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Category: Picks

  • Russian Trial Of Activist For YouTube Video Mocking Putin Continues Without Journalists

    SAMARA, Russia — The judges at the trial of a civil rights activist from Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan for mocking President Vladimir Putin and two of his close associates in a YouTube video have banned journalists from attending the proceedings, saying they were adhering to restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

    Judges of the Central Military District Court in the city of Samara on January 14 refused to allow RFE/RL correspondent Yekaterina Mayakovskaya to attend the ongoing trial of Karim Yamadayev, citing the virus restrictions.

    Yamadayev’s lawyer Vladimir Krasikov told RFE/RL that, as his trial resumed, his client protested that no journalists were present in the courtroom.

    When Judge Igor Belkin told the defendant that journalists could not be present due to coronavirus precautions, Yamadayev challenged the judge’s explanation, saying that journalists had been present at all of the trial’s previous sessions.

    Yamadayev, who says he is innocent, demanded that his trial be covered by the media. The judge rejected these demands and continued the trial.

    “It looked strange to me, because when prosecutors were given the floor at the trial, journalists were allowed inside to cover the proceedings But when the defense team’s turn came to present testimony, journalists were banned from attending the trial,” Yamadayev’s lawyer said, adding that the courtroom where the trial is being held was big enough to preserve social distancing.

    Yamadayev, a former police officer in Tatarstan, was arrested in January 2020 and charged with promoting terrorism and insulting authorities for a video he posted in late-2019 on his YouTube channel called Judge Gramm.

    The video in question features Yamadayev, dressed as a judge, reading death sentences to two men whose heads are covered with black sacks. A white sign hangs from their necks with the names “Dmitry Peskov” and “Igor Sechin” respectively.

    Peskov is Putin’s long-serving press spokesman, while Sechin is the powerful chief of Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft.

    Another man in the show portrays a third defendant who also has his head covered with a black sack and a sign with the name “Vladimir Putin.”

    If found guilty, Yamadayev faces up to seven years in prison.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Moscow To Reopen Schools Next Week, Extends Other Coronavirus Curbs

    MOSCOW — Moscow authorities have extended restrictions against COVID-19 for another week, with the exception of pupils returning to schools from January 18.

    Mayor Sergei Sobyanin made the announcement in a blog post on his website on January 14, warning that “if just a single coronavirus case is detected, the entire class will have to temporarily shift to distance learning.”

    Sobyanin wrote that all other restrictions have been extended until January 21, with universities, colleges, and other educational facilities remaining on remote learning or on holiday breaks until that date.

    Other restrictions include bars and restaurants having to close early, the wearing of medical masks in shops and on public transport, and businesses having to limit the number of staff in offices.

    Russia, which last month launched a voluntary vaccination program with the locally developed Sputnik V vaccine, has resisted imposing a strict lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

    Sobyanin said Moscow’s vaccination program was “gaining momentum,” with several thousand Muscovites being inoculated daily.

    But the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals remained high — more than 13,000 — meaning that only a gradual reduction in restrictions was possible, the mayor said.

    As of January 13, Russian health authorities reported 22,850 new coronavirus cases, including 4,320 in Moscow, taking the total tally to more than 3,470,000 since the beginning of the pandemic.

    The nationwide death toll stood at over 63,300, but the figure is believed to be much higher.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Amnesty Calls For Probe Into Civilian Casualties In Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

    Amnesty International is urging Armenia and Azerbaijan to immediately investigate the use of “inaccurate and indiscriminate weapons” in heavily populated civilian areas during the recent fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, saying such attacks violated international law.

    Both sides to the conflict have denied targeting civilians during the conflict “despite incontrovertible evidence that they have both done so,” using internationally banned cluster munitions and other explosive weapons “with wide area effects,” the London-based human rights watchdog said in a report on January 13.

    “Civilians were killed, families were torn apart, and countless homes were destroyed,” Marie Struthers, the group’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia director, said in a statement.

    Struthers said attacks “were repeatedly carried out on civilian residential areas far from frontlines, and where there often did not appear to be any military targets in the vicinity.”

    Amnesty International said it had analyzed “18 strikes by Armenian and Azerbaijan forces which unlawfully killed civilians,” and “visited dozens of strike sites” on both sides after a Moscow-brokered cease-fire agreement put an end to six weeks of fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh on November 10, 2020.

    The group said that 146 civilians, including children and older people, died in the conflict, which claimed more than 6,000 lives.

    In its report, titled In The Line Of Fire: Civilian Casualties From Unlawful Strikes In The Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh, Amnesty International said eight of the strikes were launched by Armenian forces on towns and villages in Azerbaijan that killed 72 civilians.

    Nine strikes were carried out by Azerbaijani forces on towns and villages in Nagorno-Karabakh and one town in Armenia, killing 11 civilians, the report said.

    According to Amnesty International, Armenian forces used “inaccurate ballistic missiles, unguided multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), and artillery,” while Azerbaijani forces “also used unguided artillery and MLRS.”

    Both sides also used cluster munitions, which are banned under the international Convention on Cluster Munitions because of their widespread indiscriminate effect and long-lasting danger to civilians.

    By employing “these imprecise and deadly weapons in the vicinity of civilian areas, Armenian and Azerbaijani forces violated the laws of war and showed disregard for human life,” said Struthers.

    In its annual report published on January 13, New York-based Human Rights Watch also said that both sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict had “committed violations of international humanitarian law that unlawfully harmed civilians.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Licorice Root As Potion To Tackle ‘Lung Disease’ In ‘Coronavirus-Free’ Turkmenistan

    TURKMENABAT, Turkmenistan — Authorities in Turkmenistan’s eastern region of Lebap have instructed employees of state organizations, schools, medical institutions, and schoolchildren to carry personal medicine boxes with them containing, among other items, bottles of licorice-root syrup to tackle possible “lung disease.”

    The instruction is obligatory and noncompliance will be punished by hefty fines as the authorities continue to deny the presence of coronavirus within the Central Asian state’s borders.

    The personal medicine boxes must also contain five medical masks, a pair of rubber gloves, sanitizer, and oxalinic ointment, RFE/RL correspondents report from the region.

    The move comes two weeks after Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov at a televised government session talked about “the great abilities” of licorice root to prevent possible coronavirus infection.

    In March 2020, Berdymukhammedov praised the smoke of burned harmel and saksaul tree, as well as consumption of noodles with pepper to prevent coronavirus infection.

    At the time, schools were instructed to use Berdymukhammedov’s book, Medicinal Plants Of Turkmenistan, in lessons across the country.

    Turkmenistan remains the only Central Asian country that has not officially reported a single coronavirus infection to the World Health Organization (WHO).

    In August, the WHO expressed concern over an increase in atypical pneumonia cases in Turkmenistan and unsuccessfully urged Ashgabat to allow it to organize independent coronavirus tests in the country.

    Turkmen officials have clung to their zero-infections statistics despite signs of outbreaks in prisons, schools, and the general population as hospitals get increasingly crowded, as well as large numbers of cases in neighboring countries.

    Many Turkmen citizens report staying home despite being ill, fearing that a trip to the doctor could infect them, as hospitals quietly strain under high numbers of patients reporting COVID-19-like symptoms.

