Read about the human rights situation in Turkmenistan in Fading Hopes by Sian Glaessner, Central Asia Now’s latest piece of analysis.

On Monday, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev signed constitutional amendments allowing himself to become president for life. Whilst the reforms expand the country’s parliament and cut the presidential term from seven to five years, a development welcomed by the US, all term limits were waived in the case of Nazarbayev himself.

Meanwhile, Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev, was charged with the abduction of two senior bank managers; Aliyev denies any involvement.

In a widely reported development, Turkmen national television announced that visa restrictions would be eased for foreign tourists visiting its Caspian coast. New rights and tax breaks for foreign investors will create a free economic zone there. However, Ferghana.ru reports tough border controls linked to political purges under Berdymuhammedov: specifically last week’s dismissal of Akmurad Rejepov, head of the presidential guard, and Agajan Passyev, the first deputy minister of national security. Christian organisation Forum 18 this week alleges renewed persecution of Turkmen religious groups. 

Kyrgyz-US relations deteriorated as Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev of Kyrgyzstan said that his country would not permit the use of the Manas US air base for strikes inside Iran or Iraq. Parliamentarians were said to have urged the government to remove the air base altogether, though Atambayev said that it would be difficult to opt out of Kyrgyzstan’s ‘very tricky’ agreement with the US. No formal attempt to renege on the agreement has been made. Meanwhile, the widow of a Kyrgyz citizen shot dead by an American soldier  at the base called her US$55,000 compensation payment a ‘humiliation’. Analysis on EurasiaNet links anti-western feeling in Kyrgyzstan with the presence of the base.  

Atambayev also announced this week that he had suffered a deliberate poisoning on May 11th, linking the attempt on his life with a controversial decision to nationalise the Krystall semiconductor plant. The security services are to investigate.

More positive news comes from this week’s Second International Conference on Lake Sarez Problems: the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) website reports that the area surrounding the Tajik lake is now well-prepared for floods. As part of the country’s crackdown on Islamic militants, a Tajik court handed long prison sentences to two men accused of being members of a banned Islamic militant group. 

Stay tuned to Central Asia Now for weekly news digests. Keep an eye out for our fortnightly analysis slots by regional experts.

Despite news that a visa ban against four Uzbek officials is to be dropped, the EU finally decided to extend the bulk of their sanctions against the country for another six months on Monday. The Uzbek government reacted angrily, calling the decision ‘counter productive’.

In Turkmenistan Baptist Christian Vyacheslav Kalataevsky was sentenced to three years in a labour camp for illegally returning after being expelled in June 2001.

On the energy front, President Putin’s trip to Central Asia seems to have ended in success – Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan agreed to a pipeline that will route gas through Russian territory.  US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman criticised the deal, saying it was ‘not good for Europe’. Meanwhile, Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom has acquired permission to prospect for gas in Kyrgyzstan, according to ITAR-TASS.

Significant political change in Kazakhstan was promised as parliament passed constitutional amendments including a reduction in the Presidential term from seven to five years. This will take effect from 2012 when the current President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s term expires. Though it appears to be a liberalizing measure, some commentators suggest that it is simply Nazarbayev’s way of securing a non-democratic succession.

Across the border in Turkmenistan, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov fired the security chief, Akmurad Rejepov, who helped build his predecessor’s authoritarian regime, according to EurasiaNet. In Kyrgyzstan activism of a different kind to that seen in recent months surfaced as up to 800 protesters blockaded the country’s largest gold mine in a protest against environmental contamination from the site.

EurasiaNet carried an unusual feature on Turkmen cultural policy. An emphasis on ‘national’ heritage at the expense of traces of Russian influnce is something shared with Tajikistan, where RadioEurope/RadioFreeLiberty reported that the government is busying itself taking down Soviet-era monuments across the country. The Tajik people on the other hand are struggling to cope with an environmental disaster. Locusts have destroyed 23,350 hectares of crops in the southern Khatlon Oblast according to Reuters’ Alertnet.

Stay tuned to Central Asia Now for weekly news digests. Keep an eye out for our fortnightly analysis slots by regional experts.

Read Lost for Words by Ross Perlin, Central Asia Now’s latest piece of analysis.  

