While attention of the world is chained now to Iraq and US's attacking on it, there are the same type of totalitarian repressive corrupted regimes are blossoming in the most of recently emerged Central-Asian states, former USSR republics. In some cases it's even worse like in Turkmenistan where Stalin-like methods now in use in the course of struggle of its leader Niyazov with the opposition. Presence of US forces in the most of these states, just used as a convenient bridgehead between Afghanistan on the South and Russia on the North, doesn't play any remarkable role in developing democracy there. Numerous appeals of democratic opposition and human rights activists from these countries finally provoked some kind of reaction.
Here are two texts to your attention.
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Source: http://www.fergana.ru
Show Trials Like Stalin's in Turkmenistan
http://www.nytimes.com, By SABRINA TAVERNISE, 27.01.2003
In a darkened public meeting hall, Boris Shikhmuradov's face shone from a giant television screen. He spoke the words of his confession haltingly. He wore no expression. His eyes were cast downward. "We are a criminal group, a mafia," Mr. Shikhmuradov said, trance-like. "Among us there is not one normal person. We are all nobodies. I am not a person capable of running a country. I am a criminal, able only to destroy it."
Mr. Shikhmuradov, a former deputy prime minister of Turkmenistan, was admitting responsibility for an attempt on the life of the country's president, Saparmurad Niyazov.
Mr. Shikhmuradov is one of 46 people who have been convicted of taking part in a drive-by shooting on Nov. 25 that left Mr. Niyazov unharmed.
Many people in Russia and the West are calling this the most chilling public witch hunt since Stalin's show trials of prominent Bolsheviks in the 1930's, recasting the ritual in a strange new 21st-century way. But Mr. Niyazov says it is part of the international campaign against terrorism. In fact, the Bush administration has been working with Turkmenistan since Sept. 11, using its airspace for flights to Afghanistan, and shipping United Nations aid through its territory.
Mr. Shikhmuradov's confession was broadcast across Turkmenistan on Dec. 30 and shown on a movie-size screen in an auditorium in the capital, Ashgabat. Then, one after another, viewers in the auditorium demanded that the coup plotters be put to death. One man, identified in a transcript of the spectacle as a Turkmen elder, demanded that they be killed in a way "more agonizing than by firing squad." A young woman demanded death
for the plotters by stoning.
In the tape of both confessions and reaction, rebroadcast on Russian television, Mr. Niyazov listened to the confession, brushed aside the demands of the auditorium, and chose instead to commit Mr. Shikhmuradov to life in prison. Since December, five other confessions have been similarly broadcast in public.
Mr. Niyazov has run Turkmenistan, a gas-rich country of about five million people wedged among Iran, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, since 1985, first as Turkmenistan Communist Party secretary, and after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, as president.
Mr. Niyazov, 62, has fashioned a towering personality cult, adorning buildings and statues with his image, requiring and renaming several months of the year after himself and his family. But since the shooting, events in Turkmenistan have taken a darker turn. Human rights groups and the United States say some of the confessions appear to have been produced by torture. Foreign ambassadors were barred from trials. Family members have been rounded up.
"Power has crossed a psychological threshold," said Vitaly Ponomaryov, Central Asian specialist at Memorial, a respected Russian human rights group. "Niyazov is trying to draw an iron curtain. They are not afraid of jailing for politics anymore. They are not hiding this."
The circumstances surrounding the November shooting are murky. Opposition leaders - including Mr. Shikhmuradov, in a statement before his arrest - denied any part in it and say Mr. Niyazov staged it himself to eliminate his critics. Mr. Shikhmuradov sneaked back into Turkmenistan in September, they say, simply to organize demonstrations.
But by Dec. 24, he was in custody. Four days later, he confessed. Mr. Ponomaryov, who has been documenting the arrests, said that 67 people were arrested in the case. Dozens of family members and friends were also arrested, he said.
"The police and security service have been working without breaks," said one Turkmen Ministry of Internal Affairs officer who was in Moscow on a visit. "They are looking for people. They are using helicopters in the north." The arrests and subsequent convictions have strained relations with the United States.
