Migrant workers ride in a bus through northern Kazakhstan in May 2014 on their way to find employment in Russia. As the value of the Russian ruble continues to fall, labour migrants from Central Asia say they are less inclined to work in Russia. Credit: Konstantin Salomatin

By EurasiaNet Correspondents
TASHKENT, Dec 26 2014 (EurasiaNet)

Sardor Abdullayev, a construction worker from eastern Uzbekistan, had planned to go to Russia next spring to join relatives working construction sites in the Volga River city of Samara. But now, he says, “I am better off staying at home and driving a taxi.”

As the value of the Russian ruble plummets and Russia’s economy tumbles into recession, millions of Central Asian migrants have seen their real wages dwindle. On top of that, Russian authorities are introducing new, expensive regulations for foreigners who wish to work legally in the country.The return of tens of thousands of labour migrants and the prospect of them joining the vast pool of the already unemployed is making some officials nervous.

Some Uzbek migrants in Russia now say they are contemplating a return home. Such an influx of returnees could have uncertain ramifications for their impoverished country.

According to Russia’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, there are about three million Uzbek labour migrants in Russia, the most from any Central Asian country. Others estimate the number of Uzbeks could be twice that.

Unofficial estimates put their remittances in 2013 at the value of roughly a quarter of Uzbekistan’s GDP. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are even more dependent on labour migrants, with remittances contributing the equivalent of 30 percent and roughly 50 percent to their economies, respectively.

Data from Russia’s Central Bank shows that the funds Uzbeks send home dipped nine percent year-on-year during the third quarter of 2014. Analysts predict the fall will continue. The Russian business daily Kommersant estimates that remittances fell 35 percent month-on-month in October alone.

That was before the ruble, which has steadily fallen since Russian troops seized Crimea in February, nosedived earlier in December. Thanks to Western sanctions, the low price of oil, and systemic weaknesses in Vladimir Putin’s style of crony capitalism, the currency has lost roughly 50 percent against the dollar this year. Most migrants convert their rubles into dollars to send home.

“My salary was 18,000 rubles a month, which several months ago would be equivalent to 500 dollars. Now, it is less than 300 dollars,” Sherzod, a 29-year-old from the Ferghana Valley who was working at a shop in Samara, told EurasiaNet.org.

Sherzod returned home in November and he is not planning to go back to Russia. “The salary is too low.”

It is not only falling wages that labour migrants must consider. Starting on Jan. 1, Russia will require labour migrants to pass tests on Russian language, history and legislation basics, as well as undergo a medical examination and buy health insurance (the entire package will cost migrants up to 30,000 rubles (currently about 500 dollars), by some accounts).

The Moscow city government is also more than tripling the fee for work permits, from 1,200 rubles monthly to 4,000 rubles (currently 64 dollars).

Citizens of countries that are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which will come into force on Jan. 1, will not be affected by the new regulations. That adds an incentive – some might say pressure – for migrant-feeder countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to join. (Kyrgyzstan is hoping to join in early 2015).

Sherzod, the Uzbek labourer, says that faced with falling real incomes, many Uzbeks working in Russia find themselves in a quandary. Thousands are eager to return home. But many simply do not have funds to buy a return ticket. Others worry about being seen in their native villages as failures.

Russian media outlets have quoted a migrant community leader who projected new requirements for guest workers, along with the falling ruble, will prompt up to 25 percent of migrants to leave Russia in the coming months.

With fewer dollars entering Uzbekistan, the Uzbek sum has fallen 15 percent against the greenback on the black market, according to several Ferghana-based shop owners interviewed by EurasiaNet.org. (The tightly managed official exchange rate has declined about 11 percent against the dollar this year. To help support it, from Jan. 1 fruit and vegetable exporters will be required to sell 25 percent of their hard currency earnings to the state at the official rate, Interfax news agency reported Dec. 18).

Despite the economic fallout from Russia, Uzbek leaders remain open to doing business with the Kremlin. During a visit to Tashkent on Dec. 10, Putin wrote off most of Uzbekistan’s 890-million-dollar debt. That deal paved the way for new loans from Moscow. It is unclear what Uzbek leader Islam Karimov promised in return.

Uzbek authorities and well-connected businessmen claim they are prepared to manage the economic fallout, and the large number of returning migrants.

“We have numerous [state-sponsored] urban regeneration construction projects across the country. One can say that the whole of Uzbekistan is a massive construction site. So if migrants return, many of them will find work,” Nazirjan, a former government official who how heads a private construction company in the Ferghana Valley, told EurasiaNet.org on condition his surname not appear in print.

On Dec. 15, President Karimov signed a decree that increased state employees’ salaries by 10 percent. Still, the return of tens of thousands of labour migrants and the prospect of them joining the vast pool of the already unemployed is making some officials nervous.

“The SNB [former KGB] has instructed local authorities and mahalla [neighbourhood] committees to create lists of labour migrants who are returning from Russia. The arrival of migrants usually increases the crime rate, and local authorities have also been instructed to be more vigilant,” a secondary school teacher in the Ferghana Valley told EurasiaNet.org.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The 19-year-old Azerbaijani man claims he awoke one morning in mid-August to the sound and feel of gasoline splashing on his body and his mother angrily screaming. Through a sleepy haze, he saw her burning a piece of paper. Suddenly, he alleged, his mother’s intentions became clear; he was about to be burned to death for being homosexual.

The story, recounted to EurasiaNet.org by the man, who calls himself Malik to protect his identity, forms part of a disturbing pattern of abuse and mistreatment of LGBT individuals in this Caspian-Sea country. For now, the government doesn’t appear interested in trying to address the issue — even though the country currently chairs the Committee of Ministers of Europe’s foremost human-rights body, the Council of Europe.Fifty-five-year-old Babi Badalov, an openly gay artist, left Azerbaijan for the United Kingdom eight years ago after his brother threatened to kill him for being homosexual.

Unlike in many Muslim societies, Azerbaijani law does not prohibit homosexuality, bisexuality or transgenderism. However, the level of disapproval that exists in this tightly knit society is high, and that places a heavy burden on LGBT Azerbaijanis, some say.

In Malik’s case, he claims his sister prevented his mother from setting him aflame. He alleges, though, that his mother scratched him to the point of drawing blood. Still in shock and physical pain from the experience, Malik says he lives now at a friend’s place. He claims his mother knew of his homosexuality, though “never admitted that.”

“When she got news about me attending an LGBT seminar in Baku, which was a public event, she realised it is impossible to deny the fact that I am homosexual,” he said. “That was unbearable for her.”

In Azerbaijan’s family-centric culture, disapproval from relatives can often hit hardest. “Family is the first fear of LGBT people,” according to Javid Atilla Nebiyev, director of Nefes LGBT, one of a handful of non-governmental organisations in Baku focusing on LGBT issues. “That is the first, small community where LGBT people experience trouble.”

Fifty-five-year-old Babi Badalov, an openly gay artist, left Azerbaijan for the United Kingdom eight years ago after his brother threatened to kill him for being homosexual. He blames such attitudes on the country’s 71-year Soviet history, when LGBT issues were never addressed.

“It was taboo,” said Badalov, who now lives in France. “People did not even know that there were non-traditional sexual orientations and genders.”

While now Azerbaijanis “have the freedom to know,” he continued, the Soviet past continues to influence present opinions. “Except for some tolerant circles in the capital, Baku, [a non-heterosexual identity] is seen as something extremely abnormal, extremely disgusting.”

Consequently, “for his own safety,” a gay man “constantly” has to think about “what to wear so that he does not look different,” or otherwise attract attention, he claimed. Many Azerbaijanis often presume that men who wear an earring or unusually colourful clothing are homosexual.

Defying such notions, Badalov said he opted for an earring.

One 22-year-old transsexual Azerbaijani can identify with those difficulties. Although born a woman, Leyla, who asked to be identified only by her first name, dresses in men’s clothes and considers herself male. She claims that her family sometimes hides her clothing, keeps her locked indoors and threatens her with death if she does not dress “like a woman.”

A recent university graduate with a degree in education, Leyla says that she nonetheless dresses as a man when she applies for teaching positions. She did not detail how she distinguishes between male and female clothing.

“At job interviews, they expect me to show up as a woman, but instead they see a woman dressed like a man,” she claimed. “I do not know what to answer when they ask why I dress like a man. I am turned down [for jobs] mostly because of that appearance.”

Azerbaijani legislation contains no protections against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, noted activist Nebiyev. He alleged that, as a result, some LGBT Azerbaijanis turn to jobs as “sex workers to earn their living.”

The topic generally is not one for any form of public discussion, including by imams. Allegations of homosexuality, however, have been used as part of smear campaigns against opposition leaders.

Media and human-rights activists have paid relatively little attention to these problems. The Azerbaijani Commissioner for Human Rights’ Office could not be reached for comment on LGBT abuse.

For many, the Jan. 22 suicide of 20-year-old Isa Shahmarli, the head of the LGBT group Azad, illustrated the dangers involved in looking the other way. In a Facebook message before his death, Shahmarli blamed society at large for his suicide.

“He ended his life because society wanted him to do so,” said his former flatmate, Kamila Javadzadeh. “He was all alone, struggling to prove that nothing is wrong about being LGBT. But he failed to convince his own family.”

Yet one 32-year-old lesbian, who declined to give her name, stopped short of calling life in Azerbaijan as a LGBT person “a tragedy.” At least no public calls for violence against LGBT Azerbaijanis have been made, she explained. “But it is not OK at all,” she emphasised. After years of confronting hostility, however, she simply no longer expects tolerance.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Tajik men board a flight from Dushanbe to Russia in June 2013. Many of the Tajik militant jihadis fighting in Syria either fly through Russia on their way to the conflict or are recruited while they are migrant workers in Moscow, from where they eventually travel to Turkey before crossing the border into Syria. Credit: David Trilling/EurasiaNet

By EurasiaNet Correspondents
DUSHANBE, Aug 13 2014 (EurasiaNet)

Before he became a jihadist, Odiljon Pulatov would travel each year from Tajikistan to Moscow to earn money as a construction worker.

