From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Tue May 22 2001 - 09:43:46 EDT
Kazakhstan Daily News
1. GERMAN DELEGATION WITH OFFICIAL VISIT IN ASTANA.
2. ALMATY CITY COURT DECLINED ERMURAT BAPI'S DEMAND TO REVISE HIS VERDICT.
3. ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF UZBEKISTAN RENAMED?
1. GERMAN DELEGATION WITH OFFICIAL VISIT IN ASTANA.
Correspondnets of RFE/RL report that today, May 2, visiting German Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer held talks with Kazakh Premier Qasymzhomart Toqayev.
The sides discussed German-Kazakh economic and trade ties. German FM said that
Kazakhstan was Germany's most important economic partner in Central Asia.
Kazakh Premier Toqayev expressed his hope that the further development of
Kazakh-German economic and trade relations would be more productive and mutually
advantageous. Members of Bundestag held talks with their Kazakh colleagues
today. The importance of activities of Shanghai-5 states was stressed by the
Kazakh and German Parliamentarians. Also issue of Kazakhstan's ethnic Germans
was discussed. It was mentioned at the talks that more than 1 million ethnic
Germans, also known as "Volga Deutsch", used to live on Kazakh territory before
the Soviet Union's collapse. Currently about 300 thousand ethnic Germans are
living in Kazakhstan. The main part of Kazakhstan's Germans have emigrated to
Germany in the last 10 years. German Parliamentarians said that now any ethnic
German trying to reside in Germany on the permanent basis is required to pass
special exam on the German language knowledge.
German FM Joschka Fischer is expected to hold talks with Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev later today.
2. ALMATY CITY COURT DECLINED ERMURAT BAPI'S DEMAND TO REVISE HIS VERDICT.
Today, May 22, Almaty City Court made a decision not to satisfy Ermurat Bapi's
request to change his verdict. Almaty's Zhetysu District Court sentenced
Ermurat Bapi - Editor-in-Chief of SolDat newspaper to 1 year of jail earlier in
April. Ermurat Bapi was found guilty of insulting Kazakh President's dignity
and honor then. Zhetysu District Court freed Mr. Bapi due to Kazakh
Presidential Decree on Amnesty. According to Ermurat Bapi, the case was about
his printing some articles about alleged involvement of Kazakh president
Nursultan Nazarbayev in oil bribery scandal, published in Western press. He
says that his request to have those articles translated by independent experts
into Russian or Kazakh in the court room, have never been satisfied. Mr. Bapi
told correspondents of RFE/RL today, that the whole case was politically
motivated and that he was going to appeal to Supreme Court of Kazakhstan.
3. ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF UZBEKISTAN RENAMED?
Correspondnets of RFE/RL quote Russian sources as reporting that Juma Namanghani
- a leader of Afghanistan-based Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan held a special
gathering of his activists in Northern Afghanistan this week. It was decided to
rename the movement to Islamic Movement of Turkistan. Turkistan is the old name
of the whole Central Asian region comprising Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It was in use even during the Soviet era
(Turkistan-Siberian Rail Road, Turkistan Military Region etc.) Correspondents
of RFE/RL say Russian web pages report that it looks like the leadership of
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan started recruiting also representatives of
Central Asia's ethnic groups, other than Uzbeks. The main idea of the movement
is reportedly to establish an Islamic state on the territory of Central Asia,
including Eastern Turkistan, or China's Xin Jiang province, also known as
Uyghuristan. No official sources either confirmed or denounced the data.
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