Could it be that pop music, traditionally viewed by conservative governments as a scourge, is precipitating a thaw in Azerbaijan? Human rights activists in Baku are hopeful that is the case following the recent release of a prominent independent journalist from prison.
The European Parliament (EP) held a hearing May 26 on the European Union’s Strategy for Central Asia. The discussions offered a reason to hope that the EU can refine its approach in a way that allows Brussels to play a more effective role in promoting regional stability and prosperity.
Officials in Azerbaijan want to make the act of spreading “misinformation” a “cyber-crime.” Some Azerbaijani civil rights activists worry that the initiative is driven by a desire to restrict Azerbaijani web users’ access to online information.
The stage is just a couple of large dining tables covered with white cotton sheets pushed together at one end of the room. The “commandant,” played by a young woman, has an elfin face and shy smile behind oversized dark glasses.
Like any kind of improvisation, meykhana, a musical style akin to rap, has its detractors and its devotees in Azerbaijan. Literally translated as “the place of wine,” meykhana is the poetry of the country’s poorer neighborhoods, occasionally performed at weddings, capable of inducing a chuckle and a raised eyebrow.
As a senior Uzbek government official touches down in Berlin on May 24, he is heading into a storm of controversy over Uzbekistan’s human rights record. The release of an Uzbek dissident ahead of the trip has not tempered the row, with revelations of his ill treatment behind bars further stoking the ire of activists.
Officials in Tajikistan have resorted to price controls in an effort to halt a drastic increase in food costs. But inflation’s upward spiral shows no sign of slowing in the Central Asian nation.
In a jab at Moscow, Georgia on May 20 became the first country to recognize as genocide Tsarist Russia’s massive slaughter of ethnic Circassians in the mid-19th century. The decision constitutes part of Tbilisi’s ongoing argument that the Caucasus is a region where Russia comes as an outsider, not as a native with the right to rule.
Two weeks after a surprise pro-hijab protest by scores of Muslim believers outside Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Education, authorities are still trying to figure out who organized the show of defiance.
