WELCOME TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 531, February 14, 2008 POWER STRUGGLE HAMPERS KYRGYZ TV REFORM Hunger strikes and threats of wider industrial action are distracting attention from attempts to create a genuine public-service TV station. By Yrys Kadykeev in Bishkek
TIGHTER REGULATION WORRIES KYRGYZ FAITH GROUPS Smaller confessions claim plans to tighten registration rules for religious groups threatens basic freedoms. By Tolkun Namatbaeva in Bishkek ALMATY CRACKS DOWN ON GUNS IN SCHOOLS As a spate of armed incidents in classrooms prompts new security measures in Kazakstans commercial capital, parents and teachers say it may not be enough. By Marik Koshbaev in Almaty KAZAKSTAN: LAVISH WEDDINGS RUIN UZBEK FAMILIES As a extravagant ceremonies impoverish the community, campaigners are urging changes in the law. By Zinaida Savina in Shymkent **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** 2008 KURT SCHORK AWARDS IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM Call for entries now open. For more details visit http://iwpr.net/kurtschork.html NEW PROJECT: IWPR now operates a major new media project in Asia. 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The latest conflict erupted on January 31, when several staff members of the National TV and Radio Company, NTRC, declared a hunger strike. They were demanding the resignation of director-general Melis Eshimkanov, who had been appointed by President Kurmanbek Bakiev only three months earlier. At the start of the protest, about ten staffers from the channel joined the chief organiser of the strike, Beyshenbek Bekeshov, a former deputy to the previous director-general. After protesters were barred from entering the TV building in Bishkek, the hunger strikers, now numbering 13, continued their action in Bekeshovs house. Bekeshov said they were protesting against the arbitrary and lawless leadership style of their new boss. He commits lawless acts and violates our civil, creative and labour rights, Bekeshov told IWPR. There has never been such lawlessness in the whole history of the Kyrgyz TV and radio station. Bekeshev, whose programme Kolomto (Hearth) was axed after the new chief was appointed, said Eshimkanov wanted to get rid of the stations most experienced workers and put his own cronies into place. He wants to turn the national TV channel into Eshimkanov television, Bekeshev maintained. You could call it the privatisation of state property, Eshimkanov style. In an open letter to President Bakiev, the hunger strikers lambasted Eshimkanovs personnel reforms as adventurist and harmful. Amid signs that the protest may be spreading, it was reported that staffers at regional TV and radio in the Batken and Jalalabad regions also joined the protest this week. Eshimkanov rejects the strikers accusations, saying what they really oppose is his drive to slash bloated payrolls and scrap substandard shows. At 1,400 employees, the staff is incredibly inflated, he maintained. At the same time there is a lot of poor production and too many outdated, unprofessional programmes. The director-general noted that the companys recently-created Artistic Council had already criticised 150 shows as flawed, which is why NTRC had spent a month updating its programme schedules and outlining new strategies. Any attempt to improve the channel causes protests, concluded Eshimkanov. He hinted that Bekeshov and the other strikers had their own agenda, saying, There are certain forces that dont want reforms. Eshimkanov says he remains committed to root-and-branch reform of the broadcaster. A complete structural reorganisation will entail cuts. I plan to introduce new management based on the experience of the Baltics, Georgia and Ukraine, and to develop our work according to international standards, he said. Some NTRC staff agree with their chiefs diagnosis. Jyldyz Muslimova, who monitors the broadcasters social affairs and political output, said she backed Eshimkanov. This is all about the personal ambitions and power struggles of Bekeshev and the other hunger strikers, she complained. They dont like the new leaderships reforms, or the fact that airtime is now taken up with higher quality programmes than the old ones they produced. The need for root-and-branch reform of the NTRC has been bubbling away in Kyrgyzstan for several years. It emerged as a priority after the abrupt change in the countrys leadership in March 2005. One of the complaints voiced by protesters at the time was that the national TV stations coverage of elections earlier that year had been biased. Demands for immediate reform of the channel were high on the agenda during demonstrations against the new Bakiev administration that recurred through 2006 and 2007. In June 2006, parliament passed a law setting out basic principles for transforming NTRC into a public service corporation. The law provided for the creation of a supervisory board whose 15 members would be confirmed by parliament after being nominated in equal measure by the president, the deputies and civil society