A Russian-born American citizen was among those arrested, and Mr. Shikhmuradov also made a call to the American ambassador in Ashgabat, Laura Kennedy. The embassy the call but gave no details. The Turkmen Foreign Ministry published an angry letter.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which Turkmenistan is a member, likened the confessions to Stalinist show trials. A State Department spokesman, Philip Reeker, cited "credible reports of torture and abuse of suspects."
"There are so many analogies to Stalin's time," said Arkady Dubnov, who writes abou Central Asia for the Russian daily Vremya Novosti. "The trials are every day and go quickly. The results are always known beforehand." He is among the accused but remains free, in Moscow.
Many of the men Mr. Niyazov is accusing worked with him closely during the 1990's and helped build his personality cult. Mr. Shikhmuradov, 53, was minister of foreign affairs
and later deputy prime minister for nine years. Another plotting suspect, Khudaiberdi Orazov, ran Turkmenistan's Central Bank from 1993 to 1999.
But by late 2001, many had resigned and fled. Working for an increasingly paranoid Mr. Niyazov, they said, had become unbearable. Mr. Orazov, in a telephone interview, said he
was present when Mr. Niyazov gave an order to beat a prisoner "until he has to walk using a stick." He said ministers were made to fall on their knees when asking forgiveness for a mistake.
"He began to want people to feel humiliated in front of him, and then he became part god," said Mr. Orazov, now in hiding abroad. "In Soviet times he didn't show these characteristics. He hid them for a while. But later they exploded to the surface."
For convicted prisoners in Turkmenistan, like Mr. Shikhmuradov, conditions are difficult. Two men who served three-year sentences said beatings were routine. Gulgeldy Annaniyazov, jailed after organizing protests in 1995, said he saw cellmates beaten to death by the Omon special police. He said he was beaten daily and raped several times by police officers.
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Source: http://eurasia.org.ru/
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 32
Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to human rights in Central Asia
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 11, 2003
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN (for herself and Mr. LANTOS) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to human rights in Central Asia.
Whereas the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan provided the United States with important assistance
in the war in Afghanistan, from military basing and overflight rights to the
facilitation of humanitarian relief;
Whereas America's victory over the Taliban in turn provided important benefits to
the Central Asian nations, removing a regime that threatened their security, and
significantly weakening the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a terrorist
organization that had previously staged armed raids from Afghanistan into the
region;
Whereas the United States has consistently urged the nations of Central Asia to open
their political systems and economies and to respect human rights, both before and
since the attacks of September 11, 2001;
Whereas Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are
members of the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE), both of which confer a range of human rights obligations on their
members;
Whereas, according to the Department of State, the Government of Kazakhstan
harasses and monitors independent media and human rights activists, restricts
freedom of association and opposition political activity, has engaged in selective
prosecution of opposition leaders, and allows security forces to commit
extrajudicial executions, torture, and arbitrary detention with impunity;
Whereas, according to the Department of State, the Government of Kyrgyzstan
engages in arbitrary arrest and detention, restricts the activities of political
opposition figures, religious organizations deemed 'extremist', human rights
activists, and nongovernmental organizations, and discriminates against ethnic
minorities, and recently conducted a flawed constitutional referendum that will
further concentrate power in the presidency and weaken the role of civil society;
Whereas, according to the Department of State, the Government of Tajikistan
remains authoritarian, curtailing freedoms of speech, assembly, and association, disappearances, and torture;
Whereas, according to the Department of State, Turkmenistan is a Soviet-style
one-party state centered around the glorification of its president, which engages in
serious human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrest and detention, severe
restrictions of personal privacy, repression of political opposition, and
restrictions on freedom of speech and nongovernmental activity, and most recently
has engaged in sweeping arrests and summary convictions, as well as torturing of
suspects, in the aftermath of the attack on the President's motorcade and has
refused to cooperate with the OSCE fact-finding mission;
Whereas, according to the Department of State, the Government of Uzbekistan
continues to commit serious human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrest,
detention and torture in custody, particularly of Muslims who practice their
religion outside state controls, to severely restrict freedom of speech, the press,
religion, independent political activity, and nongovernmental organizations, and detains over 7,000 people for political or religious reasons;