“The money I made was enough to sustain my family. But the last time I went there, I met different people, Tajiks and other [Central Asians]. They persuaded me that jihad is a must for every Muslim,” Pulatov told EurasiaNet.org.“We both have a dream to go to Syria and participate in the war." -- Abubakr

Pulatov, a father of four, traveled from Russia to Syria, via Turkey. Once there, over the course of two weeks, Uzbek speakers like himself indoctrinated him, emphasising the importance of jihad.

“Jihad is conducted for an idea, so that you can be closer to Allah,” explained Pulatov, 29.

Pulatov found conditions in Syria harsh, though, and in July he accepted a Tajik government amnesty, returned home and confessed. Now he is back in Spitamen District in northern Tajikistan, building a home for his family. Authorities made Pulatov accessible to various media outlets, including EurasiaNet.org, in an apparent effort to highlight the amnesty.

Madjid Aliev, a police investigator in Spitamen, says Pulatov remains under investigation. “But we are sure he won’t have any issues. That’s why he has not been detained,” Aliev said.

According to the Interior Ministry, almost 200 Tajiks are fighting in Syria. Aliev, the investigator, said officials were negotiating with others who are in Syria, offering a safety guarantee as an enticement for them to return home.

Along with the amnesty, parliament this summer toughened penalties for Tajik citizens who participate in armed conflicts abroad. But, critics say, such punishment is not a deterrent and the government’s response to the rising threat of homegrown jihadis is ineffective.

“I don’t think that this law on punishing participants will resolve the problem and stop Tajiks from participating. There’s a need to take preventive measures, so that we’re not fighting the consequences, but the reasons [men travel to Syria to fight],” said Dushanbe-based religious affairs expert Faridun Hodizoda.

A lack of work is one of those reasons, contends Hodizoda. Unemployment in Tajikistan is so high that over a million Tajiks work abroad: most, like Pulatov, find work in Russia. That number constitutes approximately half of Tajikistan’s working-age males.

In Russia, labour migrants are widely distrusted and subjected to various forms of harassment, including frequent police shakedowns. The difficulties prompt some to turn to Islam for solace.

At home, Tajikistan’s notoriously corrupt government does little to create jobs. And when it comes to religious affairs, officials tend to crack down on moderate expressions of Islam, harassing members of the Islamic opposition and banning children from attending mosques.

Tajiks in Russia – who are often young men with rudimentary educations and few prospects – are an important source of recruits for Jihadist causes.

“Being a gastarbeiter [migrant labourer] is not an easy thing, there’s a lot of humiliation. But recruiters speak to the gastarbeiters kindly. They provide moral support,” Hodizoda explained, adding that money is also a temptation. “When our citizens are told what they will be doing there [in Syria] and that they will be paid 3,000 dollars and treated well, of course they agree. In Russia, they earn 500-600 dollars a month.”

Tajik officials frequently assert that young Tajik men who go to Syria are, in effect, mercenaries, driven to fight by the allure of a substantial payday. But Pulatov says he was not promised a cent. “When we were recruited, no one said we would be paid,” he said.

Another potential fighter, who introduced himself as Abubakr, 23, communicated with EurasiaNet.org from Russia through a social network. Abubakr, who is from Kulyab, said he is working in Moscow with his father and brother, but he is also in touch with a Chechen friend he met online. “We both have a dream to go to Syria and participate in the war,” he said.

“We weren’t promised any money. How can one talk about money when our [Muslim] sisters and children are being killed there. I [communicated] with Tajiks who are there now, and they tell me sometimes they starve, sometimes there’s no place to sleep, but they are fighting infidels,” Abubakr said via Odnoklassniki – which has been blocked in Tajikistan since mid-July, by some accounts because radicals use it as a recruiting tool.

Abubakr believes that Muslims who criticise jihad do not understand their faith. “My mother is also trying to persuade me [not to fight], but there’s a lot she doesn’t understand about [jihad],” he said.

Officials try to use reason to appeal to vulnerable young men, according to the head of the Fatwa Department at the state-run Muftiate, Jamoliddin Homushev.

“It is said that paradise is beneath your mother’s feet and that by insulting her no one gets to paradise. In Syria, an inter-ethnic fight is going on, like it was in the 1990s in Tajikistan. They [the Syrians] should solve their own problems without external interference,” Homushev told EurasiaNet.org.

Such explanations do not seem to convince many young Tajik Muslims, who do not feel their government listens to their concerns. Others feel the authorities exaggerate the extent of radicalism in the country in order to target the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT).

Embattled IRPT leader Muhiddin Kabiri told EurasiaNet.org that authoritarianism, the government campaign against Islam and poverty drive young men into the arms of radicals. “They do not have an opportunity to improve their lives at home,” Kabiri said, referring to young Tajiks.

“We still have time to fix the situation, reform the law so young people feel their rights, including religious, are respected. […] So they realise there is no need to take up arms,” he said. “But the government is failing to address their concerns.”

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The Kara-Keche coal deposit sprawls through this polluted valley of mines in Kyrgyzstan's Naryn Province. Control over the extraction from the mines and delivery of the coal to power plants has resulted in criminal gangs fighting each other, thereby frightening foreign investors away. Credit: David Trilling/EurasiaNet

By EurasiaNet Correspondents
BISHKEK, Mar 4 2014 (EurasiaNet)

Kara-Keche, a sprawling deposit containing about 430 million tonnes of coal in mountainous Naryn Province, is a key asset for Kyrgyzstan’s struggling economy.

It’s not just the government and an array of local companies plying the open pit mines that are interested in the dirty black stuff. Last November, a shootout at Kara-Keche among gangsters highlighted an unsavory side of the business.

According to the government’s development strategy, Kyrgyzstan could be sitting on over 3.3 billion tonnes of coal—enough, by some measures, to provide the country with energy for centuries. But with coal production split across a network of inefficient producers, prices are high, meaning that Kyrgyzstan now sources much of its coal abroad.

The strategy says the industry is in “a condition of crisis.” Foreign investors – seen by authorities as a potential balm – are curious, but cautious given the lack of transportation infrastructure, corruption and violence—conditions similar to those which have hampered the development of the country’s gold sector.

Today, annual production is a quarter of what it was during its Soviet-subsidised peak in the late 1970s, according to Almaz Alimbekov, head of the Mining Policy Department at Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Economy.

Bishkek’s central heating plant, the country’s largest coal-powered operation, relies on imports from neighbouring Kazakhstan for 70 percent of its coal consumption; those imports cost the impecunious state budget roughly 40 million dollars a year. The remaining 30 percent comes from Kara-Keche and other Kyrgyz deposits, Alimbekov says.

Coal is a popular topic of discussion, not least because it is used to heat homes across the country during Kyrgyzstan’s harsh winters. Last winter, according to the 24.kg news agency, prices for heating coal varied from roughly 50 dollars a tonne to over 200 dollars a tonne, with prices tending to rise as temperatures drop. Communities closest to coal mines often expect to receive coal at discounted rates, though social assistance is not a mandatory aspect of mining licenses.

Recently local media reports have fixed attention on the fallout from a November shootout at Kara-Keche, reputedly between members of a Naryn-based criminal group and bandits loyal to Maksat ‘the Diver’ Abakirov, an alleged gangster from Issyk-Kul province seen as instrumental in provoking unrest in the communities surrounding the Canadian-owned Kumtor gold mine in May 2013.

While no one was reported killed in that shootout, Aibek Mambetaliev – an individual the Vechernii Bishkek newspaper once described as a Naryn mobster responsible for “deciding whom coal could be sold to” – was found dead at the deposit 10 days later.

Then a group identified as Mambetaliev’s relatives reportedly attacked three police officers on trial in connection with his death inside a courtroom on Feb. 20. The relatives set the three on fire with petrol bombs and subsequently kidnapped one; beating him heavily. Another officer escaped the scene and headed towards a local river, where he is presumed to have been drowned by the mob.

The state prosecutor has launched criminal cases against the assailants, but their location is unknown.

Tumult in the coal sector is not new. Back in 2005, following the overthrow of Kyrgyzstan’s first president, renegade opposition leader Nurlan “The Coal King” Motuyev famously seized the Kara-Keche deposit, expelling the companies working there. He went on to preside over a sharp fall in production.

Bringing a sense of order to the sector will require significant foreign investment, says Alimbekov, the Economy Ministry’s mining specialist. Part of the problem, he says, is that some of the country’s best deposits are mined by a bevy of inefficient local companies that “lack capital and are logistically weak,” making them reliant on traders under the influence of racketeers.

“They can’t provide enough coal for [Bishkek’s heating plant] because they don’t have the best technology for extraction and they don’t have the transport,” Alimbekov told EurasiaNet.org. Ideally, he said, Kara-Keche should be mined by a single foreign investor.

Kara-Keche is in a high-mountain valley accessible only by a winding, muddy road that is frequently blocked by landslides. In the valleys below, the roads aren’t much better. Coal must be transported in bulk to be profitable. A railway link connecting the Kara-Keche deposit with the town of Balykchy, where it would connect to an existing line to Bishkek, would help regulate supplies, Alimbekov says, but such a link would cost “huge money.”

Western firms are eyeing the long-stalled China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan rail link, says Alastair Muir, director of technical operations for Celsius Coal, an Australian mining firm with a license in Kyrgyzstan’s southern Uzgen region.

Kyrgyzstan has “massive potential” for supplying coking coal, a variety used in metallurgy, to steelmakers in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, but “transport is a massive factor for us,” Muir said at the Turkey and Central Asia Mining Summit in Istanbul on Jan. 28. The rail has been on hold for years and shows no sign of being built any time soon.