groups. However, the board did not meet until November 2007, and was soon suspended. (See Kyrgyz TV Reform Falters Ahead of Polls , RCA No. 518, 03-Dec-07.) As a result, President Bakiev stepped in and unilaterally appointed Eshimkanov - albeit on an acting basis - without going through the board. Shamaral Maychiev, who is Kyrgyzstans Media Representative, a non-government position that functions as an ombudsman for the sector, believes the current conflict at NTRC stems from the fact that the supervisory board is playing no role despite having supreme responsibility for the company under the law. Elvira Sarieva, a board member nominated by non-government groups, said she believed the body was deliberately stopped from working before last Decembers parliamentary election. During the election campaign, many opposition parties accused the state broadcasting company of bias. They said NTRC, the only station covering the countrys entire territory, displayed a marked preference for pro-presidential forces and candidates in its election coverage. Ilim Karypbekov, director of the Media Representative Institute, a non-government watchdog organisation which supports Maychievs work, says the current stalemate will do nothing to advance the stalled reform process. This scandal will not improve the channel, he said. Its just about personalities and a fight for power. At issue is not reform, only personal intrigues. Almaz Ismanov of the Centre for Extreme Journalism agreed that the dispute was about personalities as much as policy, but added that it had in the process laid bare fundamental problems affecting the station. He listed some of these problems, saying, NTRK definitely has to be reformed in all areas, especially on the technical side. One of the problems is that the signal doesnt reach everywhere NTRK has a multi-million budget, it supports a massive staff yet it cant broadcast to all corners of the country. However the current dispute is resolved, few analysts disagree that the state broadcasters performance could be improved. Marat Tokoev, who chairs the Journalists Association, says it is going to be extremely difficult to turn around this complex organism with its large staff roll and decades of doing things in a certain way. Coming from the private media sector, Eshimkanovs mistake, he said, was to underestimate all this cultural baggage. Eshimkanov, formerly an opposition deputy in parliament, used to own the popular Aghym newspaper. Like the TV boss himself, Tokoev prescribes staffing cuts as part of the cure, but he recommends that the process be carried out transparently, testing peoples ability to do the job, and ensuring that they get help to find other employment if they are made redundant. Most important of all, he said, the cuts should start with top managers, to get rid of all those whove held management posts for years but have done nothing useful for the channel. Yet before any of that can happen, Tokoev says the question of the supervisory board needs to be sorted out, as Eshimkanovs hands will be tied as long as he only holds his post in an acting capacity. The supervisory council needs to be given a chance to work at full capacity, so that it can legally elected a director-general who will be invested with broad powers and who will be in a position to push through reforms to the TV channel, said Tokoev. Yrys Kadykeev is an IWPR contributor in Bishkek. TIGHTER REGULATION WORRIES KYRGYZ FAITH GROUPS Smaller confessions claim plans to tighten registration rules for religious groups threatens basic freedoms. By Tolkun Namatbaeva in Bishkek New, more restrictive regulations governing the practice of religion will undermine peoples constitutional rights and antagonise faith groups, according to Kyrgyz lawyers and representatives of various confessions. The State Agency for Religious Affairs says the current legislation on freedom of religion and on religious organisations is out of date and needs to be amended. A new bill has been drafted which, if it goes through, will require religious organisations a classification which includes individual houses of worship - to have at least 200 members in order to obtain the registration they need to operate legally. At the moment, they only need ten members to register with provincial authorities. Religious colleges will also need to register and have their teaching programmes checked by the State Agency for Religious Affairs. Finally, the government plans to ban the distribution of religious books and material outside places of worship and special shops, and to require anyone wanting to hold a religious event to gain prior permission. Kanat Murzakhalilov, deputy head of the State Agency for Religious Affairs, says the overwhelming majority" of religious organisations support the new rules. Murzakhalilov said changes to the law were needed because of conflicts created by proselytising faith groups coming in from outside Kyrgyzstan, which rode roughshod over local sensibilities. The agency is concerned at the number of such groups active in Kyrgyzstan, he