    The bodies of victims of lung ailments are being delivered to relatives in special plastic bags, and there have been an unusually high number of fresh graves across the country, RFE/RL correspondents have reported.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • OSCE Mission Head Cites Lack Of Public Discussion, ‘Strong Links’ In Kyrgyz Votes

    The head of the OSCE’s observer mission for the recent Kyrgyz elections has cited “a number of problems” resulting from Bishkek’s hurried choice to conduct a presidential election and a major referendum on the Central Asian state’s political system simultaneously.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Hockey Chief ‘Regrets’ Images From ‘Absolutely Necessary’ Lukashenka Meeting

    The head of the IIHF, Rene Fasel, says he “regrets the negative reaction” to his meeting this week with Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Minsk and it wasn’t a sign of support for the violent crackdown on demonstrators who dispute August elections that kept him in power.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Activist Verzilov, Blogger Varlamov Briefly Detained In South Sudan

    Russian activist Pyotr Verzilov, who is a member of the Pussy Riot protest group, and blogger Ilya Varlamov were briefly detained in South Sudan.

    The two tweeted on January 13 that they and three other people, including Varlamov’s wife, Lyubov Varlamova, were detained upon arrival at the airport of the city of Kapoeta, some 260 kilometers east of South Sudan’s capital, Juba.

    Varlamov wrote on his blog that the group arrived in South Sudan as tourists, planning to continue on another flight to Juba, but were stopped and detained after airport security found the remote control of a drone in their luggage.

    “They found the remote control, but the drone had already been confiscated by the authorities at the Entebbe airport in Uganda,” where the group was traveling prior to their arrival in South Sudan, Varlamov wrote.

    Ilya Varlamov

    Ilya Varlamov

    According to local law enforcement officers quoted by Meduza, the detainees allegedly could have been “filming military objects with the drone.”

    Varlamov wrote that the group refused to hand in their mobile phones despite being asked to do so.

    Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement quoted by the TASS news agency that the group was subsequently released “as a result of diplomatic efforts.”

    “At this point, issues related to their departure from South Sudan are under discussion,” Zakharova said.

    Russian Embassy officials told TASS that South Sudanese officials did not press any charges against the Russian citizens, who will spend the night in the city of Kapoeta and on January 14 will leave for Juba.

    It was not immediately clear why the group had chosen South Sudan as a tourist destination.

    With reporting by TASS and Meduza

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Music Takes Your Mind Off War And Death’: Ukrainian Violinist Plays In The Trenches

    Roman is a trained violinist who signed up to fight Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. He takes out his violin and plays for half an hour once or twice a week and says music distracts him from the war and the possibility of dying. According to the United Nations, more than 13,000 people have died as a result of the conflict — including over 3,000 civilians — since war broke out in April 2014.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • OSCE Monitor Blasts ‘Bad Intention,’ ‘Bad Practice’ In Kazakh Election

    The head of an election-monitoring team to Kazakhstan from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has detailed a litany of failings and seemingly “concerted” moves by Kazakh authorities to hinder transparency in recent national elections.

    In its initial conclusions, the team described the January 10 Kazakh vote as “not competitive” and devoid of “genuine political alternatives to choose from.”

    But Jaroslaw Domanski, head of the limited observation mission for the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), used tougher language in an interview with RFE/RL two days after the balloting.

    He cited “bad intention, basically, bad practice, and a lack of goodwill” on Nur-Sultan’s part in conducting the elections.

    “While voting itself was generally organized efficiently, and also in line with COVID-19 precautions, many aspects of the process on election day lacked full transparency,” Domanski said.

    After the exclusion of many opposition groups that applied to get on the ballot and a boycott by another, the preliminary vote count left the same three parties in parliament as after the previous elections, led by the ruling Nur Otan with over 71 percent.

    “The problems actually started after the closing of the polling stations; namely, the counting and tabulation were not assessed positively by our observers,” Domanski said.

    It was the Central Asian state of around 18 million people’s first parliamentary elections since the resignation in early 2019 of longtime President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who still holds considerable power despite handpicking a successor, Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.

    The lack of competition dashed the hopes of the country’s Western partners, who had hoped for deep political reforms. Nonetheless, some say continuity will bring the stability needed to attract foreign investment in the resource-rich country — primarily into the oil, gas, and mining sectors.

    Domanski said that Kazakh authorities “unfortunately” failed to address “most of the recommendations” from ODIHR observers of the 2016 and 2019 votes.

    International election observers have characterized past elections in Kazakhstan as being neither free nor fair, citing electoral fraud, repression of opposition candidates, and restrictions on a free press.

    The registered All-National Social Democratic Party (OSDP) boycotted the elections, saying there was no chance for opposition parties like itself.

    The ODIHR mission was “limited” this time, but its observers visited more than 90 polling stations in 13 of Kazakhstan’s 17 regions.

    There were worrying official moves ahead of this latest vote, like recent legislative changes for NGOs and the last-minute requirement of coronavirus tests, Domanski said, in addition to Kazakhstan’s failure to fulfill “many international commitments for holding democratic elections” to which Nur-Sultan had pledged itself.

    “We are talking about the very serious recommendations related to fundamental freedoms, impartiality of election administration, eligibility to stand for elections and to vote for the legislation, media,…and others,” he said.

    “Only some of these recommendations were addressed, most of them, unfortunately, only partially.”

    Domanski said ODIHR’s observers “confirmed” independent citizens’ complaints of unnecessary obstacles to observing the vote.

    ODIHR saw “concerted efforts of the authorities to prevent the effective observation of these elections” that began long before election day.

    Domanski also cited tax investigations on NGOs initiated in November, a Central Election Commission resolution granting itself “wide discretion in dismissing the citizen observers,” and the late imposition of COVID-19 testing requirements that were used to exclude journalists and citizen observers.

    He blamed the last-minute COVID-19 testing stipulation, in particular, for preventing nearly 90 percent of 2,000 planned observers for two NGOs — MISK and Erkindik Qanaty (Wings of Liberty) — from deploying effectively.

    “These concerted measures adopted by the authorities prevented the independent observers from effectively observing the election,” Domanski said.

    He said that ODIHR was still looking into whether, in addition to moves that flouted international standards of “good practice,” Kazakh authorities might have contravened their own national legislation.

    Kazakh officials have defended their moves as an effort to clarify the situation around NGO operations, he said. “[But] it looks to us [like] bad intention, basically, bad practice and a lack of goodwill,” Domanski said.

    He cited Internet service interruptions and website shutdowns throughout election day and criminal and legislative dampers on freedom of expression.

    “It stifles genuine political debate. It results in self-censorship of the media, and it makes this entire political space stripped of a genuine debate, political debate, which is a normal and necessary element of any democratic reality and community,” Domanski said.

    He said that ODIHR “stand[s] ready to help state authorities to improve to improve, to implement these recommendations,” including through expert legal opinions and “comprehensive dialogue” with Kazakh election officials.

    “But the goodwill is needed from Nur-Sultan, from Kazakhstan, in order to start this, to engage in this dialogue in a genuine and serious way.”

    He acknowledged that this generally rests “mostly [on] the political will of the national authorities.”

    The elections decided 98 of 107 seats in the Mazhilis. Nine other seats will be separately elected by the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan — a political body chaired by Nazarbaev designed to represent ethnic groups in the country.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Angering Many, Daughter Of Iran’s Ex-President Says A Second Trump Term Could Have Helped Iran

    The daughter of one of the founders of the Islamic Republic of Iran has raised a ruckus in Tehran by saying she would have preferred a second term for U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of Iran’s former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, says she supported the Trump administration’s campaign of so-called “maximum pressure” against the clerical establishment in Tehran.

    “For Iran, I would have liked to see Trump [re]-elected. But if I were an American, I wouldn’t vote for Trump,” Hashemi recently told the Iranian news site Ensafnews.com.

    In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He also reimposed tough sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy and contributed to a crash of the national currency.

