Former Soviet Union « Taking Aim

Former Soviet Union

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9
Mar 06

More opposition arrests in Belarus

br23 blog reports on more trouble in the lead-up to the Belarussian Presidential election – this time the arrest of the main opposition candidate’s Deputy head of staff:

Vincuk Viachorka, the deputy Head of Milinkevich’s campaign office in Belarus, who was arrested yesterday, was sentenced today to 15 days of prison by Minsk City court, together with several other top members of Milinkevich’s team. (a bit of math: elections are in 10 days, and he has to spend 14 days more behind bars).

If that’s not clear enough message, I can spell it out for you: our dictator just said “game over.” This is the end of our elections game. Lukashenka was getting too scared, and today he stopped playing cat and mouse with the opposition, because the cat was obviously getting very frightened.

I’m not sure I’d quite agree with the sentiment that it is now ’game over’ for the elections. Viachorka was undoubtedly important to Milinkevich’s presidential campaign, and his arrest will be a setback, but he was just one man. The Milinkevich campaign will continue and – unfortunately – most probably, still lose. But not by any significantly larger a margin than Milinkevich would have lost by had Viachorka still been in post.

Lets hope it is a sign that Lukashenko is getting just a little bit scared, though.

Former Soviet Union / Russia — Comments Off
5
Mar 06

Belarus election brings cranks come out of woodwork

Neil Clark opines on the Presidential election in Belarus:

In the run-up to the elections on March 19th we can expect to be saturated with ‘last dictatorship in Europe’ style propaganda about Belarus- put about by EU fanatics and supporters of The Empire.

For a more objective, less hysterical picture of the political situation in the former Soviet republic, here’s a report from the widely respected British Helsinki Human Rights Group on the last Presidential elections in 2001.

Just in case you want to check it out yourself, here’s the BHHRG report that Clark refers to.

And, just as Neil feared – here’s a Last Dictatorship in Europe story from the International Herald Tribune.
Confused about who is right? Well, you might want to check out this wikipedia article about the BHHRG. Not pleasant reading for the folks back at BHHRG HQ.

The bottom line is that the BHHRG is an organisation that essentially goes around verifying every shoddy election it can find, particularly if it happened in the former Soviet Union. You name the post-Soviet dictator, and BHHRG’s election monitors and policy wonks will rush proclaim him as a democratic paragon of virtue who would sooner pull the wings off butterflies than falsify election results.

Anyway, back to Belarus. The reason why you will see so many ‘Last Dictatorship in Europe’ articles in the coming weeks is because Belarus is the last dictatorship in Europe. President Alexander Lukashenko is a man who actively represses opposition to his rule through violence and fraud at the ballot box. Just last week, Lukashenko’s security forces beat up and arrested one of the three opposition candidates in the upcoming election. That is democracy, Belarus style.

Former Soviet Union — Comments Off
3
Mar 06

Belarus Presidential candidate attacked

Very alarming developments in the Belarussian Presidential election, as an opposition candidate is violently assaulted by the President’s bodyguards.

In the morning, an opposition presidential candidate Alexander Kazulin (Kozulin) came to register as a participant in the so called All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a Soviet-style “party congress” staged by president Lukashenka (which he uses to show in front of the TV cameras “massive people’s support”, in a Soviet way). Lukashenka and all his gang was there.

Alexander Kazulin entered the building, requesting to be registered as a participant because his party (Hramada) has nominated him for this. Almost immediately, Lukashenka’s guards attacked him. They knocked him down to the ground and started kicking him with army boots. Among the people beating him was Dmitry Pavlichenko, a special force policeman who most probably killed two opposition politicians several years ago (at least, he’s the main suspect according to those who tried to investigate the disappearances of the famous politicians in Belarus).

This report came from br23 blog, who also notes that there was also some trouble at a rally in Minsk city centre by supporters of another opposition candidate – Alexander Milinkevich.

The BBC reported the story on their website, but only briefly. As the BBC’s correspondent notes:

I can only watch the spectacle on TV.

Like all foreign journalists in Minsk – except Russian media – I’ve been banned from attending. “Sorry,” Mr Lukashenko’s press secretary had informed me over the phone, “There’s no room!”

Which presumably means there will be no film evidence of the assault, and no major coverage by on the tv news.

Former Soviet Union — 2 Comments
21
Feb 06

Belarus election campaign kicks off

The countdown to the Belarussian Presidential election has begun, with current authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko squaring off against opposition here Alexander Milinkevich, plus a couple of other not so important candidates.

Belarusan American Blog is one of the English language blogs covering the race, and here Andrus reports on the “solemn” registration ceremony.

A few hilarious things were reported by RFE\RL. First off, nominees were seated not in the alphabetic order, but Lukashenka was separated from Milinkevich and Kazulin by Hajdukevich.

