CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ANKARA, 25 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Unrest over the past week in Kyrgyzstan, triggered by what the opposition claimed were flawed parliamentary elections, resulted in protesters taking over initially in the south at the beginning of the week, and then in the capital, Bishkek, on Thursday. Reports about the developments in the former Soviet republic dominated news from Central Asia, a region where rulers have clung to power since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Neighbouring regimes in Central Asia gave little or no media coverage to the lightning revolution in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, but opposition parties were jubilant, hoping the seeds of democratic change had been sown in the region, the AP reported.

After the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia in 2003 and the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine last year that swept out leaders in those former Soviet republics, authorities in Central Asia have been increasingly nervous that their grip on power could be under threat.

Following unrest in Kyrgzystan, neighbouring countries beefed up security measures along their borders with Kyrgyzstan. The Russian Itar-Tass news agency reported on Monday that the Tajik border service was stepping up protection of its border with southern Kyrgyzstan.

Uzbekistan has also put its border services troops on high alert in the densely populated and volatile Ferghana Valley, shared by Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the Uzbek State Border Protection said in a statement earlier this week. According to local rights activists, the border was currently closed for Uzbek nationals going to Kyrgyzstan and border guards were only allowing Kyrgyz citizens to go back to their country.

Kazakhstan followed suit, the Russian Itar-Tass news agency reported on Friday citing an official with the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan. Though the official did not confirm a report on the total closure of the border with Kyrgyzstan.

In Tajikistan, a massive landslide forced the evacuation of thousands of residents in the west, the AP reported on Saturday. No casualties were reported. The landslide, triggered by a week of heavy rains, hit the village of Kablai just northeast of the capital Dushanbe on 18 March, destroying 40 houses, deputy emergency minister Islom Usmanov said.

More landslides were expected in the area and rescue workers were evacuating the village's 3,000 residents to a district centre, Usmanov said, adding that there was a serious threat of landslides in several other parts of the mountainous country because of continuing heavy rains.

The UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) was told on Tuesday that not everything in Uzbekistan was well and there were difficulties in fully ensuring the population's civil and political rights. The committee has been concluding its consideration of that country's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Experts had pressed for explanations about why the Uzbek government had ignored the committee's prior requests for stays of execution in 15 death penalty cases, which was a serious breach under the covenant, and why, pending a decision on whether or not to abolish the death penalty, prisoners and relatives were not routinely informed of the date and time of the executions.

Forum 18, an international religious freedom watchdog, said on Thursday that a fellow Jehovah's Witness, Oleg Umarov, freed at the end of February after five days in prison on charges of 'disruptive behaviour' was again detained by the Uzbek police in the capital, Tashkent, on 4 March.

Two secret police officers pressured him to renounce his faith and warned they would seize other Witnesses, Andrei Shirobokov, a spokesman for Jehovah's Witnesses, said. The Uzbek police have a history of arresting and harassing people for practicing minority faiths, particularly those who come from a traditional Muslim background, the report said. Uzbekistan has been strongly criticised in the past few years over its poor human rights record.

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