If foreign investors ever take the plunge, they’ll still have to deal with local communities, warns Valentin Bogdetski, head of the Association of Kyrgyz Miners. Communities’ high expectations for social assistance from mining firms “borders on extortion,” he says, and may frighten investors.

“Some local people think their ‘social package’ entitles them to a lifetime’s worth of free coal,” Bogdetski told EurasiaNet.org. “Under these conditions, production will not be feasible. The government needs to ensure order before we can talk about foreign investment.”

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

An Iranian entrepreneur who is the subject of U.S. and EU sanctions for laundering oil money on behalf of Tehran is operating a successful family of businesses in Tajikistan.

Babak Zanjani’s Tajik empire includes a bank, an airline, a taxi service and a bus terminal that President Imomali Rahmon himself helped inaugurate in March. That cushy relationship, in a country where foreign businessmen say it is impossible to survive without top-level political connections, has coincided this year with increased international scrutiny of Tajikistan’s lax attitude toward money laundering.

Beyond Tajikistan, Zanjani’s business interests are sprawling. On its website, the Dubai-based Sorinet Group, which describes Zanjani as its chairman, lists at least two dozen companies engaging in construction, cosmetics, hospitality, transport, and oil and gas extraction.

The site also lists the Asia Express Terminal in Dushanbe as one of its subsidiaries. A photo on the site shows Zanjani with Rahmon and Dushanbe mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaydulloyev admiring a model of the terminal.

It appears that Rahmon has embraced the head of a group of companies and financial institutions the U.S. Treasury Department says “have been used by the Iranian government to finance its sales of oil around the world”. In April, the Treasury Department targeted Zanjani and a Malaysian bank under his control, along with “an international network of front companies” including Sorinet Commercial Trust.

U.S. officials believe the Zanjani-connected entities are “moving billions of dollars on behalf of the Iranian regime, including tens of millions of dollars to an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) company.” The Treasury Department is also targeting his Kont Investment Bank, based at 43 Bukhara Street in Dushanbe.

Last December the European Union sanctioned Zanjani for being “a key facilitator for Iranian oil deals and transferring oil-related money. Zanjani owns and operates the UAE-based Sorinet Group, and some of its companies are used by Zanjani to channel oil-related payments.”

The Treasury Department did not specifically name Sorinet Group, which oversees the Dushanbe businesses. But Sorinet Group’s website lists Zanjani as its “chairman”. And under Treasury Department regulations, any company controlled by a sanctioned individual is also the subject of sanctions. In addition, Sorinet Group shares a Dubai address with Sorinet Commercial Trust, which Treasury did name.

EurasiaNet.org tried to reach Zanjani to give him a chance to explain his activities. His office in Dubai refused to connect us. But he told the Reuters news agency shortly after the European sanctions were announced that he does not do business with the Iranian government. He suggested that EU regulators were mistaken in their assumption that he was engaging in illicit activity.

BBC Persian reported in March that Zanjani has strong ties with senior Iranian officials and appeared in an unofficial video on a private plane with a senior Iranian security officer involved in the violent crackdown on demonstrators following contested elections in 2009.

Few in Tajikistan seem to know much about Zanjani. Last month, the head of Tajikistan’s National Bank, Abdujabbor Shirinov, said he had never heard of Zanjani or the U.S. embargo on Kont Investment Bank, the Ozodagon news agency quoted Shirinov as saying on Jul. 23.

Nevertheless, senior Western officials are concerned about Zanjani’s relationship with Tajikistan’s leadership and worry that Dushanbe is serving as a money-laundering hub.

“Zanjani’s been embraced by the president. The president even opened the bus station, which is unheard of. It’s too cozy a relationship. We believe he’s using Tajikistan to launder Iranian oil money,” said one senior Western official.

Tajikistan enjoys strong cultural and linguistic ties with Iran – the Tajik language is a close cousin of Persian – leading to relatively high levels of Iranian investment for the region. Moreover, because vast quantities of Afghan heroin are said to transit through Tajikistan each year, analysts believe illicit money is sloshing around Dushanbe.

In June, the Basil Institute on Governance ranked Tajikistan the country fourth most-vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist financing of 149 countries in its second-annual Basel Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Index.

A few days after the Basil Institute index was released, and only five days ahead of an international meeting on money laundering in Oslo that Tajik officials were due to attend, Rahmon called an extraordinary session of parliament and pushed through new legislation that sets criminal penalties for money laundering.

The Asia-Plus news agency noted that lawmakers did not discuss the legislation. As in many of the post-Soviet republics, Tajikistan often passes legislation that is vaguely worded and poorly enforced.

While foreign diplomats welcomed the move in principle, the senior Western official told EurasiaNet.org the legislation was only “window dressing” to give Tajik officials something to boast about at the Oslo inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting. Earlier in 2013, FATF criticised Tajikistan for having some of the weakest anti-money laundering legislation in the world.

In a small economy like Tajikistan’s, a business empire like Zanjani’s can be hard to avoid, even if U.S. sanctions prohibit “transactions between the designees and any U.S. person”.

A number of Westerners in Dushanbe said their embassies, including the U.S. Embassy, recommend Zanjani’s taxi service, Asia Express, because it is prompt, reliable, and, unlike the few other local companies (most taxis are private cars), offers receipts.

The U.S. Embassy – which rights advocates and some diplomats have accused of avoiding criticism of the Rahmon administration for fear of losing his support as NATO withdraws from neighbouring Afghanistan – did not respond to a request for comment.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

In early June, a newspaper in Pakistan announced the Asian Development Bank would withdraw from a much-anticipated energy transmission project that aims to connect Central and South Asia. The report stated that security fears in Afghanistan were prompting the ADB to drop its 40 percent interest in the project.The newspaper, the Express Tribune, cited a senior official from Pakistan’s Ministry of Water and Power as the source of its scoop. If true, the move would be a significant blow to American-backed efforts to link Central Asia’s economies with Afghanistan and South Asia, a project known as the New Silk Road.

An ADB representative in Dushanbe would not confirm or deny the report that the bank is pulling out of the project, only stating that the bank is “exploring different opportunities” and “taking a practical approach in supporting regional energy trade, and is building energy infrastructure in stages to support an improved regional energy market.”

Western officials, meanwhile, are reluctant to comment about the project’s future.

Regardless of the ADB’s position, energy experts have doubts about the $950-million-plus project’s feasibility, given regional rivalries and Central Asia’s vast energy deficit.

Dubbed the Central Asia South Asia Regional Electricity Trade Project (CASA-1000), the initiative is designed to transmit 1,300MW of electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan through Afghanistan (which would consume 300MW) to Pakistan. In 2007, the four countries signed a memorandum of cooperation on the project, which, since then, has always seemed to sit a few years off on the horizon.

The idea behind the project is that it would give Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan a way to sell their annual summer energy surpluses. Both rely almost exclusively on hydropower. Because neither country has the capacity to hold enough water to produce sufficient energy in the winter, they have surpluses in the summer when they are forced to release more water than they would like.

Before independence, the two would share electricity with their Central Asian neighbors in the summer months, and import electricity from hydrocarbon-rich Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan each winter. That system has broken down since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are attempting to build new, massive hydropower plants. But until they do, it is unclear just how much energy they can afford to export each summer, especially as local demand increases.

Officials in Central Asia remain enthused about the project. Tajikistan’s First Deputy Minister of Energy and Industry Pulod Muhiddinov told EurasiaNet.org that he is confident that CASA-1000 has enough investors. He added that the ADB will make a firm decision after another feasibility study, which is currently underway. He would not disclose when the study is due, but the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank are said to be ready to finance the project, which could begin next year and open as soon as 2017.

Industry insiders speaking privately tend to roll their eyes when they discuss CASA-1000. One Western energy expert in Dushanbe said the project is unlikely to ever get off the ground because the participating countries “are never going to agree among themselves” on how much they will supply and what each kilowatt should cost. Others have suggested Tajikistan, being closer to South Asia, will try to squeeze out Kyrgyzstan, which is farther to the north.

There are certainly reasons to believe cooperation will be difficult. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, for example, are unable to agree on the location of roughly half their mutual border.

Still others are concerned the project will provide an easy way for the region’s notoriously corrupt leaders to siphon off electricity for sale abroad while their people sit in the dark. Already, most energy experts in Dushanbe note, approximately 40 percent of Tajikistan’s electricity is consumed by one aluminum smelter, TALCO, in the western town of Tursunzoda. The plant receives deeply subsidized power and the proceeds from the plant’s operations are reportedly stashed offshore in the British Virgin Islands. Without TALCO, Tajikistan’s winter energy shortages (up to 20 hours per day in some areas), would be greatly eased.

To address existing shortages both countries are attempting to build multi-billion-dollar hydropower plants. Kyrgyzstan has secured tentative Russian interest in the $1.7-billion, 2000-MW Kambarata-1 project, while Tajikistan is casting about for investors for the 3600-MW Rogun venture, which would be the tallest dam in the world and cost up to $6 billion. The projects are strongly opposed by downstream countries, especially Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan also may fear the upstream projects could challenge its own energy exports.

Russia’s RUSAL aluminum company had supported Rogun until 2007, when the deal broke down because RUSAL insisted on scaling back the dam’s specifications. More recently, Moscow has expressed a desire to participate in CASA-1000, with President Vladimir Putin repeatedly offering up to $500 million.

CASA-1000 cannot be separated from these massive hydropower projects, said an analyst at the Russian State Duma’s think-tank in Moscow. “Should Russia get involved with [CASA-1000], it would need to invest loads of funds into the construction of large hydropower facilities. Only this could ensure the real feasibility and long-term economic benefits from the project,” he told EurasiaNet.org. “Strategically and politically, the CASA-1000 project would be advantageous for only three countries – Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.”

But the control Russia would likely demand in exchange for its financial support could make it difficult to collaborate with Western-backed international financial institutions that are eager to move Central Asia out of Russia’s orbit.

