| About
the Central Asia Project
In Central Asia, the League's work has been focused
on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
With the notable exception of Kyrgyzstan, where President
Akayev was overthrown in March 2005 as a result of a
popular uprising, these countries have been moving in
an increasingly authoritarian direction unleashing a
harassment campaign against human rights defenders,
journalists, civic activists and all others critical
of the governments and their policies.
In
Kazakhstan, one of the leading opposition leaders,
former Prime-Minister Akhedzhan Kazhegeldin was disqualified
from participating in the 1998 presidential elections,
criminally charged for reasons widely considered to
be political, and has had to live in exile ever since.
Most of the country's media is now under the tight control
by the President's daughter and son-in-law, since the
majority of independent and opposition newspapers have
been either closed down or denied registration in the
past few years. Recently, in a country that aspires
to chair the OSCE in 2009, President Nazarbayev has
intensified his campaign against civil society by introducing
a draft law before parliament would significantly restrict
foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from operating
in Kazakhstan and from providing grants to domestic
groups. Additionally, law-makers have recently adopted
an amendment to Kazahkstan's election law that bans
public demonstrations between the end of an election
campaign and the announcement of election results.
In
Kyrgyzstan, the downfall of President Akayev's government
in March 2005 was brought about by the population's
total loss of confidence in his government's policies--corrupt,
inefficient, and undemocratic. The League, together
with its partner human rights NGOs, is working with
the current interim government of Kurmanbek Bakiev to
help Kyrgyzstan develop a program of development that
would have as its priority respect for human rights
and rule of law. The first such test of the new government
will come on July 10, when the country holds presidential
elections.
In
Turkmenistan, the medieval-style cult of President
Niyazov (Turkmenbashi) has become the brunt of jokes
around the world. This is a country where children start
their day in school by pledging an oath of allegiance
to the President with their hand on "Rukhnama,"
a "holy" book supposedly written by him. A
major city has been re-named in his honor, while a golden
statue of him stands in the middle of Ashgabad, the
capital, programmed to rotate so that the sun never
stops shining on it. There are no independent media
outlets, opposition parties, and only two religious
confessions are allowed: Russian Orthodox Church and
state-sanctioned and controlled form of Islam.
Social
tension in Uzbekistan has been mounting as thousands
of people (seven thousand by some estimates) have been
imprisoned on apparently spurious charges of "religious
extremism," and "attempting to overthrow the
existing constitutional order." This crackdown
intensified after the bomb explosions in Tashkent in
1999, and has continued unabated ever since. Many fear
that a significant part of those jailed on the aforementioned
charges are simply followers of Islam trying to practice
their faith outside the state-sanctioned Muslim authority,
the Muftiat. The majority of such believers are members
of Islamic party Hizb-ut Tahrir and so-called Wahhabis.
Independent press does not exist in Uzbekistan and human
rights activists are subjected to routine harassment
by the authorities. The crackdown against human rights
activists and political opponents has escalated dramatically
in the aftermath of the tragedy that occured in Andijan
on May 13-14, 2005 (See League's
letter to President Karimov). Uzbek armed forces
shot at a crowd of demonstrators, killing many innocent
civilians. While the government's figure is significantly
lower, witness accounts and local NGOs estimate the
number of dead to be as high as 1,000. The League has
appealed to the Government of Uzbekistan to
The
League works with regional human rights groups, including
the Kazakhstan International
Bureau for Human Rights, Bureau
on Human Rights (Kyrgyzstan), Human
Rights Society of Uzbekistan and others by helping
them bring their case to international fora such as
the United Nations treaty-monitoring bodies and the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
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