added. Without explicitly saying so, Murzakhalilov was referring to Christian groups, often evangelical Protestants, which recruit new members among ethnic Kyrgyz, a community where Islam is the traditional religion and attempts to convert people to other faiths are commonly regarded as offensive. Islam and the other main faith, Russian Orthodox Christianity, have a history of coexistence in Kyrgyzstan, as each has its own ethnic constituency and does not seek converts from the other. Kyrgyzstan also has a range of minority faiths including Catholics, Protestants and Jews. There are currently some 300 Christian groups including Lutherans, Baptists, Jehovahs Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists. While official parlance draws a distinction between traditional religions - mainstream Islam and the Orthodox Church and non-traditional faiths seen as imports, post-Soviet Kyrgyz governments have been more tolerant of incoming groups than some neighbouring states. Murzakhalilov insisted the tighter rules would not undermine peoples constitutional right to freedom of religion. But faith group representatives, evangelical Christians in particular, are seriously disturbed. Valentin Shaipov of the Evangelical Christian Union said his confession, which has been active in Kyrgyzstan for more than a century, could suffer badly if the new legislation is adopted because small congregations will not be able to register. Many of our groups have only about a hundred people left out of the [former] 300 because so many people have emigrated from Kyrgyzstan, he explained. These old men and women who have been coming to our churches for years could find themselves outside the law. Other Christian groups say they are in the same boat, as finding 200 people to support the registration application for a new place of worship could be an insurmountable obstacle, especially in rural areas. In a joint message, several church groups said the planned legislation could shut down many houses of worship as well as bar new ones from opening. Religious affairs expert Natalia Shadrova understands their concern. The 200-person threshold could be really destabilising, she said. If state officials don't think about it in a profounder way relations between state, society and religious organisations could become deadlocked. Shadrova predicted that adopting the controversial changes would trigger a wave of emigration by members of smaller faith groups. Elena Voronina, head of the rights group Interbilim, agreed. Why create additional legislation? she asked. Any attempt to direct citizenss views along the lines that this religion is trustworthy but that one isnt is dangerous. The state mustn't divide confessions into traditional and non-traditional, harmful and useful. State policy must unite rather than divide people. Member of parliament Rashid Tagaev disagrees with critics of the bill, saying Kyrgyz legislation to date has been lax to the point where it endangers national security. He argues that the law will be a useful instrument for preventing the rise of Muslim extremist groups. Allowing ten people to get together and start a religious organisation is very wrong, he said. Without tighter control we will have a growing number of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Wahhabi and Akromia members, said Tagaev, referring to various strands of radical Islam identified as dangerous by the authorities. Why should we allow them to flourish? Tolkun Namatbaeva is an IWPR contributor in Kyrgyzstan. ALMATY CRACKS DOWN ON GUNS IN SCHOOLS As a spate of armed incidents in classrooms prompts new security measures in Kazakstans commercial capital, parents and teachers say it may not be enough. By Marik Koshbaev in Almaty It is not just schools in the United States that are alarmed by rising gun crime. After a spate of incidents involving firearms, schools in Kazakstans biggest city, Almaty, have announced a package of measures to prevent guns being brought onto the premises. In future, pupils will not be allowed out without supervision during school hours by parents, and unauthorised outsiders will be banned from entering the buildings. The measures will be monitored by a special commission set up to check on security in Almatys schools. There are also plans to install security cameras and hire professional guards to patrol school buildings. The city council has earmarked two million US dollars for the project. Authorities in Almaty took these dramatic steps following a fatal incident at a secondary school in late January, in which a pupil detonated a hand-grenade. Two people died and two others received serious injuries. Following other incidents involving weapons in schools, the citys deputy mayor, Serik Seidumanov, set up the special commission. From now on, we need police to be present in the schools, said Seidumanov. Aygul Shokshebaeva, deputy head of public security in the city police department, blamed the rising incidence of accidents involving weapons on negligent management in the schools, which provide basic military training