The delays and lack of clear backers suggest there are too many moving parts to get CASA-1000 off the ground and develop a New Silk Road, said one Tajik analyst. “It took an Alexander the Great or a Genghis Khan to unite Central and South Asia.” With the region’s current crop of leaders, “the project is not going to happen.”

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

(EurasiaNet) – A government decree in Armenia that bars pregnant women who are not residents of Yerevan from receiving free childbirth services in the capital is causing discontent in outlying regions.

In a bid to boost population numbers, the state covers the costs for childbirth services in Armenia. Seeking better facilities and medical personnel, pregnant women from the regions often travel to Yerevan to give birth. In 2012, 64 percent of the 70,648 women registered for state-provided childbirth assistance gave birth in Yerevan, according to the National Statistical Service.

The May 1 decree issued by the Ministry of Health was designed to encourage improvements at hospitals in the country’s 10 regions. Under the measure, women will only be able to obtain state-paid birthing services at hospitals in regions where they have an official address.

Health Minister Derenik Dumanian, the author of the decree, maintains that budgetary funds to improve care at public hospitals in regions will be forthcoming. The government currently pays 135,000 drams (329 dollars) per delivery in Yerevan hospitals, and 97,000 drams (236 dollars) at facilities in rural locations.

“One-third of the pregnant women from the regions come to Yerevan to give birth; hence, the money designated for rural hospitals is transferred to hospitals in Yerevan, leading to reduced financial resources in the regions, as well as an outflow of professionals from rural communities to Yerevan,” Dumanian told EurasiaNet.org.

Despite government assurances, some pregnant women from rural areas remain wary about the decree. Thirty-three-year-old Gohar Minasian, an expectant mother living in Abovian, 16 kilometers outside of Yerevan, fears the consequences of giving birth in her local hospital.

In 2011, she noted, an Abovian anesthesiologist’s mistake led to the death of a pregnant woman from heart failure. “If this had been in the capital, under the supervision of skilled professionals, both the mother and the child would have survived,” Minasian claimed, without providing supporting details.

Under the decree, pregnant women from the regions will still be able to receive free medical care in Yerevan in emergency situations. The health ministry’s chief obstetrician-gynecologist, Razmik Abrahamian, insists that pregnant women in most of Armenia’s regions already have access to adequate care.

“If a few years ago we did not have rural maternity hospitals with modern facilities and it was understandable why they had to come to Yerevan, now six out of the 10 regions have fully equipped hospitals, but people keep coming to the capital out of habit,” Abrahamian said.

“The new decree will make them at least familiarise themselves with the facilities and conditions available at their new local hospitals, and only then make a decision.” Independent MP Edmon Marukian, who strongly opposes the decree, argues that it could end up fueling corruption.

“If there are exceptions [made to the decree] for high-risk births and [women] will be sent to deliver in Yerevan, it is quite possible that women with a normal or no-risk pregnancy might bribe someone into getting permission to give birth in Yerevan,” reasoned Marukian, who represents the northern region of Lori.

“Or a pregnant woman from a rural community might be in Yerevan and need to give birth, but a hospital might check her in only in exchange for money.” Abrahamian dismissed corruption concerns, promising close supervision of the decree’s implementation. All hospitals have a ministry hotline number by which they can report attempted bribery, he added. “Let them call and everyone will be punished.”

Based on infant mortality statistics alone, the regions might appear a better choice to give birth than a hospital in Yerevan. In 2011, the latest year for which data is available, the capital recorded 118 infant deaths, the highest level in the country. But Abrahamian maintained that 70 percent of those deaths were of children born to women from the regions, where, he claimed, public knowledge of prenatal care is spotty.

Nationwide over the past decade, the number of infant deaths has declined steadily. From 2006-2012, the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births dropped by half to 12. The maternal mortality rate also has fallen to a just a handful, compared with as many as 35 per year a decade ago.

Senior regional hospital staffers say public perceptions of medical care in the regions still lag behind the statistical evidence. For example, in Artashat, a town 29 kilometres southeast from Yerevan, the birthrate at the local hospital has fallen by 50 percent since 2008, when the state began paying for childbirth services.

“Our conditions are good, too, the medical personnel are highly professional, but we cannot compete with the hospitals in the capital equipped with the newest facilities,” said Dr. Zemfira Navasardian, head of the Artashat hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology department.

Obstetricians who earlier moved to Yerevan for work may now be tempted to return home, hospital executives said, but that process requires time. In the meantime, some Armenian women are not willing to wait. Barred from state-funded childbirth in Yerevan, Minasian, a kindergarten teacher, is saving to pay for the services herself.

*Editor’s note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

An authoritative Central Asia-focused news website has defeated attempts to silence it in Kyrgyzstan: authorities have unblocked it. Yet under the prevailing interpretation of a parliamentary resolution, the website, Fergana News, still appears to be banned in the Central Asian nation.

The nationalist-leaning parliament voted unanimously to block Fergana News (Fergananews.com, formerly Ferghana.ru) back in June 2011 after some MPs expressed dissatisfaction with the website’s critical coverage of the interethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan the previous summer.

Though lawyers for several respected civil society organisations argued that only a court could order a website blocked, the State Communications Agency bowed to parliamentary pressure and ordered internet service providers to block access to the site in February 2012.

In November 2012, Fergana News began legal proceedings in a Bishkek court to get the ban lifted.

For five months, Fergana tried to fight its case in court, arguing that the Communications Agency should not have followed the dubious order in the first place. But the proceedings were regularly delayed when officials failed to show and became bogged down in Byzantine legal maneuvering.

For example, when Internet service providers supported Fergana’s case, the judge blamed them for following what they called an illegal order, though they risked losing their operating licenses if they did not comply. Eventually, the judge said a statute of limitations had expired – that by waiting nine months to sue the government, Fergana had missed its chance – and threw out the case.

But Fergana’s persistence, and the embarrassment the trial caused the government, appeared to succeed: in early April, Bishkek backed down. All local Internet service providers, including state-owned Kyrgyz Telecom, opened access to the site following a letter from the State Communications Agency on Apr. 5.

Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, called the lifting of the blockade “a positive sign for Internet freedom in Kyrgyzstan” and emphasised that “by giving readers access to the site again, Kyrgyzstan has honoured its constitutional values prohibiting censorship.”

Mijatovic had previously slammed the ban. The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders had called the blockade “a major step backwards” for Kyrgyzstan.

Yet despite the success getting the block lifted, Fergana News is still trying to get parliament’s resolution overturned, and is wondering what legal force it contains: Could the block be implemented again at any time, representatives of the news website wonder.

Fergana’s lawyers submitted an appeal to the Bishkek city court on Apr. 5 to protest the lower court’s decision to throw out the original case. Thus far, the agency has not received a response, according to Daniil Kislov, editor of Fergana News.

“We believe Parliament’s decision about our website was illegal as there was no court decision,” Kislov told EurasiaNet.org. “We’ve submitted an appeal as we believe that somebody should bear responsibility for illegally blocking access to our website for over 12 months.”

Officials at the State Communications Agency say they were just obeying a legislative directive.

“We had to comply with this decision, so we sent the decree for execution to Internet providers, and they followed it,” Olga Serova, a senior lawyer at the State Communication Agency, told EurasiaNet.org. “The agency did not make any order or decision in this regard. We notified the providers that there was a parliamentary resolution, which must be executed. That’s all.”

There is still confusion about the legal weight of a parliamentary resolution.

“The blockage took place without a court decision on the basis of a request from the State [Communications] Agency. Internet service providers believed that it was inadvisable to escalate the situation into conflict with the government [by disobeying the request],” Aibek Bakanov, the executive director of the Association of Telecom Operators, a lobbying group, explained to EurasiaNet.org.

“Now that the block is removed, the most important thing for us is that in the future any request from the government about blocking [Internet] sites is confirmed by a court decision.”

Journalists say blocking websites is ineffective as Internet users can easily enough gain access to blocked sites through proxy servers. Fergana News editor Kislov says the number of visitors from Kyrgyzstan increased by about five percent after the website became accessible again in Kyrgyzstan. During the ban, he said, most readers simply used proxy servers.

Press freedom advocates are pressing for closure in the case, specifically by seeking a determination on the legality of the original parliamentary resolution confirming that the legislature lacks the authority to act in such cases without a court order.

Marat Tokoev, chairperson of Journalists, a Bishkek-based media watchdog, cheers the unblocking of Fergana News, but fears that parliament still does not understand its legal limitations.

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

(EurasiaNet) – An authoritative Central Asia-focused news website has defeated attempts to silence it in Kyrgyzstan: authorities have unblocked it. Yet under the prevailing interpretation of a parliamentary resolution, the website, Fergana News, still appears to be banned in the Central Asian nation.

The nationalist-leaning parliament voted unanimously to block Fergana News (Fergananews.com, formerly Ferghana.ru) back in June 2011 after some MPs expressed dissatisfaction with the website’s critical coverage of the interethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan the previous summer.

Though lawyers for several respected civil society organisations argued that only a court could order a website blocked, the State Communications Agency bowed to parliamentary pressure and ordered internet service providers to block access to the site in February 2012. In November 2012, Fergana News began legal proceedings in a Bishkek court to get the ban lifted.

For five months, Fergana tried to fight its case in court, arguing that the Communications Agency should not have followed the dubious order in the first place. But the proceedings were regularly delayed when officials failed to show and became bogged down in Byzantine legal maneuvering.

For example, when Internet service providers supported Fergana’s case, the judge blamed them for following what they called an illegal order, though they risked losing their operating licenses if they did not comply. Eventually, the judge said a statute of limitations had expired – that by waiting nine months to sue the government, Fergana had missed its chance – and threw out the case.

But Fergana’s persistence, and the embarrassment the trial caused the government, appeared to succeed: in early April, Bishkek backed down. All local Internet service providers, including state-owned Kyrgyz Telecom, opened access to the site following a letter from the State Communications Agency on Apr. 5.

Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, called the lifting of the blockade “a positive sign for Internet freedom in Kyrgyzstan” and emphasised that “by giving readers access to the site again, Kyrgyzstan has honoured its constitutional values prohibiting censorship.”

Mijatovic had previously slammed the ban. The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders had called the blockade “a major step backwards” for Kyrgyzstan. Yet despite the success getting the block lifted, Fergana News is still trying to get parliament’s resolution overturned, and is wondering what legal force it contains: Could the block be implemented again at any time, representatives of the news website wonder.

Fergana’s lawyers submitted an appeal to the Bishkek city court on Apr. 5 to protest the lower court’s decision to throw out the original case. Thus far, the agency has not received a response, according to Daniil Kislov, editor of Fergana News.

“We believe Parliament’s decision about our website was illegal as there was no court decision,” Kislov told EurasiaNet.org. “We’ve submitted an appeal as we believe that somebody should bear responsibility for illegally blocking access to our website for over 12 months.”

Officials at the State Communications Agency say they were just obeying a legislative directive.

“We had to comply with this decision, so we sent the decree for execution to Internet providers, and they followed it,” Olga Serova, a senior lawyer at the State Communication Agency, told EurasiaNet.org. “The agency did not make any order or decision in this regard. We notified the providers that there was a parliamentary resolution, which must be executed. That’s all.” There is still confusion about the legal weight of a parliamentary resolution.

“The blockage took place without a court decision on the basis of a request from the State [Communications] Agency. Internet service providers believed that it was inadvisable to escalate the situation into conflict with the government [by disobeying the request],” Aibek Bakanov, the executive director of the Association of Telecom Operators, a lobbying group, explained to EurasiaNet.org.

“Now that the block is removed, the most important thing for us is that in the future any request from the government about blocking [Internet] sites is confirmed by a court decision.”

Journalists say blocking websites is ineffective as Internet users can easily enough gain access to blocked sites through proxy servers. Fergana News editor Kislov says the number of visitors from Kyrgyzstan increased by about five percent after the website became accessible again in Kyrgyzstan. During the ban, he said, most readers simply used proxy servers.

Press freedom advocates are pressing for closure in the case, specifically by seeking a determination on the legality of the original parliamentary resolution confirming that the legislature lacks the authority to act in such cases without a court order.

Marat Tokoev, chairperson of Journalists, a Bishkek-based media watchdog, cheers the unblocking of Fergana News, but fears that parliament still does not understand its legal limitations.

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Early on Mar. 15, a 58-year-old man put on his tracksuit and left home in Qurghonteppa, a 90-minute drive south of Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital. Morning exercise was a regular part of his routine, says Amnesty International.

But on this morning the man, a prominent critic of President Imomali Rakhmon, did not return.

Friends and political allies fear Salimboy Shamsiddinov was kidnapped for his political views, including his critique of Tajik-Uzbek relations. Shamsiddinov, head of the Society of Uzbeks of Khatlon Province, is no stranger to tough talk, often expressing himself freely on politics and interethnic relations in a country where questioning the official line is discouraged, especially in an election year.

In a May 2012 interview with the Dushanbe-based weekly Millat, Shamsiddinov, a lawyer and former police investigator, raised eyebrows with his criticism of the government’s treatment of its minority Uzbek population.

He was equally critical of neighbouring Uzbekistan’s treatment of its ethnic Tajik population: “The actions of both countries in relations to their national minorities are a form of [cultural] genocide,” he said.

A few days after the interview, several athletic-looking men attacked Shamsiddinov, beating him with a metal pipe and causing severe head wounds. At the time, Shamsiddinov said the attack was related to his opinions.

“Ordinary people don’t attack you like that,” he told Radio Free Europe. “This attack must have been ordered by some important people.”

Many speculated that those “important people” were members of the State Committee on National Security, the GKNB, locally known by its Soviet-era acronym, the KGB. The attack happened in broad daylight across the street from the GKNB’s Qurghonteppa office.

One prominent analyst in Dushanbe sees two possibilities behind Shamsiddinov’s disappearance. On the one hand, he says the GKNB – which regularly faces allegations of intimidation, kidnappings, torture and extra-judicial executions – is a likely culprit. The GKNB, this popular theory goes, wanted to silence Shamsiddinov because he had been cavorting with one of Rakhmon’s political rivals ahead of presidential elections scheduled for November.

The analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of provoking the powerful GKNB, also points out, however, that Shamsiddinov had problems within the Society of Uzbeks, especially since his Millat interview, and his disappearance could be related to power struggles within the organisation.

On Mar. 27, police in Qurghonteppa denied any knowledge of Shamsiddinov’s whereabouts and dismissed notions he was kidnapped.

Shortly before his disappearance Shamsiddinov had organised a routine meeting of the Society of Uzbeks. Among the guest participants was Rahmatillo Zoirov, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and one of Rakhmon’s sharpest critics.

Zoirov has called Shamsiddinov’s disappearance “politically motivated”, and says it was related to his cooperation with the SDP. In addition, Zoirov said in an open letter, Shamsiddinov had agitated for amendments to laws governing the presidential election, in which the long-serving Rakhmon is expected to stand for another term.

Zoirov claims that a day prior to his disappearance, Shamsiddinov had complained by telephone about harassment by government officials.

An alliance between Zoirov and Shamsiddinov could pose a challenge to Rakhmon. Ethnic Uzbeks make up the largest minority in Tajikistan (between one and two million of eight million). Any effort to persuade the community to vote for an opposition candidate, such as Zoirov, could upset Rakhmon’s hold on power. (That assumes a fair election, which, international observers say, has never happened in independent Tajikistan.)

“Shamsiddinov’s disappearance could have been a politically motivated abduction,” Amnesty International said in a Mar. 26 statement. Ahead of presidential elections this year “authorities have been escalating their campaign to silence all critical voices through harassment, shutting down organizations and websites, and seeking extradition of opposition party members.”

A pattern appears to be emerging. Last month, in Kiev, former Prime Minister Abdumalik Abdullojonov, who has been living as a refugee in the United States for about a decade, was arrested on an old Interpol warrant. Dushanbe wishes to try him for attempting to assassinate Rakhmon.

In December, businessman Umarali Kuvvatov, who reportedly fled Tajikistan and formed an opposition group in Moscow last year, was arrested at Dushanbe’s behest in Dubai. He fears being kidnapped and returned to Tajikistan, where he faces charges of embezzlement that his supporters call politically motivated.

In the past, Tajik authorities allegedly have detained a number of Rakhmon’s opponents in Russia, including the leader of the Democratic Party, Mahmadruzi Iskandarov, who, after a long absence, mysteriously appeared in Tajikistan in 2005 and was given a 23-year prison sentence on, among other things, charges of terrorism, banditry, and embezzlement.

For the most part, Shamsiddinov’s disappearance has been met with indifference in Tajikistan. Unlike in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, where a power struggle involving minority Uzbeks helped set off a round of ethnic pogroms in 2010 that left over 400 people dead, few fear Shamsiddinov’s disappearance will have any destabilising effect.

The leaders of ethnic minorities in Tajikistan “have always been marginal members of the intelligentsia with no broader networks or power,” said one expatriate researcher in Dushanbe. Shamsiddinov’s influence does not reach a large portion of Uzbeks in Tajikistan, a community that is “diverse” and lacking an “overall identity”.

Still, the Dushanbe analyst said, it’s hard to avoid the impression that authorities are not a little nervous about the elections this fall.

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

If bacon, lobster tail and Chicago-style steaks are your thing, the last few months have been a good time to dine out in Kyrgyzstan’s capital.

An abundance of the unusual gourmet items has raised eyebrows in Bishkek, where U.S. military contractors and café proprietors claim with knowing winks that Kyrgyzstan’s sudden flood of bacon strips, seafood and steaks can only have come from one place.

An official at the nearby Manas Transit Center, a critical logistics hub for the NATO-led war in Afghanistan, admitted this month that food losses from the facility have totaled 40,000 dollars since December.

Allegations of theft from the facility are nothing new, but the latest leak appears to be distorting the city’s relatively small market for high-end meat and seafood, prompting opportunities and resentment in equal measure.

One local supplier of pork products complained bitterly that trade had been lean over recent months, something he attributes to the theft of “masses of quality American bacon” designated for U.S. soldiers and contractors. The imported bacon, he complains, is sold for 350 soms per kilo (7.50 dollars), undercutting him by about 50 percent.

Like other businessmen interviewed by EurasiaNet.org for this story, the pork supplier requested anonymity out of safety concerns, believing the flourishing contraband trade was “absolutely organised” and run by figures “either flying under the radar of, or connected to, the country’s criminal groups”.

A local café owner, who serves bacon his supplier claims comes from Manas, said that two middlemen flogging the rashers “used to go door to door. They were quite open about where it came from. But now you can get it everywhere – in bazaars, shops, supermarkets.”

When a EurasiaNet.org correspondent visited Eurogourmaniya, a new delicatessen specialising in imported products, shop assistants showed a vacuum-sealed pack of bacon identical to the one the café owner displayed. Such cuts are uncommon in Kyrgyzstan.

Though pork is widely available in Bishkek and other towns with large ethnic Russian populations, local ham is not sold in strips like U.S.-style bacon. (And though Kyrgyzstan is nominally a Muslim country, few people seem to adhere to Islamic dietary law, which prohibits the consumption of pork or alcohol.)

The base is “aware” of food losses totaling 40,000 dollars over the past three months, a spokesperson said on Mar. 1, adding that “this is the largest incident where food products have gone missing that the Transit Center is aware of.” The Manas spokesperson refused to discuss which specific items have gone missing.

This won’t be the first time the Pentagon has been accused of wasting federal money in the Central Asian state. In 2011, a 750,000-dollar women’s shelter that opened with much fanfare the year before was found deserted; it had cost one-third of Manas’ annual humanitarian budget.

