Field Reports

Since late last year, a new round of tensions has emerged between Dushanbe and Tashkent. In early November 2011, a skirmish occurred on the Tajik-Uzbek border near the Uzbek town of Bekobod and the Tajik town of Khujand, resulting in the death of an Uzbek border soldier. The Uzbek border authorities rushed to connect the skirmish to drug trafficking into Uzbekistan, with the support of Tajik border guards. The later joint Uzbek-Tajik investigation concluded that the incident was an attempt to smuggle electric appliances by private individuals from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan. It is, however, unclear why this led the Uzbek government to mass a large amount of military hardware on the Tajik border.

On January 12, Tajik journalist Dodojon Atovulloev, a fierce critic of Tajikistan’s government, was attacked and stabbed by a stranger in Moscow. Atovulloev was delivered to a hospital with several stab wounds affecting his liver and lungs and with extensive loss of blood. After spending several days in resuscitation department in the hospital, there is no instant danger to his life but the journalist is still in a poor condition. According to unofficial sources, Atovulloev was attacked by a stranger “with a Tajik appearance.”

The United Russia party has dominated the Russian Parliament for almost a decade, and officially received 49.4 percent of the votes in the State Duma elections held on December 4. While this implied a loss of the two thirds constitutional majority it held during the previous term, United Russia still won 238 of the 450 seats and will keep an absolute majority in the legislature. However, the Duma elections also marked the start of sizable anti-Kremlin rallies that have been carried out in Russia over weeks following the elections. These protests were triggered by the numerous reports of irregularities and violations surrounding the elections, and although such reports came from all corners of the federation, the most blatant examples of rigged results can be found in the North Caucasian republics.

On New Year’s Eve, a young man dressed up as Ded Moroz (Father Frost) was lethally wounded in Dushanbe. Parviz Davlyatbekov, a 24-year-old economist, was attacked and stabbed by a group of young people near his house when he was about to visit his family for a New Year’s party. Davlyatbekov was later delivered to a hospital with multiple stab wounds and died the following night. According to Davlyatbekov’s relatives, he was killed by a group of Islamic radicals. They say that he was attacked by a crowd yelling “You Kaffir (infidel)!”

One year ago, authorities in Tajikistan announced the death of the militant Alovuddin Davlatov, aka Ali Bedaki. Despite evidence suggesting that Bedaki was captured alive in January 2011, interrogated and then executed extrajudicially, local media and human rights groups as well as the international community have mostly been silent and reluctant to address this case.

The Armenian Government has published the names of 2386 companies which will be checked by the State Revenue Committee (SRC) in 2012. Such a move and the introduction of computer technologies are aimed at decreasing contacts and tension between the tax authorities and businesses.

One month before the early parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan scheduled for January 15 and 16, 2012, the majority of the country’s political parties have already started intensive preparations in a bid to ensure their representation in the Kazakh Parliament’s lower chamber, the Majilis (comprised of 107 deputies). The NurOtan, which is officially headed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, was the first among forefront political organizations to divulge its list of candidates consisting of 127 persons. Out of these, 48 were deputies in the Majilis’ previous legislature and will most likely be reelected into office. The remaining 79 candidates have very different backgrounds varying from former ministers and cabinet-level officials (such as the chairman of the Agency for protection of competition) to regional governors, to representatives of sports and culture (the head of Kazakhstan’s national cycling team among them).

Azerbaijan’s relations with neighboring Iran have taken a turn for the worse due to growing tension around Iran’s nuclear program. The recent death of writer Rafiq Tagi, who Iranian media has termed a “Salman Rushdie of Azerbaijan”, has fuelled mutual anti-propaganda between two countries. 

The former de facto President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity and the opposition leader Alla Dzhioyeva struck a deal on December 9 to put an end to the 10-day post-election turmoil sparked by the decision by the region’s Supreme Court to annul Dzhioyeva’s victory over the Kremlin’s favored candidate Anatoly Bibilov. The agreement, signed in the presence of a Kremlin official, foresees the interim leadership of Prime Minister Vadim Brovtsev before the inauguration of a new president, and Dzhioyeva’s participation in the 2012 repeat polls, scheduled for March 25. The Supreme Court previously banned Dzhioyeva from running in the March elections. Further, as part of the agreement, Kokoity along with the chief prosecutor, the chairman of the Supreme Court and other key officials must have left their posts.

On December 5, the Uzbek Senate adopted a law “On introducing an amendment to article 90 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan,” which regulates the presidential term. It was proposed as a legislative initiative by Uzbekistan’s president and envisions reducing the presidential term from seven to five years. As the press service of the Uzbek Parliament reported, the senators note that the amendment “reflects the objective reality, logic and sequence of the ongoing reforms in the country, corresponds to the requirement of the implemented Concept for further strengthening democratic reforms and formation of civil society in the country, and the practice which has formed in most of the developed democratic states of the world.” However, local observers distrust the good intentions of undemocratic Uzbek authorities and speculate about other reasons for such a measure.