, a Tajik single mother in her 30s, makes her living by finding customers for a group of sex workers in the Tajik capital — even though pimping and prostitution are banned in the country.
Mavjuda, who doesn’t want her full name published, may soon risk losing her children in order to keep them fed.
Tajikistan’s parliament is set to amend the country’s Family Law in a way that would deprive convicted pimps and brothel owners of parental rights — with the state taking away any underage children they have.
The bill is widely expected to be approved. Lawmakers and supporters of the legislation say it is aimed at tackling prostitution and protecting children. But critics say the best way to reduce prostitution and protect families is to create alternative jobs for women so they do not have to resort to working in the illegal sex industry.
Many woman involved in the business say they became sex workers because of the extreme poverty they face in Tajikistan, one of the poorest countries in Central Asia.
Mavjuda says she and the sex workers close to her have heard about the parliament debate over the proposed legislation. She told RFE/RL that women she knows are terrified at the prospect of being forced to hand their children over to the state.
![“Why do [the authorities] think taking away our children will solve anything?" asks Mavjuda, who finds clients for sex workers under her care.](https://gdb.rferl.org/fce7cb33-36c0-4c3c-9816-b90158224ae1_w250_r0_s.jpg)
“Why do [the authorities] think taking away our children will solve anything?” asks Mavjuda, who finds clients for sex workers under her care.
Mavjuda is the only income earner in her family. She says terminating parental rights would only add to the ordeals of the impoverished and cause further anguish in their “already miserable lives.”
She said passage of the bill will not help anyone and will not bring an end in Tajikistan to what is known as the world’s oldest profession.
“Why do [the authorities] think taking away our children will solve anything? [If they care about us], they should help us find jobs so we can work and provide better lives for our kids,” Mavjuda said.
The drafting of the law comes after reports that police raids in Dushanbe and other cities have uncovered brothels. Under Tajik law, running a brothel or being involved in the procurement of hired sex is a felony that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Repeat offenders face up to eight years in prison.
Most of these women have at least one or two children for whom they are the only caregivers. Inevitably, what they do affects the minors. When the women are busy at work at night, the children are at home alone.”
Prostitution is considered a misdemeanor in Tajikistan, punishable by fines of up to $200. Repeat offenders face higher fines or up to 15 days in detention.
Sex workers often keep the source of their income secret from their relatives, fearing strong stigmas attached to prostitution in the predominantly Muslim society.
Tajikistan’s State Committee for Women and Family Affairs has been involved in drafting the bill. Committee members say they believe the threat of taking away the custody of children would force people to think twice before getting involved in the risky business.
Committee member Obidjon Sharipov told RFE/RL that the amendments to the existing Family Law would also protect the mental and physical well-being of the children.
“Most of these women have at least one or two children for whom they are the only caregivers,” Sharipov said. “Inevitably, what they do affects the minors. When the women are busy at work at night, the children are at home alone.”
Government officials and women’s groups say they conduct awareness campaigns that include so-called “morality lessons” for sex workers, trying to convince them to give up the occupation.
The lessons involve lectures by doctors, law enforcement officials, and local community leaders who warn about the dangers of being involved in prostitution — such as the risk of becoming infected with sexually transmitted diseases or of falling victim to violence and human trafficking.
Where would I find the money to pay rent and feed my kids?”
Some sex workers accuse police of extorting money from prostitutes during raids or beating and insulting them while in custody. Authorities deny the allegations.
“We get beaten up by clients, too. [If we call police, they] come and just write down our complaints, and that’s it,” says Zarina, a 21-year-old sex worker from Dushanbe.
Zarina is the mother of two children who depend on her income. Zarina says she has been involved in prostitution since the age of 16. In recent years, Mavjuda has been helping her to find paying clients.
Zarina fears that if the Family Law is amended in a way that forces Mavjuda to give up pimping, she would struggle to find her own customers and lose her only source of income.
“Where would I find the money to pay rent and feed my kids?” Zarina asks, noting that she hasn’t completed her education and has no practical jobs skills or legal employment experience.