Manas is “reviewing current operating procedures”, the spokesperson said. Base officials are working hard “to ensure subsistence food items are only used for their intended purpose by their intended recipients”.

But what may be an embarrassment for the U.S. is a business opportunity for others.

A waitress at a 24-hour Bishkek lounge, Live Bar, boasted that the restaurant’s menu had “expanded since December”, to include lobster and various types of steak, two items that are thought to have gone missing in large quantities from Manas in December. The waitress claimed the lobster was “imported”, although she could not cite its provenance.

Another restaurant in the capital celebrated Defenders of the Fatherland Day in late February with a crab and beer night. Kyrgyzstan is landlocked and shellfish is not a staple on most restaurant menus.

Another restaurant serves A.1. Steak Sauce in bottles marked, in English, “not for resale”, suggesting it is not procured on local markets.

One U.S. defense contractor with almost eight years experience in Kyrgyzstan said theft from Manas has been common “almost since the base arrived” in 2001.

“A few years ago we had ‘sweetgate’ – local guys getting caught leaving the base with packs of jelly beans duck-taped to their chests. But this thing is bigger. This stuff must be going out with the waste,” he told EurasiaNet.org.

On the contractor’s recommendation, a EurasiaNet.org correspondent visited Yolki Palki, an upmarket restaurant selling T-bone steaks that contractors say bear a striking resemblance to the steaks served at Manas.

Succulent and tender, the meat was certainly a cut above the beef sold in local markets. But unable to extract detailed information about the steak’s origin from the restaurant’s manager, EurasiaNet.org cannot verify on taste alone the contractor’s claim that Yolki Palki’s steaks are “Chicago good”.

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Mahfuza, a mother of three in a small town in the Ferghana Valley, has better things to do than spend her afternoons at crowded, smoke-filled Internet clubs. But as a high-school algebra teacher, she has an extracurricular assignment from her bosses: she must monitor the clubs’ clientele – many of them her students – while they play computer games, surf social networking websites, and watch music videos.

A decree from Uzbekistan’s government last spring obliged teachers like Mahfuza (she asked her last name be withheld to protect her from possible reprisals) to frequent Internet clubs to ensure students do not fall prey to supposedly subversive ideas. She’s not thrilled about the task.

“Students spend so much time playing games featuring violence, such as a (first-person shoot-‘em-up) game called Counter-Strike, and chatting with complete strangers online. Parents don’t seem to care, and the burden falls on us, poor teachers,” Mahfuza told EurasiaNet.org.

But Mahfuza has no choice. “The state pays our salaries, so we must comply with their rules even if we find them distasteful,” said a vice principal at the secondary school where Mahfuza teaches. He also spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation for criticizing authorities.

President Islam Karimov’s administration has long relied on educators to shield Uzbekistan’s youth from what it considers dangerous outside influences, including religious radicalism and independent political ideas. (The government keeps a tight lid on all forms of political expression, and even mainstream opposition groups are banned and operate in exile).

A series of popular uprisings in the Arab world in 2011, which were partly fuelled by social media, have heightened Tashkent’s concerns, prompting authorities to view pop culture and social networking as major potential threats to the Uzbek status quo.

Official rhetoric can sound paranoid and archaic to those unfamiliar with the Uzbek government’s modus operandi.

For example, a Nov. 12 statement on how to raise a “spiritually rich generation”, posted on parliament’s official website, contained the following: “Today we observe efforts to undermine (Uzbekistan’s) national interests, ideology, and spiritual moral principles through subversive ideas distributed on the Internet, by mobile phones, computer games, and video products, which are camouflaged as pop culture…The task of creating a favorable information environment for youth is one of our top priorities.”

Inside classrooms, the SNB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, relies on a far-reaching network of informants to ensure conformity, according to students and teachers. A course required in secondary schools, “The Idea of National Independence and Moral Development,” seeks to instill students with patriotism, the vice principal said, by forcing them to memorise Karimov’s speeches.

Bahodir Choriev, leader of the exiled opposition group Birdamlik (Solidarity), told EurasiaNet.org that thanks to such courses, “many young Uzbeks have little idea what political opposition is about.” Choriev fled to the United States in 2004 when Uzbek prosecutors charged him with fraud. He says the charges were designed to silence him.

With classroom discussions observed and controlled, authorities have turned their attention to other areas they deem vulnerable to infiltration by pop culture. Hundreds of webpages are blocked and video games are regularly lambasted on state television as “poison.”

Last January, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education – responsible for students aged 16 and above, and not to be confused with the Ministry of Public Education – introduced a 23-page behaviour code obliging students to abstain from criticising school authorities, eschew flashy clothes, and avoid cultural events (including rock concerts) that are deemed alien to Uzbek national values. The code also encourages students to report unsanctioned religious activity.

Fund Forum, a charity run by Karimov’s jet-setting daughter Gulnara Karimova, is reportedly spearheading the efforts. According to its website, the organisation is funding activities “promoting development of national online content and expanding use of the Uzbek language on the Internet.” Several Tashkent-based observers, including some government officials, believe the Ministry of Culture is following Karimova’s directions.

Critics scoff at the idea that Karimova can serve as an effective publicist for Uzbek values. In recent years, Karimova has adopted a bewildering variety of personas, including that of fashionista and music diva (using her stage name Googoosha). To her critics, these various identities are associated with Western decadence, not modesty.

“Gulnara has complete disregard for Uzbek cultural values; she is all over Uzbek media with her gaudy music videos, she shows up in mosques in skimpy dresses,” said Shahida Tulaganova, an Uzbek journalist based in London, referring to a provocative music video Karimova released in September.

“How can she be a role model for millions of Uzbek youngsters when she has little regard for things (many) Uzbeks view as sacred?”

Education officials, tasked with implementing the new rules in small towns and villages, have quickly discovered how unpopular the ideological directives are. Internet café owners complain the “teacher raids” are bad for business. And parents have reportedly been angered by punishments imposed on students for wearing clothing deemed inappropriate.

Given the level of popular distaste for the government directives on youth behaviour, teachers in many cases are quietly looking the other way when it comes to enforcement, said Dilnoza, a student of Uzbek literature in Tashkent.

“They often delegate the task of monitoring students to Internet café employees,” Dilnoza said.

The vice principal in Ferghana said few, if any, students report suspicious activities. He added that forcing poorly paid teachers to police student behavior outside of classrooms is having unintended consequences.

“Teachers’ salaries are very low. As a result, there are many cases of teachers extorting bribes … for better grades,” he said. Teachers have also been accused of seeking payoffs for not inventing moral infractions. “Students’ moral upbringing is something parents must deal with,” the vice principal added.

Authorities in Tashkent are aware their ideological injunctions are routinely flouted. Parliament is now preparing a new law – “On protection of youth from subversive ideologies and aggressive information” – that is expected to stiffen punishment for non-compliance with ideological directives.

For the vice principal, this just shows how out-of-touch central authorities are. He complains that rather than ensure compliance, state inspectors spend much of their time extorting bribes from school directors and teachers.

“Tashkent needs to get input from various segments of society before devising new policies. Otherwise, they will not be implemented,” he said.

*This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

Uzbekistan is facing a public health time bomb, experts are warning. Authorities contend they are making gains in the battle to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS, but independent specialists say such claims are built on twisted figures and deceptive methodology.

At a late-November speech to mark World AIDS Day, the director of Uzbekistan’s National AIDS Centre, Nurmat Atabekov, said Tashkent is making progress in its fight against HIV/AIDS and that the number of new infections in the country is falling, local media reported.

In 2011, Atabekov said, Uzbekistan saw an 11-percent decline in the number of new infections compared with the previous year; that followed a 5.5 percent decline in 2010. This year, the country should see another drop. The total number of infected people continues to rise – to 24,539 as of Nov. 1 – but the number of new infections per year peaked in 2009, he said.

“We now test over two million people a year and the rate of occurrence (this year) is 0.19 cases per 100,000 people,” Atabekov said. “For comparison, it was 0.43 in 2008.”

That sounds like very good news. But independent experts say Atabekov and his office came up with the rosy numbers by design. Of course, it would not be the first time an Uzbek official has massaged statistics. Since the Soviet days when Uzbek planners reported inflated cotton harvests to Moscow, Tashkent has often distributed misleading numbers.

The U.S. State Department regularly cautions that Uzbek government statistics on everything from economic growth to domestic violence are “not consistently reliable”. In some cases, authorities go to great lengths to conceal facts. For example, from 2007-10, officials tried to cover up a hospital scandal involving the spread of HIV that left 147 children infected in the eastern city of Namangan.

EurasiaNet.org tried to follow up with Atabekov, but he would not take our calls and his staff would not share a copy of his presentation. But his deputy, Gulyam Radjabov, did speak with us briefly and confirmed that though Uzbekistan is testing more people each year, “less and less cases of infected people are being found.”

The key to the decrease, on paper, seems not to be that two million people were screened last year (out of a population of roughly 30 million), but rather who was screened. Several HIV experts familiar with Uzbekistan said the infection rate is dropping because officials are testing people who are at low risk of contracting the virus.

For example, the number of Uzbeks tested has more than doubled since 2009, when HIV testing for pregnant women became mandatory. Couples require a test to obtain a marriage certificate, too. While that is a good practice, HIV experts say, these are low-risk populations and screening them allows Tashkent to trumpet a drop in the overall infection rate.

But are vulnerable groups – specifically injecting drug users and gay men – getting tested? Experts worry that official statistics underestimate the absolute number of infections by as much as a factor of three because Uzbekistan’s conservative society (where homosexuality is illegal) stigmatises these most vulnerable populations, and thus they eschew testing.

Getting HIV data for Uzbekistan is a chore. UNAIDS does not publish basic epidemiological statistics for the country, and the World Health Organization’s latest online data for Uzbekistan, which is full of holes, was published in 2008.