    The Trump administration said the pressure was aimed at forcing Tehran back to the negotiating table for a deal that better addressed Washington’s concerns.

    In response, Tehran has gradually reduced its commitments under the accord and expanded its nuclear-enrichment activities.

    A man reads a copy of the Iranian daily Sobhe Nou in Tehran on November 7 that features a cartoon depicting U.S. President Donald Trump and a headline reading: "Go To Hell, Gambler."

    A man reads a copy of the Iranian daily Sobhe Nou in Tehran on November 7 that features a cartoon depicting U.S. President Donald Trump and a headline reading: “Go To Hell, Gambler.”

    In her interview, Hashemi suggested Trump’s campaign of pressure could have brought policy changes from Tehran that would have benefited the Iranian people.

    “Perhaps it would have led to some change — as no matter what people do to push for reforms, nothing happens. Instead, [they] are repressed,” Hashemi, a former lawmaker, said in an apparent reference to deadly crackdowns against recent antiestablishment protests.

    “Maybe if Trump’s pressure would have continued, we would have been forced to have change in some policies. And the change would have definitely benefited the people,” she said.

    Hashemi described the approach of U.S. Democrats toward Iran’s Islamic establishment as “a bit lax.”

    U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has said he is open to resurrecting the nuclear deal with Iran and lifting sanctions if Tehran returns to "strict compliance."

    U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has said he is open to resurrecting the nuclear deal with Iran and lifting sanctions if Tehran returns to “strict compliance.”

    She also questioned Iran’s regional policies and the role played by General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the external Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who was assassinated by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.

    “What is the result of [Qasem] Soleimani’s performance? What problem did he solve for us?” Hashemi asked in the interview.

    Her comments brought widespread criticism from those who accused her of supporting “the cruelest” sanctions that have hurt ordinary Iranians.

    Others criticized her expressed support for Trump, the man who ordered the assassination of Soleimani, a military leader portrayed by Iranian state media as a selfless national hero who’d advanced Iran’s regional interests.

    Some Iranians have risen to Hashemi’s defense, saying she expressed views held by many who are desperate for change and fed up with the clerical establishment.

    “She honestly reflected the feelings of millions of her compatriots who see no light at the end of their country’s dark political tunnel and were rightly or wrongly hoping that Trump’s pressure would create [an opportunity],” Tehran University professor Sadegh Zibakalam said on Twitter.

    Mohsen Hashemi: “Trump did nothing but threaten, sanction, break commitments, assassinate, and insult Iran." (file photo)

    Mohsen Hashemi: “Trump did nothing but threaten, sanction, break commitments, assassinate, and insult Iran.” (file photo)

    In contrast, her brother Mohsen Hashemi, who heads Tehran’s City Council, said she must apologize.

    “I know that in recent years you, your family, and your child have faced mistreatment that may have led you to extremism and a departure from father’s moderate stance. But this is not a reason to put your hope in the president of a foreign country and claim that you’re independent,” Mohsen Hashemi wrote in an open letter addressed to his sister.

    “Trump did nothing but threaten, sanction, break commitments, assassinate, and insult Iran,” he said, referring to Trump as “a gambler.”

    But Rafsanjani’s outspoken daughter refused to back down.

    She responded to her brother’s letter by saying he has always been “conservative” in his stances.

    She also accused her brother of being controlling.

    Replying publicly in an open letter, she reiterated that she would have preferred Trump to be reelected because of his policies on Iran.

    She argued that some individuals and factions in Iran are “more dangerous” than Trump due to their “bullying” attitudes and their “nonadherence to laws and principles.”

    She said those individuals and factions have pushed the country to the brink through their “inefficiency” and “mismanagement.”

    “Not only do they not pay attention to public demands, but they go out of their way to silence them,” she wrote in her letter.

    Hashemi has faced pressure in the past for criticizing the system that her father helped establish.

    In 2012, she was jailed for six months after being convicted of anti-regime propaganda.

    She was also detained briefly in 2009 following the disputed Iranian presidential election that led to mass street protests and a brutal state crackdown.

    In 2016, Hashemi came under fire for meeting the leader of the persecuted Baha’i faith with whom she had shared a cell in Tehran’s Evin prison.

    In 2018, she said “intimidation” and “fear” were the main things propping up Iran’s Islamic establishment.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Trial Over Deadly 2019 Kazakh Ammo Blasts To Continue Behind Closed Doors

    A court in Kazakhstan’s southern city of Shymkent has decided to continue behind closed doors a trial concerning a series of deadly ammunition warehouse blasts in 2019. It cited classified materials in the case for doing so.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Dozens Said Killed As Alleged Israeli Strikes Hit Iran-Backed Militias In Syria

    A Syrian war monitor says at least 40 government soldiers and allied paramilitaries have been killed in alleged Israeli air strikes apparently targeting positions and arms depots of Iran-backed forces.

    The Israeli Air Force carried out more than 18 strikes in an area stretching from the eastern town of Deir Ezzor to the Iraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on January 13.

    The British-based group said the overnight raids killed nine Syrian soldiers and 31 pro-government fighters, whose nationalities were not immediately known.

    More than 30 others were wounded in the attack, it added.

    Fighters belonging to the Lebanese Shi’ite Hizballah movement and the Fatimid Brigade, a militia mainly made up of pro-Iranian Afghan fighters, operate in the region, the Observatory said.

    The Syrian state news agency SANA reported that “the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial assault on the town of Deir al-Zor and the Albu Kamal region.” It did not provide further details.

    Israel’s military did not immediately comment.

    Along with Russia, Iran has provided crucial military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during Syria’s civil war, which began with a crackdown on anti-government protesters in March 2011. More than 400,000 people have since been killed and millions displaced.

    Israel has pledged to stop Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria, carrying out hundreds of air strikes there against what it describes as Iranian targets and those of allied militia.

    The Israeli Army rarely acknowledges individual strikes.

    Reuters quoted Western intelligence sources as saying that the latest raids focused on the most important land route for deliveries of Iranian weapons and fighters into Syria.

    A senior U.S. intelligence official told the Associated Press that the strikes were carried out with intelligence provided by the United States and targeted a series of warehouses in Syria that were being used in a pipeline to store and stage Iranian weapons.

    With reporting by AFP, dpa, Reuters, and AP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The New Old Frontier: Demarcation Sparks Tensions As Azerbaijani Control Returns Along Southern Armenian Border

    SYUNIK, Armenia — The ruined buildings are easy to miss if you’re not looking for them.

    Degraded and dismantled, the slight remains of perhaps a dozen houses are clustered tightly between the river and the highway, about 10 kilometers south of the city of Goris, in southern Armenia.

    But this is not Armenia. This is the village of Eyvazli, in Azerbaijan. And while there’s not much of it left, it now sits at the heart of the latest tensions between the two historical rivals and the uncertainties of the new border demarcation process here.

    The southern Armenian province of Syunik, which hosts Goris, forms a tendril of land stretching down from central Armenia to border Iran. On both sides, it is flanked by Azerbaijan — the Azerbaijani exclave of Naxcivan to the west and the Azerbaijani provinces (rayons) of Qubadli and Zangilan to the east.

    For the past 27 years, the latter border did not exist in reality. Qubadli and Zangilan were captured by Karabakh Armenian forces in 1993 and administered by Stepanakert until three months ago, when Azerbaijani forces retook them during a sweeping offensive.

    A Russia-brokered cease-fire ended 44 days of fresh fighting in the long-simmering war over Azerbaijan’s territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions on November 10, enshrining Azerbaijani control over the two. Now, for the first time since the border between then-Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan was drawn nearly a century ago, it is being officially demarcated.