Whereas the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has expressed concern about religious persecution in the region, recommending that Turkmenistan be named a 'Country of Particular Concern' under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, and that Uzbekistan be placed on a special 'Watch List';
Whereas, by continuing to suppress human rights and to deny citizens peaceful, democratic means of expressing their convictions, the nations of Central Asia risk
fueling popular support for violent and extremist movements, thus undermining
the goals of the war on terrorism;
Whereas President Bush has made the defense of 'human dignity, the rule of law,
limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private property and free
speech and equal justice and religious tolerance' strategic goals of United States
foreign policy in the Islamic world, arguing that 'a truly strong nation will permit
legal avenues of dissent for all groups that pursue their aspirations without
violence'; and
Whereas Congress has expressed its desire to see deeper reform in Central Asia in
resolutions and other legislation, most recently conditioning assistance to
Uzbekistan on its progress in meeting human rights and democracy commitments to
the United States: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that--
(1) the Governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan should accelerate democratic reforms and fulfill their human rights
obligations, including, where appropriate, by--
(A) releasing from prison all those jailed for peaceful political activism or the
nonviolent expression of their political or religious beliefs, including Felix Kulov
in Kyrgyzstan;
(B ) fully investigating any credible allegations of torture and prosecuting those responsible;
(C) permitting the free and unfettered functioning of independent media outlets,
independent political parties, and nongovernmental organizations, whether
officially registered or not;
(D) permitting the free exercise of religious beliefs and ceasing the persecution of
members of religious groups and denominations not registered with the state;
(E) holding free, competitive, and fair elections; and
(F) making publicly available documentation of their revenues and punishing those
engaged in official corruption;
(2) the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense should--
(A) continue to raise at the highest levels with the governments of the nations of
Central Asia specific cases of political and religious persecution, and urge greater
respect for human rights and democratic freedoms at every diplomatic opportunity;
(B ) take progress in meeting the goals outlined in paragraph (1) into account
when determining the level and frequency of United States diplomatic engagement
with the governments of the Central Asian nations, the allocation of United States
assistance, and the nature of United States military engagement with the countries
of the region;
(C) ensure that the provisions of the annual foreign operations appropriation Act
are fully implemented to ensure that no United States assistance benefits security
forces in Central Asia implicated in violations of human rights;
(D) follow the recommendations of the United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom by designating Turkmenistan a 'Country of Particular Concern'
under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 and by making clear that
Uzbekistan risks designation if conditions in that country do not improve;
(E) urge the Government of Turkmenistan to respect the right of imprisoned opposition leader Boris Shikmuradov to due process and a fair trial and to release democratic activists and their family members from prison, and urge the Government of the Russian Federation not to extradite to Turkmenistan members of that country's political opposition;
(F) work with the Government of Kazakhstan to create a political climate free of intimidation and harassment, including releasing political prisoners and
permitting the return of political exiles, most notably Akezan Kazegeldin, and to
reduce official corruption, including by urging the Government of Kazakhstan to
cooperate with the ongoing Department of Justice investigation, and if convicted
independent journalist Sergey Duvanov decides to appeal his verdict, to ensure that
due process will be strictly followed in accordance with Kazakhstani law and
international standards of justice;
(G) work with the Government of Uzbekistan to address the serious concerns about
systemic torture documented in the reports of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and to implement recommendations made in the report;
(H) work with the Government of Kyrgyzstan to introduce changes in the recently adopted constitution that would address concerns about protections for human rights and balance of powers; and
(I) support through United States assistance programs those individuals, nongovernmental organizations, and media outlets in Central Asia working to build more open societies, to support the victims of human rights abuses, and to expose official corruption;
(3) increased levels of United States assistance to the governments of the Central Asian nations made possible by their cooperation in the war in Afghanistan can be sustained only if there is substantial and continuing progress towards meeting the goals outlined in paragraph (1).
END
U.S. House of Representatives resolution
14 Feb 2003
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