Because of the sensitivity of the issue in Uzbekistan – where most western NGOs have been forced to close by the government, foreigners are routinely denied visas, and a local activist was jailed in 2009 for passing out literature on how to prevent HIV – knowledgeable regional experts would speak only on the strictest terms of anonymity.

Several suggested that authorities are deliberately hiding new infections in order to report numbers that will burnish Uzbekistan’s image. Just a few years ago new infection rates were exploding. Between 2001 and 2005, when international organisations were helping to introduce testing, annual newly registered cases grew by 300 percent.

Atabekov pointed to migrant workers as a particular problem. On this point, experts concur. An estimated three million Uzbeks work in Russia, where the virus is out of control. As in Uzbekistan, social stigma among high-risk populations in Russia discourages testing.

Migrants traveling to Russia from Uzbekistan routinely pay for sex (one 2009 study found 93 percent had) and show little knowledge of how to prevent HIV. In 2010, the Central Asia AIDS Control Project found that only 12.9 percent of Uzbek migrants knew that a condom could prevent the virus. Men seem to be traveling to Russia, picking up HIV from prostitutes, and later passing the virus onto their wives at home.

But there the consensus ends. A Western HIV expert with years of Central Asia experience flagged two additional concerns with the Uzbek National AIDS Center’s statistics.

For one, tests are coming back with false negatives, she said, because samples are not properly refrigerated, especially in rural areas.

If sending HIV-positive people back into the population convinced they are not carriers is not worrying enough, the expert expressed concern that officials deliberately fix infection numbers to show a decline: “The government is artificially keeping (low) the rate of infections by freezing the blood at the point when the (nationwide) infection level reaches a certain (quota) and testing that blood the following year. So if you look at the statistics for each year, most of the infections will be recorded in the first quarter. And the show goes on,” she said.

*This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org

As the leader of a civil rights-related non-governmental organisation, Dilrabo Samadova said she was used to getting hassled by authorities about her group’s activities. But recent government actions to put the clamps on civil society groups like hers in Tajikistan took her by surprise.

Despite the fact that Tajikistan is one of Central Asia’s poorest countries, Tajiks used to consider themselves as better off than their neighbours because they had comparatively more room to operate and pursue their ambitions, Samadova explained.

“We used to be … more free than in neighbouring countries,” said Samadova, the chair of the young lawyers association, Amparo, which was shut down following a late October Tajik court ruling. “Now we’re going backwards.”

A few weeks before Amparo’s closure, instructions were sent to university heads by the Education Ministry, informing them that “conducting any kind of conferences, seminars, other gatherings, or meetings with students through international organisations is against the law.”

In short, students can no longer participate in events sponsored by international NGOs, according to a copy of the order obtained by EurasiaNet.org. It is unclear what law the directive is in accordance with.

The head of the Education Ministry’s international relations department refused to discuss the matter, instead passing the phone to education finance specialist Tagoymurod Davlatov. “It’s not true, there is no document,” he said. “Nothing has changed.”

But in a follow-up email Davlatov altered his tone. “The decision of the ministry is to work closely with NGOs. The main thing is (for students) to attend lessons on time,” he wrote.

The Education Ministry directive already has had a significant ripple-effect. Since the announcement, some NGOs, including London-based International Alert, have been pressured to cancel youth camps, while the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) saw upcoming language testing for international student exchanges nixed.

“It’s really useful for students to participate in this kind of training,” said Samadova of Amparo, which also operated youth camps. “But the government wants to be so bureaucratic and control everything.”

Tajikistan’s government – which relies heavily on donor assistance in a variety of areas, everything from electrical transformer repairs to food security and land mine clearance – is rankling the very international constituency that it needs to have on its side. Western diplomats say they are keeping a close eye on Dushanbe’s actions.

“We and other donor countries will continue to look to support projects that help Tajikistan in economic terms, as well as spread ideas, expertise and knowledge,” said a senior Western diplomat from a major donor nation. “But if this proves to be a concerted effort to shut down NGOs, it will certainly have an impact on international funding.”

It’s unclear who’s behind the recent crackdown, added the diplomat. “It could be someone at the top saying, ‘NGOs are problematic with their Western ideas.’ The sad thing for Tajikistan, as they try to become more developed, is that they need greater access, not less, to international ideas and to organisations, like NGOs that can bring in expertise and help train youth,” he said.

The government ruling will force NGOs to alter their goals and objectives in Tajikistan, said the director of an international NGO that has been working on economic development, health and infrastructure in the country for more than a decade.

“It’s pretty shocking,” he said. “And it makes our work almost impossible.”

Students are the main target audience for most NGOs, said the director, who asked not to be named for fear of government reprisals. “We want to expand young peoples’ capacity both economically and socially, so they can lead their communities into the future.”

Tajikistan’s substandard education system, which is rife with corruption, sees students and parents pay for everything from test results to university degrees. “It would be better if the Ministry of Education actually stuck to its core role and focused on mending an education system that is fundamentally broken and certainly worse than it was under the Soviets,” added the Western diplomat.

The education system has “a lot of problems”, said a law professor who spoke on condition of anonymity. The ruling stopping students from participating in NGO-sponsored initiatives and that “is a problem for students”, the academic added.

Samadova of Amparo suspects the presidential election next year has a lot to do with the recent ruling. The government sees NGOs as conduits for the dissemination of information on issues in which official policy has glaring shortcomings, including public health, the environment and education.

“And with the election next year the government is trying to stop this activity,” she said. Tajikistan has never held an election deemed free and fair by outside observers. Young people are “easier to control if they don’t know anything”, she added.

Others believe President Imomali Rahmon’s administration is merely trying to emulate Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has steadily tightened the screws on civil society groups since protests against his rule erupted last winter.

The government’s attempt to control civil society during the run-up to the 2013 election “is something we will have to pay close attention to,” said the Western diplomat. “Especially post-Khorog, there has been a general lack of freedom of information,” he said, referring to violence this summer between government troops and local warlords.

Adding to concerns, plans surfaced early in November for a new government project to monitor all Internet providers operating in Tajikistan. This comes after months of on-again, off-again blocks of critical news sites.

Once again, the head of the government communications service – which reportedly sent out a letter describing the functions of the new center to relevant government agencies – publicly denied his office was seeking expansive snooping powers.

But other government officials told local media that just such a plan, which they say is in the interests of security, is in the works.

It’s all part of the reelection game, said the Western NGO director.

“In this country it’s not about transparency and accountability, it’s about the oppression of everything,” the NGO representative added.

*This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

(EurasiaNet) – As the leader of a civil rights-related non-governmental organisation, Dilrabo Samadova said she was used to getting hassled by authorities about her group’s activities. But recent government actions to put the clamps on civil society groups like hers in Tajikistan took her by surprise.

Despite the fact that Tajikistan is one of Central Asia’s poorest countries, Tajiks used to consider themselves as better off than their neighbours because they had comparatively more room to operate and pursue their ambitions, Samadova explained.

“We used to be … more free than in neighbouring countries,” said Samadova, the chair of the young lawyers association, Amparo, which was shut down following a late October Tajik court ruling. “Now we’re going backwards.”

A few weeks before Amparo’s closure, instructions were sent to university heads by the Education Ministry, informing them that “conducting any kind of conferences, seminars, other gatherings, or meetings with students through international organisations is against the law.”

In short, students can no longer participate in events sponsored by international NGOs, according to a copy of the order obtained by EurasiaNet.org. It is unclear what law the directive is in accordance with.

The head of the Education Ministry’s international relations department refused to discuss the matter, instead passing the phone to education finance specialist Tagoymurod Davlatov. “It’s not true, there is no document,” he said. “Nothing has changed.”

But in a follow-up email Davlatov altered his tone. “The decision of the ministry is to work closely with NGOs. The main thing is (for students) to attend lessons on time,” he wrote.

The Education Ministry directive already has had a significant ripple-effect. Since the announcement, some NGOs, including London-based International Alert, have been pressured to cancel youth camps, while the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) saw upcoming language testing for international student exchanges nixed.

“It’s really useful for students to participate in this kind of training,” said Samadova of Amparo, which also operated youth camps. “But the government wants to be so bureaucratic and control everything.”

Tajikistan’s government – which relies heavily on donor assistance in a variety of areas, everything from electrical transformer repairs to food security and land mine clearance – is rankling the very international constituency that it needs to have on its side. Western diplomats say they are keeping a close eye on Dushanbe’s actions.

“We and other donor countries will continue to look to support projects that help Tajikistan in economic terms, as well as spread ideas, expertise and knowledge,” said a senior Western diplomat from a major donor nation. “But if this proves to be a concerted effort to shut down NGOs, it will certainly have an impact on international funding.”

It’s unclear who’s behind the recent crackdown, added the diplomat. “It could be someone at the top saying, ‘NGOs are problematic with their Western ideas.’ The sad thing for Tajikistan, as they try to become more developed, is that they need greater access, not less, to international ideas and to organisations, like NGOs that can bring in expertise and help train youth,” he said.

The government ruling will force NGOs to alter their goals and objectives in Tajikistan, said the director of an international NGO that has been working on economic development, health and infrastructure in the country for more than a decade. “It’s pretty shocking,” he said. “And it makes our work almost impossible.”

Students are the main target audience for most NGOs, said the director, who asked not to be named for fear of government reprisals. “We want to expand young peoples’ capacity both economically and socially, so they can lead their communities into the future.”

Tajikistan’s substandard education system, which is rife with corruption, sees students and parents pay for everything from test results to university degrees. “It would be better if the Ministry of Education actually stuck to its core role and focused on mending an education system that is fundamentally broken and certainly worse than it was under the Soviets,” added the Western diplomat.

The education system has “a lot of problems”, said a law professor who spoke on condition of anonymity. The ruling stopping students from participating in NGO-sponsored initiatives and that “is a problem for students”, the academic added.