for pupils. Weve found numerous mines, grenades and other munitions, both with and without [identifying] marks, in outhouse buildings, she said. Other education officials say the real problem is that illegal weapons are increasingly available in wider society, and are finding their way into the schools. This is true not only of Almaty and the capital Astana, but also of provincial towns, they say. The security problem in the schools is more urgent than ever before, said a senior teacher at a school in Shymkent, the administrative centre of South Kazakstan region. Boys used to sort out their disputes with their fists, but now they use weapons, especially firearms. It is high time the authorities and the police paid more attention to this and didnt leave everything up to the poor teachers. Several pupils confirmed to IWPR that it is not difficult to get hold of guns these days. There are guys who carry weapons. They know where they can get them, said Oleg, who is in his penultimate year of school. There are two of them in my class. In order to acquire weapons, he said, all you need is the money to buy them. If I saved up, I would buy some myself, because anything can happen; I might need them. Daulet and Asylbek, friends in the final year at an Almaty high school, agreed that weapons were becoming indispensable for young people like them. Its dangerous to walk the streets, especially in the evening, said Daulet. A lot of our schoolmates have been robbed of cell phones, money or clothes, many times. If theyd had guns, they could have scared the muggers off. At national government level, officials are pondering strategies to reduce youth crime as part of a wider programme to protect childrens interests. The Almaty police department says that contrary to popular perceptions, juvenile delinquency is not on the rise in the city. Many parents are doubtful that this is the case. Gaukhar Mukhamedjanova, whose son Askar is in fifth grade, said she had recently been hearing of numerous cases where schoolchildren had used guns during fights. I worry about my child a good deal, she said. What is going on in the schools is terrifying. My son is constantly telling me stories about the bigger boys carrying guns. Following the latest grenade explosion, she said, We fear for our children. Anna Nechaeva, a juvenile psychologist from the association Childhood Without Borders, told IWPR that her experience showed that todays teenagers were becoming increasingly aggressive. She noted that some schools, but not all, had in-house child psychologists. In my opinion, teenagers today are often emotionally drained because of the huge amount of aggression and violence they are exposed to in the media, she said. Marik Koshbaev is an IWPR contributor in Almaty. KAZAKSTAN: LAVISH WEDDINGS RUIN UZBEK FAMILIES As a extravagant ceremonies impoverish the community, campaigners are urging changes in the law. By Zinaida Savina in Shymkent When Sultan and Aydin, a young couple in Turkestan, a city in southern Kazakstan, decided to get married, the grooms family took out a bank loan to cover the costs. Sultan was planning to get a job in South Korea so that he could repay his parents. But he had to postpone the trip, and the family got into financial difficulties over the loan, which they had taken out at a high interest rate. He married Aydin, but when they found it hard to make ends meet, she complained to her parents. The young couple got divorced soon afterwards. During the divorce proceedings, Aydins family accused Sultan of lying about his intention to go to Korea, saying if they had known the true picture, they would never have agreed to such a lavish wedding. Such tangled stories are all too common in Turkestan, where the cult of lavish weddings has turned into a major economic headache for the local Uzbek community, who account for 90,000 of the citys 150,000 residents. In recent years, weddings have become really competitive; its a big problem, said Mubarak Kasimov, deputy mayor of the nearby village of Stary Ikan. Kasimov says most Uzbek families in the Southern Kazakstan administrative regions live off the soil and dont earn much more than 1,000 US dollars a year. Families spend their entire annual budget on weddings and run up debts that take years to repay, he adds. Weddings in and around Turkestan can cost astronomical sums when measured against average local earnings. The bill can vary from one to five million tenge, or between 8,000 and 40,000 dollars - and in some cases twice the latter amount. Besides the bill for the ceremony in the registry office and the wedding party, money disappears on a mass of obligatory pre- and post-nuptual events. The grooms family has to find the bride price or kelin puli, pay for the ceremony when the bride arrives at the grooms house, known as kelin tushdi, and hold compulsory feasts and exchanges of presents and money. On the wedding day, they have to stump up for a wedding cortege including the mandatory limousine and up to 15 cars, which have to be all the same colour and of a more exotic brand