In Uzbekistan this week there were dramatic developments in the Umida Niyazova case: her 7-year prison term for smuggling and distributing material causing public disorder was commuted to a 3-year suspended sentence on May 8th. The journalist was released after she confessed and admitted to having been ‘under the influence’ of international organisations according to RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. She was in prison for a total of 3 1/2 months. On May 2nd the US State Department had issued a press release condemning the original sentence. EUBusiness.com attributed her early release to Western pressure.

Elsewhere in the country there was less cause for celebration - Reuters’ AlertNet reported an Uzbek court’s decision to double the jail sentence imposed on Gulbahor Turaeva, arrested on January 14th under circumstances strongly reminiscent of the Niyazova case. Muslim Uzbekistan.net carried the story of Andjian refugees, who despite returning from the US in recent months, have now feld to neighbouring Kazakhstan. EU members are currently deadlocked as they negotiate to decide the future of the post-Andijan sanctions regime against the country.

Holger Haibach, Deputy Chairman of the German Reichstag’s Human Rights Committee criticised Deutsche Bank for its links to the govenrment of Turkmenistan. The Bank has admitted it has managed funds for the Turkmen government for more than a decade.

Louise Arbour ended her tour of Central Asia this week, having visited all of the five republics except Uzbekistan. According to the BBC, plans are afoot to open a UN human rights office in Kyrgyzstan. Arbour has emphasised how much work needed to be done to improve human rights and civil society, including press freedom, in the region. As if to illustrate her point, the President of Tajikistan made a speech before parliament this week setting out plans for a more ’patriotic’ media.

Energy was on President Putin’s mind as he visited the region’s two main oil and gas exporters, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The two countries are being courted strongly with Russia as it seeks to promote hydrocarbon transport through its own territory, though as the Financial Times notes there are plenty of competing plans for routing oil and gas out of the region.

Stay tuned to Central Asia Now for weekly news digests. Keep an eye out for our fortnightly analysis slots by regional experts.

Central Asia looked east for energy co-operation this week. New deals included a
total of 24 agreements on energy collaboration between Kazakhstan and Japan, under which Kazakhstan plans to supply as much as a third of Japan’s uranium by 2010. The two countries will also join forces on a new nuclear power station in Kazakhstan. With this in mind, Inter Press News Agency analyses Japan’s involvement in the region. Meanwhile, China promised to deliver $209 million worth of equipment to Uzbekistan, at the same time as an agreement was signed to construct a new gas pipeline between the two nations.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, continued her tour of
Central Asia this week. In Tajikistan until Monday, she called for greater access to justice there and urged the country to admit human rights monitors. Ms Arbour moved on to Kazakhstan, which continues to emphasise its democratic credentials as part of its bid for the chairmanship of the OSCE in 2009. She is due to visit Turkmenistan on from May 3rd-5th.

Ms Arbour was effectively barred from Uzbekistan when she undertook her Central Asian tour, and allegations of human rights violations there continue to emerge. The trial of Uzbek human rights defender Umida Niyazova unexpectedly began in Tashkent on Monday. Niyazova denied charges of smuggling and distributing material causing public disorder – charges widely thought to be politically motivated - but admitted illegally crossing the crossing the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border. On May 1st she was
convicted of all three offences and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. Human Rights Watch, for whom Niyazova worked as a translator, has said that her release should be a precondition for any further easing of sanctions against the country. Amnesty International also called for her release. Meanwhile, another Uzbek journalist, Alo Hojayev - currently associated with the web site Tribune-uz – has been denied an exit visa, required for any Uzbek to leave the country. He has previously been warned that he should close the website.

The situation in Kyrgyzstan remains unstable, with ex-president Akayev’s daughter hospitalised following a prolonged interrogation by prosecutors relating to the recent public protests.

The US has issued its new Country Reports on terrorism, offering verdicts on the ‘War on Terror’ participation of individual Central Asian nations. The reports highlight Uzbekistan as a country with a high risk of Islamic extremism. Meanwhile, the OSCE published its freedom of information survey, praising Kyrgyzstan for its freedom of information laws; however, it was noted that the laws do not necessarily translate into practice. Tajikistan came in for criticism for its lack of accurate health information and education. Both reports express continuing concern about the political changes in Uzbekistan dating from the Andijan massacre in early 2005.

Stay tuned to Central Asia Now for weekly news digests. Keep an eye out for our
fortnightly analysis slots by regional experts