Samadova of Amparo suspects the presidential election next year has a lot to do with the recent ruling. The government sees NGOs as conduits for the dissemination of information on issues in which official policy has glaring shortcomings, including public health, the environment and education.

“And with the election next year the government is trying to stop this activity,” she said. Tajikistan has never held an election deemed free and fair by outside observers. Young people are “easier to control if they don’t know anything”, she added.

Others believe President Imomali Rahmon’s administration is merely trying to emulate Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has steadily tightened the screws on civil society groups since protests against his rule erupted last winter.

The government’s attempt to control civil society during the run-up to the 2013 election “is something we will have to pay close attention to,” said the Western diplomat. “Especially post-Khorog, there has been a general lack of freedom of information,” he said, referring to violence this summer between government troops and local warlords.

They’ve battled police in the streets and they’ve challenged authority the courts. Now, faced with staggering increases in fines for unauthorised demonstrations, Azerbaijani opposition activists are turning to Facebook to get their messages out.

A Nov. 10 amendment to the Law on Freedom of Assembly hiked penalties for participation in unsanctioned protests nearly 80-fold from a mere seven to 13 manats (nine to sixteen dollars) to a hefty 500 to 1,000 manats (637-1,275 dollars).

Those charged with organising such protests would incur far larger fines: depending on the extent of the individual’s alleged role, the punishment would range from 1,500 to 30,000 manats (1,900 to 38,265 dollars). The average monthly salary in Azerbaijan is currently about 388 manats (494 dollars). The penalties for organisers represent up to a six-fold increase over earlier fines.

Opposition activists predict that the changes will have a chilling effect on civic debate, and may well curb unsanctioned street protests. The new fine framework will go into effect on Jan. 1.

Officials explain that the changes are designed to ensure public order. Critics, pointing to the fast-approaching presidential election in February, note that authorities have an added incentive in the coming months to keep a lid on public displays of discontent.

“Most of our supporters are young university students, who cannot afford to pay that penalty,” said Tural Abbasli, chairperson of the opposition Musavat Party’s youth organisation. Non-payment, he continued, would mean that “the court would go after their property, their houses, which will be such a headache for their families.”

Abbasli, saying he didn’t what to bear responsibility for bringing hardships down upon young activists, indicated that he would feel “very uncomfortable” about advocating street action in 2013.

Other opposition activists agree; the new fines mean greater caution in organising protests, said Hesen Kerimov, chairperson of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan’s Supreme Council.

“The majority of our supporters are unemployed because of their political views,” Kerimov claimed. Even for those who have jobs, “their financial capabilities are not at all sufficient to pay the penalty,” he added.

While the government of Baku does allow protests outside the city centre, officials make it as difficult as possible for those wishing to participate, opposition leaders say.

“(The Baku city government) creates so many obstacles, such as stopping people from walking in the direction of the site of the protest (and) creating intended obstacles for taxis,” said Kerimov, a member of the Public Union, a coalition of various opposition parties and sympathisers which routinely holds protests without city permission. “They leave no option for us.”

With all other protest possibilities seemingly cut off, social media platforms, an increasingly popular venue among Azerbaijanis for debate about political topics, are the only realistic protest option left, noted Abbasli. Official statistics report that five million Azerbaijanis – about 54.5 percent of the population – have Internet access. The Facebook-traffic-analysis site Socialbakers claims that 900,000 of them are Facebook users.

Opposition activists hope that a social media-based opposition strategy, given Internet usage numbers and Facebook’s flexibility as a means of communications, will re-invigorate the movement – essentially taking one step back in order to take two forward.
“At the first stage, those people who are observers soon become active in discussions and build trust,” commented Natig Adilov, the founder and administrator of Xilas (Salvation), one of the largest Azerbaijani Facebook discussion groups, with over 200,000 members. “At the next stage, they feel confident enough to have their protests in the streets.”

Abbasli agrees: “Those protests in cyberspace will involve more people, will expand broader and it will not stay there forever. People will move back from cyberspace to the streets. This time more aggressive, more difficult to control.”

Practically speaking, it is no sure thing that voices of dissent will become bolder online than they are on the streets. Officials already carefully monitor Azerbaijani citizens’ web activities, and individuals already have been jailed for reasons related to their online activities.

One U.S. communications researcher who tracks developments in Azerbaijan cautions that moving criticism of the government from Facebook to the streets indeed poses a challenge. As political opponents increasingly go online to mobilise, government monitoring and surveillance will increase, in turn, predicted Katy Pearce, an assistant professor of communications at the University of Washington.

“That could easily discourage online dissent,” Pearce said in an email interview with EurasiaNet.org. “Despite the fact that the Azerbaijani government does little blocking of content, because individuals fear the repercussions of expression online, people self-censor and thus there isn’t freedom of expression online for Azerbaijanis.”

Azerbaijani blogger Ravil Asadov concedes that he often wrestles with self-censorship. “I am being threatened for my blog, which is critical of the government. It does not stop me. But it is annoying,” Asadov said. “Every time I write, I think of censoring myself so that I do not have more headaches.”

At a U.N.-sponsored meeting held in Baku in early November, European leaders castigated Azerbaijani authorities for their repressive web tendencies. Baku authorities, meanwhile, insist they are tolerant of the Internet’s diversity of views.

“The principal position of the Azerbaijani government is to create all possible conditions for ensuring full Internet-freedom,” Elnur Aslanov, head of the presidential administration’s political analysis department, told 1news.az on Nov. 8.

Activists like Abbasli have strong doubts about the sincerity of the government’s statements on Internet freedom, but they add they have no other option than to press on with a web-based campaign, despite the risks.

*This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

During the day, when Uzbek border guards patrol its streets, Mingdon is a sleepy Ferghana Valley town. But after night falls, Mingdon, a hamlet of 10,000 on Uzbekistan’s frontier with Kyrgyzstan, turns into a smugglers’ paradise.

From Kyrgyzstan come bundles of Chinese clothing, crates of electric Chinese appliances and an endless parade of Chinese comestibles. From Uzbekistan, smugglers ship fresh fruits and vegetables into Kyrgyzstan by the truckload.

The smugglers are dodging the most restrictive trade regime in Central Asia. Uzbekistan’s protectionist tariffs are designed to shield domestic manufacturers (which are state-affiliated) from competition. Most consumer goods, including food, clothing, appliances, and motor vehicles, are taxed at rates ranging from 40 percent to 100 percent.

To stop smuggling, in recent years Tashkent has built miles of barbed-wire fences and has even dug trenches in many places. Armed guards often shoot smugglers. Last month, border guards from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan shot at each other, leaving one dead on each side.

If one believes Uzbek-state controlled media, anti-smuggling efforts have been largely successful. According to an early-July state television broadcast, the Uzbek customs service responded to 29,000 violations of the Uzbek customs law, initiated close to 900 criminal cases against smugglers, and confiscated illicit goods worth approximately 110 billion sums (about $60 million) in 2011. “Our borders are tightly controlled, and all violators are punished accordingly,” said the broadcast.

Yet, evidence from small towns such as Mingdon shows that efforts to secure the border are failing. Mingdon is situated on a section of the border that is not fully delimited by Tashkent and Bishkek. Smugglers rely on hidden paths around town (some are located in private yards) to move goods.

“It is practically impossible for authorities to control illicit trade. The border is like a sieve,” said a Mingdon state-paid employee who himself admits to smuggling clothing and small appliances at night.

There are no reliable figures on the volume of smuggled goods. In June, Muradyl Mademinov, a Kyrgyz MP, told local media outlets that he estimates $90 million worth of fruits and vegetables are smuggled from Uzbekistan into Kyrgyzstan annually. According to a 2011 study by Bishkek-based Central Asian Free Market Institute, goods that are illegally smuggled into Uzbekistan are primarily made in China, and consist of clothing and shoes (68 percent), kitchenware (19 percent) and electronic appliances (13 percent). Locals say the proportion of foodstuffs is growing each year.

According to Zarif, a small-business owner from Mingdon, huge profits are driving the trade. “On average, a smuggler can make $300 dollars a day, which is higher than the monthly salary of some state employees,” he said, adding that half of Mingdon’s residents moonlight as smugglers.

Large mafia-style syndicates employing hundreds of people are involved in smuggling, said a farmer from Marhamat, a town of 60,000 just across the border from Kyrgyzstan’s Aravan. Like most of the sources for this story, the farmer, who sells his produce to smugglers, was too afraid of reprisals to give his name.

“[Uzbek] customs officials and border guards have gotten very rich because of bribes [given by smugglers]. Border guards often look the other way while smugglers do their business. For the right price, they will also help smugglers transport goods,” said the farmer. Uzbekistan ranked 177 out of 183 countries surveyed in Transparency International’s most recent Corruption Perceptions Index.

According to local residents, for years towns such as Mingdon and Marhamat suffered from economic decline. Now, thanks to illicit trade, the local economies are thriving.

“Real estate prices are booming. Prices for houses located immediately at the border (which are often used as storehouses) are the highest,” said a high school teacher in Mingdon. “We no longer have to send our children to work in Russia [as seasonal labor migrants].”

Officials in Tashkent are aware of local governments’ lax approach to smuggling, said a Tashkent-based journalist who covers agricultural issues for a state-run newspaper.

“The SNB [security services, formerly the KGB] conducts systematic raids in border regions, arresting smugglers and officials who are involved in illicit trade, but they [smugglers and accused officials] tend to bribe their way out,” said the journalist. “It is no surprise to anyone – these days even the SNB is not clean anymore.”

Economists in Tashkent privately say the government should reconsider its draconian approach, liberalize trade and delegate more authority to local officials. But officials seem more interested in centralization and tightening control. “The SNB and border guards have orders to shoot at anyone who is involved in smuggling,” said the government employee-cum-smuggler from Mingdon. “But the risks do little to deter smugglers.”

*This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.