    A glance at the map makes the problem immediately evident.

    The border — which was never meant to be international, but merely a near-meaningless divider between two Soviet provinces — zigzags haphazardly, cutting through settlements and key roads. The most important road in southern Armenia — the highway between Syunik’s two largest cities of Goris and Kapan — repeatedly crosses the official border, including at Eyvazli.

    The unclear position of the actual border has already led to problems since the cease-fire cemented Azerbaijani control over much of the territory it lost nearly three decades ago, as local Armenian and Azerbaijani forces come face-to-face.

    On December 13, reports emerged of a shoot-out between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in a village near Syunik’s provincial capital, Kapan.

    Speaking to RFE/RL the next day, Kapan’s mayor describes the incident as Armenian “defenders” merely firing into the air to warn off several dozen approaching Azerbaijani soldiers.

    “[The Azeris] didn’t shoot back,” Mayor Gevorg Parsian says.

    Parsian’s city is itself affected by the border issue, lying within sight of the newly manned Azerbaijani border.

    “The last neighborhood of Kapan is less than 1 kilometer from the border,” Parsian says. “We already feel under threat because of this.”

    Kapan Mayor Gevorg Parsian, an Armenian, thinks the war in the 1990s started because "we were living too close to each other."

    Kapan Mayor Gevorg Parsian, an Armenian, thinks the war in the 1990s started because “we were living too close to each other.”

    Kapan’s airport is even closer. Disused since Soviet times, it has repeatedly been rumored to be reopening. The landing strip has clearly been repaved recently, and the terminal building is also freshly built.

    Barely 100 meters separates the tarmac from the river that marks the border.

    “The Azeris are already there, on the other side of the river,” Parsian says. “The new airport should be a major asset for Kapan, but it hardly feels safe now.”

    The new frontier especially concerns residents here, given Kapan’s history. Over the course of 1992, during the first years of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the city was repeatedly shelled by Azerbaijani forces across the border.

    The view from Davit Bek, in Armenia, toward the border with Azerbaijani-controlled territory, with Azerbaijani positions barely visible.

    The view from Davit Bek, in Armenia, toward the border with Azerbaijani-controlled territory, with Azerbaijani positions barely visible.

    Fallout from the border issue and the discomfiting truce that capped the recent fighting have turned Syunik — or at least its mayors — into staunch critics of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

    The mayors of Syunik’s five largest settlements — Kapan, Goris, Sisian, Meghri, and Kajaran — have all called for Pashinian’s resignation. During a planned visit to Syunik on December 21, local residents blocked the roads, forcing the prime minister’s entourage back to Yerevan.

    Parsian, who has been one of Pashinian’s most strident critics, pins the blame for the recent defeat on the Armenian leader, who took power after leading street protests that fueled a “velvet revolution” in 2018.

    “The war is connected with [Pashinian’s] failed policies — specifically, his foreign policy,” Parsian says, adding, “The support we have from the government [on the border issue] is also not enough.”

    Their disappointment has led Kapan and other communities to seek the help of another protector: Russia.

    In late November, Moscow announced that in addition to some 2,000 Russian troops already policing the cease-fire, it was sending 188 border guards to Armenia to help secure that country’s southeast border. Some of them are already on the ground around the Kapan-Goris highway.

    “We are in contact with the Russians,” Parsian says. “They have promised us to maintain security.”

    The partly destroyed home of Vorlik, a 72-year-old resident of Davit Bek, in Armenia, near the border with Azerbaijan.

    The partly destroyed home of Vorlik, a 72-year-old resident of Davit Bek, in Armenia, near the border with Azerbaijan.

    Meanwhile, in another of Syunik’s villages, the border situation is equally tense and the direct effects of the recent fighting are still being felt.

    Seventy-three-year-old Vorik, who asks that his last name not be published, points to a destroyed shed next to his house in Davit Bek.

    It is about 5 kilometers as the crow flies from the Azeri town of Qubadli (Kubatli in Armenian), near the mutual border.

    “They fired a shell that landed right here,” he says of his property coming under Azerbaijani artillery fire. “Many other houses in the village were also hit.”

    A detachment of Armenian Army troops is present in the village, billeted in a house in its center. They arrived in early December, after having fought on the front lines in Cebrayil/Jrakan.

    “The enemy is about a kilometer and a half from here,” an Armenian soldier, speaking on condition of anonymity, says as he gestures toward several small tents across a field that marks the border with Azerbaijan.

    Unlike Syunik’s mayors, these men have no harsh words for the prime minister.

    “This deal saved our friends,” the unit commander says when asked about the cease-fire agreement. “We fought the war in order for our people to live. Thank God, most of them still do.”

    While major combat is over — at least for a while — the border demarcation has led to further losses and more uncertainty.

    On January 4, a dozen homes in the village of Shurnukh, about 10 kilometers northwest of Davit Bek, were handed over after being found to lie on the Azerbaijani side of the newly defined border.

    But not before they were set alight in scenes reminiscent of evacuations in Kelbacar/Karvachar and other parts of Nagorno-Karabakh that were ceded by other ethnic Armenians more than a month earlier.

    For Mayor Parsian, the newly arriving Azerbaijanis on the border are an ominous sign, even if Russian border guards will also be coming.

    “The war in the 1990s started because we were living too close to each other,” he says. “There were kidnappings, raids — that’s how it all started. If [Azeris] are again right next to us, I fear the situation will be repeated.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pretrial Detentions Of Siberian Messianic Sect Leaders Extended

    A court in Siberia has extended the pretrial detention of three leaders of an isolated messianic sect who are charged with “creating a religious group, activities of which may impose violence on citizens.”

    Defense lawyers for Sergei Torop, the founder of the Church of the Last Testament who calls himself Vissarion, and his associates, Vadim Redkin and Vladimir Vedernikov, wrote on Telegram on January 13 that the Central District Court in the city of Novosibirsk had prolonged their clients’ pretrial detention until April 15.

    The lawyers added that they will appeal the court ruling.

    The trio was arrested by security forces in September in a massive raid on the group’s remote settlement in the Krasnoyarsk Krai region.

    Torop, a 59-year-old former traffic-police officer, founded the Church of the Last Testament in 1991. It was officially registered as a legal religious organization in 1995. The group claims some 10,000 followers, mostly living in southern parts of the Krasnoyarsk region.

    The group bars members from eating meat, as well as from using tobacco, alcohol, or money.

    Torop also has followers abroad, particularly in Germany.

    Seven volumes of the church’s teachings – which combine elements of Russian Orthodoxy and Buddhism with strong elements of collectivism and environmentalism — have been translated into German.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pretrial Detentions Of Siberian Messianic Sect Leaders Extended

    A court in Siberia has extended the pretrial detention of three leaders of an isolated messianic sect who are charged with “creating a religious group, activities of which may impose violence on citizens.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran Holds Missile Drills Amid Tensions With U.S.

    Iran’s military has launched short-range naval missile drills in the Gulf of Oman, state media reported, amid heightened tension between Tehran and Washington.

    State TV said on January 13 that the logistics warship Makran, described as Iran’s largest military vessel with a helicopter pad, and the missile-launching ship Zereh (armour) were taking part in the two-day exercises.

    Tensions between the United States and Iran have risen since 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from an international nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, arguing that the 2015 accord did not go far enough.

    The U.S. administration also imposed crippling sanctions on Iran in a bid to force Tehran to negotiate a new agreement that would also address the country’s missile programs and its support for regional proxies.

