Rakhat Aliyev, the scandal-prone former son-in-law of Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has stirred up trouble in his homeland and in Europe. Now, he’s tried to make waves in Washington. But he’s found that a spin war in the United States can quickly turn into a quagmire.
Following two deadly explosions in Kazakhstan, investigators and officials remain tight-lipped over their probes, only insistently ruling out terrorism. Many, however, are finding the hazy explanations hard to swallow, and the press is rife with speculation about the rise of Islamic radicalism.
A year after ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan claimed over 400 lives, authorities continue a campaign of torture and injustice against minority ethnic Uzbeks, say two international watchdogs marking the one-year anniversary of the bloodletting. Bishkek’s failure to address the discrimination could rekindle violence, warn Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Tens of thousands of Kurds are taking part in an increasingly potent act of civil disobedience that has become a focal point of an increasingly bitter election contest between the governing Justice and Development Party and Kurdish nationalists in Turkey’s restive Kurdish southeast.
Hollywood’s treatment of the Russia-Georgia war in 2008 is about to hit movie theaters in the United States. The Georgian-funded action flick, titled Five Days of August, seems to blur the line between entertainment and propaganda.
Standing on the deck of the Mavi Marmara recently, a Greek activist presented the head of Turkey’s Islamic Humanitarian Relief Foundation, sponsor of the Gaza-Strip-bound aid ship, with a model of an ancient Cretan vessel.
A United Nations Committee Against Torture report released June 6 rapped Turkmenistan for maintaining a “climate of impunity,” and called on Ashgabat to address systematic human rights abuses as a “matter of urgency.” The report should complicate efforts by the European Union and United States to tighten energy relations with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s regime.
A district court in Kyrgyzstan’s southern Batken Province seems to have had a hard time distinguishing Islam from Christianity. The court recently sentenced two Jehovah’s Witnesses to seven-year prison terms for the possession of banned radical Islamic media materials.
The Georgian government is facing pressure to open an investigation into the conduct of riot police during a May 26 protest in Tbilisi that left four people dead.
