All kinds of unhappy news is coming out of the region today.
Sanjar Umarov has been sentenced. He originally received a 14 year sentence, but it was reduced to about 10 because of a recent amnesty. What heart.
Judge Zokirjon Isaev announced the guilty verdict and sentence, adding that Umarov “headed an organized criminal group and also created several offshore companies to commit economic crimes which resulted in a very big economic loss for Uzbekistan.”
…
The judge also ruled that Umarov must pay more than $8 million in fines and banned him from any business activity in Uzbekistan for three years after his release.
If it wasn’t so deadly serious, lines like that would make for a pretty funny joke.
In other trial news, Ferghana activist Mutabar Tojiboeva’s verdict is due out today.
Still in Uzbekistan, Freedom House has been banned (as opposed to just suspended) for the horrible crime of providing training to unregistered human rights groups without informing the government and failing to provide detailed enough financial reports–a charge I don’t take at face value.
Hours later, the Eurasia Foundation announced it is shutting down its Uzbekistan operations. After getting some heat from officials last week, it has decided there is no point to spending time, effort, and money on a losing battle.
In Kazakhstan, opposition members have been on hunger strike for nearly a week to protest their detention for participation in a recent protest.
And in Azerbaijan, a journalist who writes for an opposition newspaper was abducted and severely beaten. To the charge that the beating is connected to his professional activities, the Interior Ministrty has said “incoceivable!”
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2974 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.
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The issue regarding closing an NGO office in the face of harassment from the government of Uzbekistan goes beyond whether there is a point to spending time, effort and money on a losing battle. Clearly, there is no point.
However, the government of Uzbekistan has now began bringing criminal charges against local staff members of NGOs that try and fight charges against them in court. Even if the local staff, once having been convicted of charges (a given) are immediately amnestied (which has happened so far), they still have criminal records…not a good thing for their future in Uzbekistan.
Where can one find an NGO roll-call for Uzbekistan? I’m curious as to which NGOs are still operating there, and how close they are to closing up shop. Is CAFE still around? Doctors Without Borders?