    In response to the U.S. pullout and economic sanctions, Iran, which claims its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, has gradually breached parts of the pact such as uranium enrichment saying it is no longer bound by it.

    In a televised speech during a cabinet meeting on January 13, Iranian President Hassan Rohani said that U.S. sanctions would fail.

    “We are witnessing the failure of a policy, the maximum pressure campaign, economic terrorism,” Rohani said.

    The previous day, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that Iran has given support to Al-Qaeda and safe haven to its leaders, despite some skepticism within the intelligence community and Congress.

    Pompeo did not provide hard evidence to back up his claims, made a week before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20.

    Biden has suggested that Washington may reenter the nuclear deal — under which Tehran committed to limit its nuclear activities in return for relief from sanctions — if Iran complies with its terms.

    But Iranian officials insist that the United States should first lift its sanctions.

    With reporting by Reuters and AP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • 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.

  • More Than 45,000 People Sign Petition Against Holding Ice Hockey World Championship In Minsk

    MINSK — More than 45,000 people have signed an online petition against holding the 2021 Ice Hockey World Championships in Minsk because of the ongoing violent crackdown on mass protests against elections that kept strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka in power despite opposition claims the vote was rigged.

    Belarus is set to co-host the 2021 world ice hockey championships with Latvia in May and June, but Riga and many other European Union capitals have been calling for the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) to cancel Minsk’s involvement over the brutal crackdown, as well as fears that Lukashenka’s government has failed to control the coronavirus pandemic and is underreporting cases and deaths.

    Crisis In Belarus

    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.

    The petition addressed to the IIHF on the Change.org online platform was organized by a noted Belarusian female hockey player, Yulia Abasava.

    “… I ask you today not to close your eyes to the fact that the tournament is being planned to be held in the country led by a bloody regime. Do not compromise the IIHF and ice hockey in general in front of the international community,” Abasava’s petition says.

    According to Abasava, the issue of holding the tournament in Minsk can be discussed only after the “illegal regime” of Lukashenka is gone.

    “If Lukashenka’s bloody regime remains, then many of the illegally arrested people will be convicted and sent to prisons before the tournament starts. No tournament has more importance than human lives,” Abasava wrote in the petition.

    The number of signatures under the online petition abruptly rose after IIHF head Rene Fasel met with Lukashenka in the Belarusian capital on January 11 to discuss Minsk’s arrangements to host the 2021 world hockey championships.

    At the start of the meeting, the two men warmly embraced and shook hands.

    Lukashenka, 66, has faced months of protests demanding he step down following the disputed presidential election in August 2020.

    Nearly 30,000 people have been detained, and hundreds reportedly have been tortured in detention and beaten on the streets in the postelection crackdown by the government.

    The European Union and the United States refuse to recognize Lukashenka as Belarus’s legitimate leader and have imposed sanctions on him and other senior officials.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Navalny Says He’ll Return To Russia This Weekend

    Outspoken Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, who is currently in Germany after surviving a poison attack, has tweeted that he plans to return to Russia on January 17.

    Navalny was flown to Berlin for emergency medical care after being poisoned in Russia in August.

    Laboratory tests conducted in Germany, France, and Sweden have established that Navalny was poisoned with a toxin from the Russian-made Novichok group of Soviet-era nerve agents, a conclusion confirmed by the International Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

    Navalny has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering the poisoning, an allegation rejected by the Kremlin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Court Fines 89-Year-Old Grandma For ‘Long Live Belarus!’ Protest Chant

    A Minsk court has found an 89-year-old woman guilty of violating protests laws nearly a month after she was detained alongside dozens of others at a weekly rally of retirees calling on strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka to step down.

    The Leninsky District Court on January 12 slapped Valeria Smirnova with a fine of 870 Belarusian rubles ($337), or more than half the average monthly income in the country, for participating in an unauthorized protest.

    Smirnova was one of more than 100 people detained by black-clad security forces in Minsk on December 14 during a regular Monday demonstration of pensioners backing the country’s pro-democracy movement.

    Smirnova’s daughter, 67-year-old Lyudmila Bystrenko, was also detained. The women spent more than six hours at the police station before being released.

    According to Smirnova’s great-granddaughter, Daria, the soon-to-be nonagenarian was punished for shouting “Long live Belarus!” alongside other retirees.

    An anonymous witness–a police officer who spoke in court via video link–confirmed this account, the Belarusian news site Tut.by reported.

    Crisis In Belarus

    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.

    Belarus has been roiled by regular protests since early August when Lukashenka was declared victor of a presidential election that opposition leaders said was rigged.

    Police have violently cracked down, detaining nearly 30,000 people, according to the UN. There have also been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment, and several people have died.

    The United States, the European Union, and several other countries 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.

    With reporting by Current Time

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Servers Seized In Ukraine, Moldova As Germany Takes Down ‘World’s Largest’ Illegal Darknet Marketplace

    German authorities have shut down “the world’s largest” illegal online marketplace as part of an international operation against the darknet.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Moscow Court Reduces Sentences Of Two Convicted In ‘New Greatness’ Case

    MOSCOW — The Moscow City Court on January 12 slightly reduced prison terms handed to two men convicted in the high-profile case of the so-called New Greatness movement.

    The court reduced the seven-year prison term of Ruslan Kostylenkov by three months, and the 6 1/2-year prison term of Pyotr Karamzin by two months.

    The six-year prison term of Ruslan Kostylenkov, as well as suspended prison terms for Anna Pavlikova, Maksim Roshchin, Maria Dubovik, and Dmitry Poletayev were upheld at the hearing.

    The men and women reiterated their not-guilty pleas saying that the case against them was groundless as there were no victims and no damages inflicted either to individuals or to the state.

    They were arrested in 2018 and charged with creating an extremist group with the intention of overthrowing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.

    Critics say the case against them was fabricated by Russia’s security services.

    The rights group Memorial describes the seven as political prisoners.

    Pavlikova was 17 at the time of her arrest. Her being held under house arrest for several months sparked protests in Moscow and other cities.

    The defendants say they had turned their online chat group into a political movement called New Greatness at the suggestion of one group member.

    Later, it was revealed that the man who proposed the idea, wrote the movement’s charter, and rented premises for gatherings was a special agent of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

    In late-October, another member of the group, Pavel Rebrovsky, was sentenced to six years in prison after a Moscow court found him guilty of creating an extremist organization.

    In April 2019, Rebrovsky made a deal with investigators to testify against other suspects in the high-profile case, and was sentenced to 29 months in prison for being a member of the group.

    However, several months later, after Rebrovsky recanted his testimony, saying it had been made under duress, prosecutors demanded that his verdict and sentence be annulled, which the Moscow City Court did in October 2019.

    One more member of the group, Rustam Rustamov received a suspended 18-month prison sentence in 2019 after he made a deal with investigators.

    Another group member, Sergei Gavrilov, fled to Ukraine in October 2019, where he asked for political asylum.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pompeo Alleges Al-Qaeda Has ‘New Home Base’ In Iran

    U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo charged on January 12 that Al-Qaeda has established a new home base in Iran.

    With just eight days left in office for U.S. President Donald Trump, Pompeo alleged that Iran has given support to Al-Qaeda and safe haven to its leaders, despite some skepticism within the intelligence community and Congress. He did not provide hard evidence to back up his claims.

    The New York Times reported in November 2020 that Al-Qaeda’s Abu Muhammad al-Masri, accused of helping to mastermind the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, was shot dead by Israeli operatives in Iran. Iran denied the report, saying there were no Al-Qaeda militants on its soil.

