Twenty two-year old Munkhbayasgalan loved her job as a police reporter at Mongolia's most popular newspaper, the weekly tabloid Seruuleg (Alarm Clock). She would routinely stay up all night on publishing days to help get the paper out.
Today, as in Soviet times, the Azerbaijani government maintains de facto control over lawyers (barristers and solicitors) through the nominally independent, but functionally monopolistic bar association, the Collegium of Lawyers. Azerbaijan has only about 500 lawyers (advokaty) for a population of some 7.5 million, and virtually all are members of the Collegium.
The following is the second of two-part series, outlining the history and current practice of "bride kidnapping," a serious human rights violation against women in Kyrgyzstan. [Click Here to Read Part I]
For the past year, a divided community of lawyers in Azerbaijan has debated the Draft Law on the Legal Profession (advokatura, in Russian) and Legal Activities.
One major flaw is the provision (Article 4) that lawyers be divided into first-class lawyers (those who provide all forms of legal services), and second-class lawyers (those deprived of their status as lawyers, and accorded only the authority to engage in "other forms of legal activity," excluding criminal defense).
The following is the first of two-part series, outlining the history and current practice of "bride kidnapping," a serious human rights violation against women in Kyrgyzstan.
The probable cause of Nurmamedov's arrest was his criticism of the decision to make Saparmurad Niyazov president for life. In comments recently broadcast by Radio Liberty, Nurmamedov also expressed dissenting views on various government policies. He is reportedly ill and on hunger strike at the police holding center in Tigen, a two or three hour drive from the capital.
Two astonishing and conflicting changes in leadership rang in the millennium in the CIS. On New Year's Eve, the Russian Federation's Boris Yeltsin voluntarily resigned his democratically-elected presidency six months before his term was due to expire.
The development, while dramatic, does not significantly alter the stultifying political status quo in Turkmenistan. In a 1994 national referendum, 99.9 percent of the voters extended the President's term to 2002, obviating the need for the scheduled presidential election in 1997. Turkmenistan is a one-party state, so, barring any changes, President Niyazov would have run unopposed anyway.
The region hardest hit is Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic in north-west Uzbekistan. Infant mortality in the region has reached 110 deaths for every 1000 births, one of the highest in he world. Almost 80 percent of women in the area suffer from anaemia. Losses in the agricultural and fishery sectors caused by the environmental damage are estimated at over $600 million annually.
