President Lee Myung-bak’s administration in South Korea is making a risky bet on Uzbekistan. Seoul is ramping up its investments in the Central Asian state, but given that Uzbekistan is home to one of the most world’s most repressive and arbitrary regimes, South Korean deals stand a higher than usual chance of souring.
This election year, Americans are reminded and fatigued at how the campaign season drives rifts between various groups in the country. Wouldn’t you love instead to live in a nation where the President is so universally beloved, he is elected with a 97 percent majority? How about a country that celebrates an annual “Week of Happiness” to foster good health and high spirits?
There's a side of Azerbaijan that the ruling regime wants the world to see as the country prepares to host the most extravagant Eurovision in the contest's five-decade history.
It's the side that features a multimillion-dollar venue, bespangled performers, and all the frothy pop that audiences have come to expect of the world's most celebrated song competition.
The opening act for this year’s Eurovision song contest is a war of words. State-controlled media outlets in the host country, Azerbaijan, are assailing Germany, complaining that Berlin is behind a “large-scale aggressive campaign” to politicize the Eurovision event and discredit Baku.
If there is one thing to be learned from recent United Nations Human Rights Committee hearings on Turkmenistan it is that Turkmen officials do not make very good actors.
No matter how hard they tried to convince the outside world that they care about human rights, Turkmen representatives appearing before the committee failed to deliver convincing performances.
Wrapped in a quilted robe, a thick file of papers about his case resting on the table in front of him, Azimjan Askarov is unequivocal when it comes to assigning blame for his imprisonment.
“People would often ask me, ‘Aren’t you afraid of the police?’ And I’d say, ‘Why? I work on the basis of the law. What’s there to be afraid of?’ But in the end they did what they wanted,” he said.
The mystery over why the brother of a prominent Uzbek opposition figure was not released from prison as scheduled has been solved -- he is serving an additional five-year term.
The December 26 trial of arrested Turkish journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener has pushed a shadowy organization known as the Gülen movement to the forefront of public attention in Turkey. The group’s influence has long been an open secret. Now, its weight is being felt at a time when the country’s democratic credentials are increasingly being called into question.
Uzbek leaders have enhanced their arbitrary powers in recent years by eviscerating the country’s independent bar associations. A recent report prepared by Human Rights Watch details how authorities in Tashkent have turned the justice system into a mechanism to stifle dissent.
With the recent arrest of a leading academic, concern is spreading among intellectuals in Turkey that they will have to think twice before voicing criticism of the government in the future.