    Pompeo told a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington that he was announcing publicly for the first time that al-Masri died on August 7 last year.

    Pompeo said his presence in Iran was no surprise, and added: “Al-Masri’s presence inside Iran points to the reason that we’re here today…. Al-Qaeda has a new home base: it is the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

    Pompeo has accused Iran of links to Al-Qaeda in the past but has not provided concrete evidence.

    Shi’ite Iran and Al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim group, have long been sectarian foes.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed Pompeo’s accusations as “warmongering lies.”

    Throughout the Trump administration, Iran has been a target, and Pompeo has sought to further ratchet up pressure on Iran in recent weeks with more sanctions.

    Advisers to President-elect Joe Biden believe Trump is trying to make it more difficult for the incoming administration to reengage with Iran and seek to rejoin a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers that Washington abandoned in 2018.

    Pompeo said he was imposing sanctions on Iran-based Al-Qaeda leaders and three leaders of Al-Qaeda Kurdish battalions.

    He also announced a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to the location or identification of Iran-based Al-Qaeda leader Muhammad Abbatay — also known as Abd al-Rahman al-Maghrebi.

    With reporting by Reuters and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Nazarbaev’s Daughter Gets Seat In New Kazakh Parliament

    NUR-SULTAN — Darigha Nazarbaeva, the eldest daughter of Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, is one of the 76 lawmakers from the party led by her father who acceded to the newly elected parliament.

    Nur Otan, the party led by Nazarbaev, on January 12 published the list of its members, including the 57-year-old Nazarbaeva, elected to the 107-member lower chamber, the Mazhilis, after January 10 elections, which were called “uncompetitive” by international observers.

    In May last year, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, Nazarbaev’s hand-picked successor, removed Darigha Nazarbaeva from the post of speaker of the parliament’s upper chamber, the Senate, as well as from her seat in parliament.

    Nazarbaeva’s dismissal from the post that put her second in line to the head of state has been seen by many in the oil-rich Central Asian nation as a result of an ongoing struggle between financial and political groups.

    Nazarbaev, 80, is widely seen as the country’s top decision-maker despite leaving the presidency in March 2019 after ruling the oil-rich Central Asian nation for nearly three decades. In addition to leading the Nur Otan Party, he holds a lifetime post as chairman of the powerful Security Council and enjoys almost limitless powers as elbasy — leader of the nation.

    Earlier in the day, Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission said that the Aq Zhol (Bright Path) party won 12 seats, and the People’s Party (formerly the Communist People’s Party) secured 10 seats in the Mazhilis.

    On January 11, the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, an advisory body controlled by Nazarbaev, elected nine members of the Mazhilis, a duty defined by election legislation.

    The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which had observers in the resource-rich country, said in a statement on January 11 that “an uncompetitive campaign and systemic de-facto limitations on constitutionally guaranteed fundamental freedoms left voters without genuine choice.”

    Observers have deemed past elections in Kazakhstan neither free nor fair, and fraught with electoral fraud, repression of opposition candidates, and restrictions on a free press.

    Kazakhstan’s All-National Social Democratic Party (OSDP), which describes itself as an opposition party, boycotted the January 10 vote saying nothing had changed this time around despite Nazarbaev’s pivot to a less conspicuous public role after he stepped down.

    After detaining several activists in the run-up to the vote, police kept up the pressure on election day, detaining dozens in major cities across the country.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ivanishvili Says He’s Leaving Georgian Politics For Good.
 His Critics Have Heard That One Before.

    TBILISI — The billionaire businessman-politician who founded the ruling Georgian Dream party back in 2012 says he has decided to leave politics for good.

    Former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili announced on January 11 that he was stepping down as the chairman of Georgian Dream and will quit the party.

    Proclaiming that he’d accomplished his “mission,” Ivanishvili said, “I have decided to completely withdraw from politics and let go of the reins of power.”

    He said the fact he will turn 65 next month also was a factor in his decision.

    But few in the Georgian capital are taking Ivanishvili’s announcement at face value.

    One reason is because it is not the first time Ivanishvili has announced his retirement from politics in the former Soviet republic.

    In November 2013, when Ivanishvili voluntarily stepped down as prime minister after just 13 months in office, he also said that he was quitting the political arena.

    Then, in 2018, Ivanishvili announced his formal return. He was promptly elected to serve again as chairman of Georgian Dream.

    In the meantime, all four men who’ve served as prime minister since Ivanishvili quit that post have been party colleagues — including current Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia. And critics accuse Ivanishvili of having continued to govern the country from behind the scenes.

    Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia

    Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia

    They also accuse Ivanishvili of being close to the Kremlin, something Ivanishvili denies.

    According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ivanishvili is the richest man in Georgia with an estimated wealth of about $5.7 billion.

    He made his fortune during the 1990s by building up a collection of iron-ore producers, steel plants, banks, and real-estate properties in post-Soviet Russia — selling off most of those assets from 2003 to 2006 and the remainder in the run-up to his election as Georgian prime minister in October 2012.

    He created the Georgian Dream party in April 2012.

    Sources familiar with the inner workings of the party tell RFE/RL it is virtually impossible for Ivanishvili to relinquish his political power — regardless of his formal position or membership in the party.

    "I will honestly say that at the end of my political career, one of the things that makes me grieve is that a state-minded and responsible opposition has not been formed yet” that would help Georgia “meet the standards of European parliamentary democracy,” Ivanishvili said in his farewell announcement. (file photo)

    “I will honestly say that at the end of my political career, one of the things that makes me grieve is that a state-minded and responsible opposition has not been formed yet” that would help Georgia “meet the standards of European parliamentary democracy,” Ivanishvili said in his farewell announcement. (file photo)

    Ghia Khukhashvili, a former adviser to Ivanishvili, said the Georgian Dream’s governing structure is designed so that “all roads lead to Ivanishvili.” Consequently, Khukhashvili says, even if Ivanishvili sincerely wants to leave politics, it will be difficult for him to do so without the collapse of that party system.

    Political tensions have been high in Georgia since the official results of parliamentary elections on October 31 showed Georgian Dream maintaining its grip on power.

    Ivanishvili wants to present himself as a democrat who is not fundamentally opposed to the opposition. But he does not want such an opposition.”

    The opposition — led by the United National Movement (ENM) and European Georgia, plus six other parties that won parliamentary representation — claims the vote was rigged. Thousands of opposition demonstrators have taken to the streets of Tbilisi to protest the official election results.

    Georgian Dream has rejected its demand for new elections, insisting the vote was free and fair.

    The OSCE’s international election-observation mission concluded that the vote was “competitive and, overall, fundamental freedoms were respected,” although it cited “pervasive allegations of pressure on voters and blurring of the line between the ruling party and the state.”

    In his January 11 announcement, Ivanishvili said he was “heartbroken that a constructive opposition has not been formed” in Georgia.

    “I will not hide it and I will honestly say that at the end of my political career, one of the things that makes me grieve is that a state-minded and responsible opposition has not been formed yet” that would help Georgia “meet the standards of European parliamentary democracy.”

    Ghia Nodia, a political analyst who heads the Tbilisi-based Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy, and Development, told RFE/RL that he doubts Ivanishvili’s sincerity.

    “This is complete hypocrisy,” said Nodia, who served as Georgia’s minister of education and science in 2008. “Ivanishvili wants his favorite opposition, which has not appeared before. It is clear that he considers the United National Movement as an enemy. His attitude is similar to those parties that are also critical of the National Movement.”

    He will not go anywhere, of course, and he will not leave either. Ivanishvili’s goal has always been to be able to do whatever he wants without hindrance.”

