UPDATE / 0245 Saturday, Bishkek time: A Kyrgyz government source says the reports of Maxim Bakiyev's arrest are true, and denies that Maxim was released. (An earlier version of this post was headlined "Kyrgyzstan: Bakiyev Jr Reportedly Caught and Released in London.")
Late Friday night the website of Kyrgyzstan’s president announced that Maxim Bakiyev, son of the former president, had been arrested in London that morning. Maxim, wanted at home for fraud and embezzling tens of millions of dollars in state funds, has apparently been living in the United Kingdom since his father, Kurmanbek, was chased out of Bishkek on April 7, 2010.
But Vechernii Bishkek, a popular local newspaper, has cast doubt on the claims. The paper says it spoke with someone who had contacted Maxim; the source reportedly said that the former first son had in fact been detained but was released quickly with an apology “for the misunderstanding.”
A member of the president’s press office did not immediately return requests for more information.
Maxim, the demonized scion of the Bakiyev clan, who turns 35 this month, was also detained on June 13, 2010, when he arrived in the UK on a private jet. Six days later he was reportedly granted temporary asylum. Little has been heard from him since.
Protestors were back on the streets of Jalal-Abad on Monday to support a nationalist legislator charged with trying to violently seize power in Kyrgyzstan.
Late Friday, a court in Bishkek ruled that Kamchybek Tashiev must spend two months in a detention center run by the State Committee on National Security while investigators look into his October 3 calls for the government to be overthrown. That day, Tashiev led a crowd of young men over a fence surrounding parliament, before claiming he was just trying to get to work.
Tashiev, Sadyr Japarov and Talant Mamytov, all from the Ata-Jurt (Fatherland) party, face up to 20 years in prison.
Tashiev takes his role as an opposition leader in parliament seriously. He is most often in the news for calling for the government to resign. But the October 3 rally – which was ostensibly organized to call for the nationalization of the country’s largest goldmine – was poorly planned and few think he had intended to force out the government. Instead, members of his party say he got caught up in the moment.
It was not a coup attempt, but “just a stupid move,” Fergananews quoted his colleague Jyldyz Joldosheva, also a deputy with the Ata-Jurt party, as saying.
It might have been the Tajik president’s birthday, but Vladimir Putin got what he wanted.
As expected, defense talks dominated the Russian president’s October 4-5 trip to Tajikistan. Before Putin landed in Dushanbe, the future of Russia’s military bases in the country was the source of boundless speculation and conflicting statements from officials on both sides.
In the end, on October 5 defense ministers signed a deal to keep some 7,000 Russian troops stationed in Tajikistan through 2042. But Tajikistan’s president, Emomali Rakhmon, managed to save face, embracing a playful Putin and receiving some crucial support for his ailing economy.
Under the new agreement, the 201st Motorized Rifle Division in Tajikistan – Russia’s largest posting of land forces abroad – can keep its three bases “practically for free,” the Asia-Plus news agency quoted Putin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov as saying. Russia, in turn, promised to help modernize the Tajik military and accept more Tajik migrant laborers.
The current lease for the bases expires in 2014, when NATO troops are expected to pull out of Afghanistan. Moscow is concerned that resulting violence could spill over the long and porous border with Tajikistan.
The detention of three opposition politicians for attempting to storm Kyrgyzstan’s parliament sparked rallies October 4 in Bishkek and in southern Kyrgyzstan. While the immediate fallout has not been as intense as feared, observers still worry the arrests could trigger instability.
Police in Bishkek clashed with protestors calling for the nationalization of a strategic gold mine on October 3. Dozens of men climbed over the fence surrounding the parliament building, known as the White House, before police drove them away with tear gas and stun grenades.
Two deputies from the nationalist Ata-Jurt (“Fatherland”) party led the protests, which local media reports say were attended by over 1,000 people. Photos show Ata-Jurt leader Kamchybek Tashiev -- who said he suffered a leg injury -- leading the assault. A deputy interior minister said Tashiev led the protestors over the fence.
Another member of Ata-Jurt, Sadyr Japarov, reportedly told protestors to follow him to the White House, where they would “sit in the offices of the deputies, the president, the prime minister,” the Knews.kg news agency quoted him as saying. Ata-Jurt has the most seats in parliament, but is not a member of the ruling coalition.
At least 12 people were injured, Kloop.kg reported, several with gunshot wounds. It is not clear who fired at whom or if some of the rioters were armed. Police were among the injured.
Democratization activists in Kyrgyzstan are worrying about a roll-back of basic freedoms after a Bishkek court prohibited a film festival from screening a Dutch documentary about homosexual Muslim men.
A court in Kyrgyzstan has banned a Dutch documentary about gay men who are practicing Muslims.
The 59-minute film, “I Am Gay and Muslim,” was scheduled to screen at the Bir Duino (“One World”) Human Rights Film Festival in Bishkek on September 28.
Kyrgyzstan’s chief cleric, Mufti Rakhmatilla Egemberdiev, said the film slanders Muslims by presenting Islam "in a bad form using as examples people who have nothing to do with religion,” local news agencies quoted him as saying. The State Committee on Religious Affairs concluded the film incites religious hatred. Only hours before the scheduled screening, a Bishkek court banned the film as extremist.
Most Kyrgyzstanis profess Islam, though relatively few are hard-core adherents to the faith.
The State Committee on National Security and the Interior Ministry are charged with enforcing the ban on showing or distributing the film in Kyrgyzstan. Earlier this month, a Bishkek court banned the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims,” which had sparked protests across the Muslim world.
“I Am Gay and Muslim” was shot last year in Morocco, where homosexuality is illegal.
Director Chris Belloni says on his website that the documentary “follows a number of young gay men in Morocco in their exploration of their religious and sexual identity.”
For most Tajiks, Russia plays a huge role in their families’ well being: Tajikistan’s economy is deeply dependent on remittances sent from its labor migrants in Russia; Tajikistan imports 90 percent of its oil products from Russia; and twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia remains one of Tajikistan’s largest trade partners.
On September 26, politicians from both countries met in Dushanbe to discuss economic integration. Their roundtable came the week before a scheduled visit from the architect of post-Soviet reintegration himself, President Vladimir Putin. At a widely publicized roundtable, the two sides cheerfully discussed the idea of Tajikistan’s accession to the Moscow-led Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. It turns out the topic will be on Putin’s agenda – a touch of brotherly bonhomie among a set of thornier subjects – and apparently has Dushanbe’s full support.
"The admission of Tajikistan to the Customs Union will be a significant step towards economic integration with Russia and other Customs Union members," said a statement by Tajikistan’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, carried by Interfax. The ministry noted that membership would guarantee supplies of petrol and basic foodstuffs. (President Emomali Rakhmon had just urged his citizens to stockpile grain for the winter ahead.)
This summer, Vitaly Korolkov, 38, was homeless, HIV-positive, and a recovering heroin addict. He began methadone treatment the last time he got out of prison, three years ago, because, as he put it, “I just want to live, don’t know how much time I have left.”