than the common Russian models. This fleet of vehicles will carry the numerous guests to the wedding and on to the toykhana, the special hall used for receptions. This is a change from the traditional-style Uzbek weddings here, which used to be held in a local courtyard in a residential area. The obsession with luxury weddings has spawned a number of spin-off industries. There are about 20 toykhanas in Turkestan alone, so busy that their daily schedules are planned in detail a month in advance. The city also has four limousine hire companies and 15 salons which rent out wedding dresses. The cult of lavish weddings among Uzbeks in southern Kazakstan not only impoverishes families, but also deters people in nearby Uzbekistan from marrying into the region. I wanted to suggest that my nephew from Tashkent should marry a local girl, but he refused, saying he couldnt afford a Turkestan-style wedding, said Turkestan resident Sirojiddin Ubaydulloev. Things in Tashkent are done much more modestly. Local ethnographer and historian Kenes Ismailov notes that ethnic Kazaks also go in for costly weddings, but their standard of living tends to be higher, so the outlay is less ruinous. We have a stereotype the richer the celebration, the more respect you get, said Ismailov. Costly weddings have become a matter of image. If you want serious people to have any regard for your family, you must demonstrate your familys power at a wedding. Its entirely impractical; its as if our powers of reason have gone to sleep. For the Uzbek community, the enormous expenditure condemns families to a life of debt, and some reformers are now trying to wean people off the ruinous obsession. The Uzbek Cultural Centre in Turkestan, for example, is encouraging less extravagant ceremonies involving downsized toykhana parties. Mahbuba Aymetova, who chairs the womens council at the cultural centre, says wedding dresses are another area where economies could be made. Renting a dress usually costs from 100 to 400 dollars, whereas a colourful Uzbek traditional dress is far less pricy and can be used for years. Aymetova, a lawyer by training, gives regular talks at workshops with women, in schools and through the media to encourage more moderate spending on marriages. Her latest idea is for a celebration commission. It would consist of eight to ten authoritative people in Turkestan who would agree a time and form for the celebration with both sets of parents, and ensure the agreement is honoured, she explained. The commission could even coordinate weddings so that if one family held its ceremony one day, the neighbours could hold theirs the next, and excess food could be passed on rather than thrown away. A variety of other solutions are being offered. Mutalib Yuldashev, a member of the South Kazakstan regional council, believes the committees in charge of each mahalla or neighbourhood should step in, while others argue the legal system or religion should play a stronger role. Iriskul Aitmetov, a former lawyer who founded the Uzbek Cultural Centre, advocates a new law that would set out the rules conducting weddings. Weddings have gone completely crazy; theres no other word for it, he said. We need a law to regulate how the rite is conducted. Aytmetov has been using his position as a respected elder in the village of Karachik to encourage local couples to hold modest celebrations in the Muslim tradition. These cost a tenth or less than the full-blown variety, and are over within a few hours as opposed to several days. In line with Islamic precepts, the bride's costume is expected to be muted rather than lavish, and no alcohol is served. The overtly religious aspect of these ceremonies worries the local authorities, who remain deeply suspicious of anything that might promote the emergence of radical Islam. But local journalist Shamirza Madaliev says economical weddings based on Islamic tenets is a realistic alternative for poor farming families, who are otherwise under pressure to keep up with everyone else. The problem is that my [Uzbek] people are quick to follow others, he said. They have a misplaced concept of prestige and are afraid to look worse than their neighbours. Zinaida Savina is an IWPR contributor in Shymkent, southern Kazakstan. **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA provides the international community with a unique insiders' perspective on the region. Using our network of local journalists, the service publishes news and analysis from across Central Asia on a weekly basis. The service forms part of IWPR's Central Asia Project based in Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent and London, which supports media development and encourages better local and international understanding of the region. IWPR's Reporting Central Asia is supported by the Global Conflict Prevention Pool of UK government and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The opinions expressed in Reporting Central Asia are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. 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