    Nodia accused Ivanishvili of failing to “recognize any opposition party as a legitimate player.”

    “Ivanishvili wants to present himself as a democrat who is not fundamentally opposed to the opposition. But he does not want such an opposition,” Nodia said. “He wants to control the opposition as he had controlled Georgian Dream when he left the first time.”

    David Zurabishvili, a former member of the Georgian parliament who used to lead the opposition Democratic Front faction, said the threat posed to Ivanishvili’s interests by the current opposition isn’t the only reason he will not be able to fulfill his “dream of leaving” politics.

    “He will not go anywhere, of course, and he will not leave either,” Zurabishvili said. “Ivanishvili’s goal has always been to be able to do whatever he wants without hindrance. This means his business, infrastructure projects, and all that require control of state institutions.

    “He cannot leave politics,” Zurabishvili said. “The political leadership may decide otherwise. The legislation may be different [and unfavorable to him]. But the man does not know where he wants to build or move. He has to run to get permits every time. So he cannot relinquish full control and, in principle, remain as an informal ruler as he was before. I am absolutely sure of that.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Watchdog Takes First Step Toward Punishing RFE/RL Under ‘Foreign Agents’ Law

    MOSCOW — Russia’s telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor has drawn up its first eight administrative protocols — all against Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — for violating the country’s controversial foreign agents law.

    Roskomnadzor said in a statement on its website on January 12 that the offenses are “for noncompliance by the media performing the functions of a foreign agent with the requirements of the law on labeling information disseminated by them.”

    The protocols involve RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Current Time, Sibir.Realii, and Idel.Realii.

    “The drawn-up protocols will be sent to the magistrate’s court within three working days to make decisions on the imposition of administrative fines,” Roskomnadzor said.

    The “foreign agent” law, originally passed in 2012, requires designated organizations to report their activities and face financial audits. Amendments to the law in December 2020 oblige the media to note the designation whenever they mention these individuals or groups.

    The new law also says that individuals, including foreign journalists, involved in Russia’s political developments or collecting materials and data related to Russia’s defense or national-security issues must be included on the list of foreign agents.

    Critics say the law has been arbitrarily applied to target Russian civil society organizations, human rights defenders, and political activists, including outspoken Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

    Amnesty International recently slammed the legislation, saying it would “drastically limit and damage the work not only of civil society organizations that receive funds from outside Russia but many other groups as well.”

    Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as a whole was listed in the original registry in December 2017, along with several of RFE/RL’s regional news sites: the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service; the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service; Kavkaz Realii of RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service; Idel.Realii of RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service; and Factograph, a former special project by RFE/RL’s Russian Service.

    Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with Voice of America, was also named in the original list, as was Voice of America.

    In November 2019, the list was expanded to include Sever.Realii. In February 2020, the Russian Justice Ministry added RFE/RL’s corporate entity in Russia.

    Moscow began adding individuals to the list in December 2020, including three journalists who contribute to RFE/RL: Lyudmila Savitskaya and Sergei Markelov, freelance correspondents for the North Desk (Sever.Realii) of RFE/RL’s Russian Service; and Denis Kamalyagin, editor in chief of the online news site Pskov Province and a contributor to RFE/RL’s Russian Service.

    “The Justice Ministry is stating unambiguously that reporting the facts is a crime, and that it will stop at nothing to silence the voices that seek to inform, protect, and engage their compatriots, the people of Russia,” Daisy Sindelar, RFE/RL vice president and editor in chief, said after the list was expanded last month.

    Russian officials have said that amending the “foreign agents law” to include mass media in 2017 was a “symmetrical response” to the U.S. requirement that Russia’s state-funded channel RT register under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

    U.S. officials have said the action is not symmetrical, arguing that the U.S. and Russian laws differ and that Russia uses its “foreign agent” legislation to silence dissent and discourage the free exchange of ideas.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Khamenei’s Ban On Western Vaccines Blasted As A ‘Politicization’ Of Iranians’ Well-Being

    Despite a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 56,000 Iranians, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has banned Western coronavirus vaccines, claiming they’re untrustworthy.

    “The import of American and British vaccines is banned,” Khamenei said on January 8.

    The surprise announcement was met with anger by Iranians who have in past weeks called on their government to purchase safe vaccines as soon as possible.

    Analysts and experts accused Khamenei of politicizing the issue and endangering the well-being of Iranian citizens, who are faced with the Middle East’s deadliest outbreak.

    Why Did Iran Ban Western Coronavirus Vaccines?

    The decision appears to be the result of the worldview of Khamenei, Iran’s highest political and religious authority. Khamenei is deeply mistrustful of the United States and other Western countries and has cited unfounded conspiracy theories about the coronavirus’s origins since the early weeks of the outbreak in Iran. The ban also highlights Tehran’s tense ties with Washington, which have deteriorated since U.S. President Donald Trump left the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions.

    Speaking on January 8, Khamenei claimed that Western companies want to test their vaccines on Iranians.

    “If their Pfizer company can produce vaccines, why don’t they use it themselves so that they don’t have so many dead? The same applies to Britain,” Khamenei said.

    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- who has his own, U.S.-educated physician -- has banned imports of U.S. and other Western COVID-10 vaccines.

    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who has his own, U.S.-educated physician — has banned imports of U.S. and other Western COVID-10 vaccines.

    He meanwhile failed to acknowledge that such vaccines had already been deployed in Western countries, where a number of national leaders have been among the first to receive them in an effort to instill public confidence.

    “Our people will not be a testing device for vaccine manufacturing companies,” the Iranian leader said. His country will purchase “safe foreign” vaccines, he said, without providing details.

    Meanwhile, Iranian health authorities have promoted the possible import of vaccines from India, China, or Russia, and reportedly even agreed to allow a Cuban vaccine candidate to be tested on Iranians.

    Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s (ICG) Iran Project, says the ban “is the triumph of ideology over common sense.”

    “It’s not just a reckless politicization of the Iranian people’s well-being, but an ill-advised political move,” Vaez told RFE/RL.

    Early in the outbreak, in March, Khamenei dismissed an offer of assistance by the Trump administration, which has refused to ease sanctions despite the pandemic and calls for such a move from UN officials, some U.S. lawmakers, and others. Khamenei also went so far as to suggest — without citing evidence — that the coronavirus that has now killed nearly 400,000 Americans might have been manufactured by the United States.

    Iranian officials have complained that the sanctions have hampered their efforts to contain the crisis.

    Mourners attend the funeral of a man who died from COVID-19 at a cemetery on the outskirts of the Iranian city of Ghaemshahr on December 16. Officially, the disease has killed more than 56,000 Iranians.

    Mourners attend the funeral of a man who died from COVID-19 at a cemetery on the outskirts of the Iranian city of Ghaemshahr on December 16. Officially, the disease has killed more than 56,000 Iranians.

    Khamenei’s ban followed a December 28 announcement by the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) that a group of U.S.-based philanthropists had donated 150,000 doses of a Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that were supposed to be transferred to Iran within three weeks.

    Following Khamenei’s ban, an IRCS spokesman said the plan had been dropped.

    Saeid Golkar, a senior fellow on Iran policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, called the ban “another example of [Khamenei’s] micromanagement and intervention” in the everyday lives of citizens.

    “Ayatollah Khamenei makes this inefficient and ultimately authoritarian regime more ineffective,” Golkar told RFE/RL.

    What Are Supporters Of The Ban Saying?

    Since Khamenei’s public announcement of the ban, government officials have fallen in line by criticizing Western vaccines.