Zarina also says she would gladly give up prostitution if there was another way for her to put food on the table for her children and pay the rent to keep a roof over their heads.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
MOSCOW — Thousands of Russians were detained across the country amid protests calling for the release of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, with riot police cracking down violently on what were Russia’s biggest anti-government demonstrations in years.
It was unclear what effect the January 23 protests, which stretched across Russia’s 11 time zones amid subfreezing temperatures, would have on the government of President Vladimir Putin, who remains popular and largely without any political rival.
The Kremlin has engineered constitutional changes that pave the way for him to potentially stay in power until 2036.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators braved brutally cold weather and police crackdowns across Russia on January 23 to call for the release of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, a Kremlin critic jailed last week upon returning to Moscow after medical treatment in Germany for poisoning.
But the turnout of tens of thousands of people from Moscow to Vladivostok, who answered Navalny’s call to demonstrate after his jailing following his return a week ago from Germany, showed the attraction of Navalny’s crusade against corruption.
As of January 24, nearly 3,300 people were reported detained across the country, according to the independent monitoring group OVD-Info. Nearly half of those detentions occurred in Moscow and included Navalny’s wife, Yuliya, and one of his top allies, Lyubov Sobol, who was forcibly grabbed by police as she spoke to reporters.
Images of helmet-clad riot police bludgeoning protesters in Moscow and elsewhere prompted condemnation from Washington and Brussels.
Navalny’s detention and the crackdown on his supporters were “troubling indications of further restrictions on civil society and fundamental freedoms,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell deplored the “widespread detentions” and the “disproportionate use of force.” The bloc’s foreign ministers will discuss “next steps” on January 25, he said in a post on Twitter.
The statements drew a rebuke from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which claimed that the United States had helped incite the protests.
The demonstrations spanned the breadth of the country, beginning in the Far East and Siberia in Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, and other cities despite brutal cold and a heavy security presence.
There were various tallies about the nationwide turnout. MBKh Media — an online news organization founded by the exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky – put the number at 110,000, though other estimates said the number was likely much higher.
Moscow city officials said the crowds that initially packed the city’s central Pushkin Square numbered around 4,000. Reuters and other news organizations estimated that some 40,000 had turned up.
RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service reported that authorities in Ufa, the capital of the Russian region of Bashkortostan, arrested protesters at a demonstration attended by more than 3,000 people.
Among those taken into custody were Ruslan Valiyev, the editor in chief of Ekho Moskvy in Ufa, as well as the head of Navalny’s campaign team in Ufa.
In Yekaterinburg, riot police clashed with demonstrators who gathered in temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius and pelted police with snowballs.
Navalny has risen to prominence by crusading against government corruption and publishing a series of flashy and snarky investigations that have caught the public’s attention.
After an unsuccessful run to be Moscow’s mayor, he and his allies switched tactics and began promoting a “smart vote” strategy — supporting alternative candidates in local and legislative elections, in a bid to undermine the dominance of Kremlin-allied politicians.
He also been prosecuted for financial crimes, crimes his supporters say were contrived and politically motivated.
In August, while rallying support for his “smart vote” strategy, he fell violently ill and had to be evacuated to Germany, where doctors concluded he had been poisoned with a powerful Soviet-era, military-grade chemical known broadly as Novichok.
After recuperating in a German hospital, Navalny defied Russian government threats and flew back to Moscow on January 17 where he was arrested at the airport.
The day after his detention, a judge ordered Navalny held for 30 days pending a ruling on his suspended sentence that could be revoked and replaced by prison time. Among other things, authorities accuse Navalny of violating the terms of his parole while he was convalescing in Germany.
Navalny and his allies then called for Russians to take to the streets in support of his efforts.
They also stunned many Russians, two days after Navalny’s detention, by publishing an exhaustive two-hour documentary and investigative report showcasing an opulent $1.36 billion palace on the Black Sea that they said belongs to Putin. The video is currently among the most-watched Russian videos on YouTube ever.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the investigation a “lie” and a “cut-and-paste job.”
Despite the violent crackdown by police, Navalny’s allies remained defiant. Leonid Volkov called for more protests next weekend.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.