    President Hassan Rohani said on January 9 that “some companies wanted to test their products on our people,” without getting into specifics.

    The hard-line parliament on January 11 echoed support for a ban on Western-made vaccines. In doing so, it appeared to fabricate evidence for such a move.

    “Due to evidence of shock, side effects, and even deaths in some cases after injecting the vaccines, including those from Pfizer, the government should ban the import of vaccines produced by American, British, and French companies,” 200 of the 290 parliament members said in a statement.

    Iranian officials had previously suggested that the country did not have the required infrastructure to handle the Pfizer vaccine, which must be stored at extremely low temperatures, and also suggested it was too expensive.

    Hard-liners have made similarly unfounded claims that Western vaccines can cause serious health issues such as cancer and infertility, or even turn Iranians into robots.

    An official with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed, inexplicably, that companies that produce COVID-19 vaccines are working to reduce the world’s population by 20 percent.

    “There is evidence that these institutions have themselves manipulated and infected the virus,” deputy IRGC coordinator Mohammad Reza Naghdi said.

    A former IRGC commander claimed this week that some Western companies inject global-positioning technology into people’s bodies via vaccines to control them.

    “They want to control us to the point that we become Ironmen,” Hossein Kanani Moghadam was quoted by Iranian media as saying.

    What Are Opponents Of The Ban Saying?

    Medical experts have said that there is no basis for the anti-Western vaccine claims and warned that Iran’s ban could complicate its people’s timely access to COVID-19 preventatives.

    “It’s an ideological decision. It’s not based on science,” Tehran-based psychiatrist Hessam Firouzi told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

    U.S. President-elect Joe Biden receives his second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 in Delaware on January 11. A number of Western leaders have been among the first to receive vaccines in an effort to instill public confidence.

    U.S. President-elect Joe Biden receives his second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 in Delaware on January 11. A number of Western leaders have been among the first to receive vaccines in an effort to instill public confidence.

    “We shouldn’t ban medicine from some countries because we’re having problems with them,” Firouzi said, adding that Western medicine and vaccines are routinely used in Iran.

    In a letter to Rohani, Iran’s Medical Council called for the purchase of effective vaccines based “on a scientific approach” and “free from political issues” to inoculate vulnerable groups as quickly as possible.

    The council said separately that 200 Iranian doctors have died of COVID-19 and that more than 3,000 have emigrated since the outbreak in Iran began.

    Many Iranians took to Twitter to criticize the ban.

    Former Interior Ministry official Mostafa Tajzadeh said that “no official, not even the supreme leader, has the right to make unprofessional comments about how to deal with the coronavirus or make decisions contrary to the recommendations of experts.”

    To highlight the perceived absurdity of the ban, some people have posted a photo in which Khamenei’s doctor — U.S.-educated Alireza Marandi — is seen next to German scientist Ugur Sahin, who helped create the Pfizer vaccine. Sahin was the 2019 recipient of Iran’s biennial Mustafa Prize for leading Muslim scientists.

    What Are Iranians’ Options?

    Some Health Ministry officials have recently promoted COVID-19 vaccines developed by China that are already being rolled out in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and the Seychelles.

    The head of Iran’s Medical Council, Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi, said on January 12 that the country will import 2 million coronavirus vaccines before the Iranian New Year on March 21 from “India, China, or Russia.”

    Zafarghandi also suggested that Iran could still purchase British-Swiss pharmaceutical AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which was developed with the University of Oxford.

    “I don’t understand why it is called a British vaccine. It has been manufactured by Sweden and its scientific research has been done in Oxford,” he said.

    He added that “its purchase from various sources is on the agenda.”

    Iran has also said that it is collaborating on a coronavirus vaccine with a Cuban research institute, despite international questions about its testing methods.

    Last month, officials in Tehran said they had launched a clinical trial of Iran’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine.

    Those tests are presumably ongoing but, even if they are effective, it could take months before the vaccine could be deployed and it might run into the kind of public distrust that has accompanied Iranian officials’ dubious infection statistics since the first days of the crisis.

    “I’ve been a physician for 20 years, [and] I can say that 70 percent of my patients ask me whether they should buy the Iranian or foreign version of medications I prescribe. ‘Isn’t the Western-made one better?’” Firouzi quoted them as saying.

    Radio Farda broadcaster Mohammad Zarghami contributed to this report.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Exiled Belarusian Police Commander Says He Was Warned Of Murder Plot

    A former commander of the Belarusian riot police says Berlin security officials warned him in 2012 that they have information about a plan by the Belarusian KGB to kill him.

    Uladzimer Baradach spoke to RFE/RL about the alleged plan in an interview published on January 12, commenting on a recently published audio tape from 2012 that apparently spells out plans to murder Baradach and two other opponents of Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Germany.

    Another critic of Lukashenka residing in Germany, former prison chief Aleh Alkayeu, whose name was also mentioned on the tape, told RFE/RL last week that German police in 2012 offered to provide him with bodyguards, saying they had obtained information about possible Belarusian KGB plans to kill him.

    The Brussels-based online newspaper EUObserver on January 4 published details of a recording of what it said was the Belarusian KGB security service’s then-chief Vadzim Zaytsau discussing the plans with his subordinates to kill the men.

    Baradach said that although he had never met Zaytsau and therefore cannot confirm that it was his voice in the recording, the fact that Berlin police informed him about the KGB’s plans to kill him exactly the same year when the tape was recorded proves that the audio is authentic.

    “It was not an official business discussion between the KGB chief and his subordinates. It was a discussion between criminals who laid out plans to execute a criminal operation,” Baradach told RFE/RL.

    On the tape, Zaytsau was apparently briefing members of a special KGB elite counterterrorism unit — Alfa Group — about killing three opponents of Lukashenka then living in Germany — Baradach, Alkayeu, and Vyachaslau Dudkin, a former anti-corruption police chief.

    The audio also includes purported dialogue about the killing of Belarusian-born Russian journalist Pavel Sheremet, a critic of Lukashenka.

    The attacks on Baradach, Alkayeu, and Dudkin never took place, but the plot discussed would allegedly have involved the use of explosives and poisons, the report said.

    Sheremet was subsequently killed in a car-bomb attack in Kyiv in 2016. Ukrainian police said on January 4 that they were investigating the fresh documents and recordings, which if confirmed would increase suspicions that Belarus’s KGB was involved in the killing of Sheremet.

    Three Ukrainian suspects are on trial in Ukraine in connection with the killing, but the authorities have not established who ordered the murder. The suspects deny wrongdoing.

    The fresh revelations come as Lukashenka, in power since 1994, faces months of protests demanding he step down following a disputed presidential election in August 2020.

    Nearly 30,000 people have been detained, and hundreds have been tortured in detention and beaten on the streets in the postelection crackdown by the government.

    The European Union and the United States refuse to recognize Lukashenka as Belarus’s legitimate leader and slapped him and senior officials with sanctions.

    Baradach told RFE/RL that Lukashenka will do everything to stay in power.

    “Lukashenka will cling to power until the last riot police officer stands by his side, because only staying in power will guarantee him safety now,” Baradach said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Snow Heaps More Misery On Migrants Living In Bosnian Forest

    Snow and low temperatures have brought more misery for migrants living in a makeshift camp in a forest above the town of Velika Kladusa in northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina. They set up the camp because they say they have been denied access to an official temporary shelter for migrants in the area. They say they’re struggling to find food, drinking water, warm clothes, and firewood. Migrants come to this northwest corner of Bosnia seeking passage into nearby Croatia and the European Union.

    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.