And thus he flunked from shaking hands with both oppositional candidates. Milinkevich left the building through the main entrance where he was greeted by a group of around 200 supporters, and Lukashenka had to leave through the backdoor.

An early embarrassment for the President. Let’s hope we see plenty more.

By the way – for an ever so slightly pro-opposition roundup of the candidates, see br23blog. I particularly liked the rumour that one of the candidates copied his PhD thesis word for word from “some Moscow scientist”.

Culture / Europe / Former Soviet Union — Comments Off
20
Feb 06

The ever-expanding Eurovision empire

Armenia, one of the last enclaves of musical freedom has finally fallen to the might of Eurovision:

So it looks like we’re definitely in the Eurovision song contest this year..and Andre ( who was voted best male singer of 2005 ) will be representing us with a song called “Without Your Love” sung in English, and written by Armen Martirosian – a well known composer and conductor of Jazz orchestra if I’m not mistaken.

This is a huge step for Armenia, as not only has it’s tv network fulfilled broadcasting rules implied by the EBU , it has also, along with Georgia, redefined the broadcasting area of “Europe” which used to exclude Armenia and Georgia, classing them as Asia. Now they are European, or so it seems! The EBU says it has no further plans for expansion, so , we did good!

Although, yes, I will grudgingly admit that conforming to EBU rules is a success story for Armenian broadcasting, and does show the country’s business climate in a positive light.

But still – they could have turned down the offer and gloated about preserving their freedom, couldn’t they?

Culture / Europe / Former Soviet Union / Russia — 1 Comment
19
Feb 06

Gay Pride parade in Moscow banned

Andrew Sullivan writes about the cancellation of the Moscow gay pride parade. In his article – entitled “How Muslim Blackmail Works” – he heavily implies that it was cancelled in large part because of Muslim protests.

While I agree with the key point Andrew making about not self-censoring, I was a little disappointed that the way his post written heavily implied that the parade was cancelled because of Muslim outrage. The exact words he used were

“It was canceled after the chief Muslim leader in Russia warned that marchers would be “bashed” if they dared to walk the streets.”).

Lets be clear about this – parades in Moscow are not cancelled because of pressure from the Muslim community.

While the Muslim community was, in this case, in step with the general consensus in Russia, their opinion had had zero impact on the decision to cancel the parade. The gay pride parade in Moscow was never going to get approval from the city government, because of general homophobia in Russia, and the hostility of the Russian orthodox church to homsexuality.

Even last year, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov said that he would never approve the parade:

“If I receive such a letter, I will refuse,” Luzhkov told the Interfax news agency late Friday, explaining that he “guards the Muscovites’ interests, and the capital’s inhabitants would be categorically set against such an initiative.”

Extreme hostility towards gays in the former Soviet Union isn’t uncommon, and there were even problems holding a gay pride parade in Riga, Latvia last summer. Then, even the Latvian Prime Minister felt it appropriate to weigh in:

“For sexual minorities to parade in the very heart of Riga, next to the Doma church, is unacceptable,” he told LNT television on Wednesday.

And this was in the European Union!

Having said that, though, from my own private observations whilst living in Russia (a couple of years ago now), acceptance of homosexuality does seem to be increasing. In the Siberian city of Irkutsk, for example, a major local nightclub used to hold well attended fortnightly gay nights. You definitely wouldn’t want to be caught out on the streets kissing your boyfriend though.

Europe / Former Soviet Union / Sport / US politics — Comments Off
15
Feb 06

Laura Bush forces Latvian Hockey team to train

Laura Bush did her bit for international diplomacy on Saturday after her Secret Service protection team forced the Latvian ice hockey team to wait in their training arena in full gear for 40 minutes. All because she was watching the US women’s hockey team play Switzerland in the next arena:

“That’s not normal,” Latvian forward Aleksandrs Semjonovs told the newspaper Diena. “The third period is only half way done and she was not yet ready to leave. Why couldn’t we leave the arena?”

Commenters at All About Latvia are incensed:

And who the hell do they think they are putting people to inconvinience in a foreign (not USA) country! Our presient should make am official protest.

But, let’s look on the bright side – the Latvian hockey team got 40 minutes of extra practice time. Think how well prepared they’ll be for their next match.

Announcements / Europe / Former Soviet Union / Russia — Comments Off
13
Feb 06

The 2nd Satin Pajama Awards

Those nice people at A Fistful of Euros have – after an agonising three week delay – launched the 2nd Annual Satin Pajamas awards.

First – some shameless self publicity. My old weblog – siberianlight.net – is up for the award of Best CIS Weblog, despite having been closed for the last few months.
I managed to sneak past Nathan’s registan.net last year by a mere seven votes, and I’d love to not only make it two wins in a row, but be able to claim that I’m the author of the first ever dead blog to win an award.

So, go vote. For siberianlight.net in the Best CIS blog category, if you could. You could make history.
(I suppose you could vote for someone else if you feel strongly that dead blogs shouldn’t win awards. But I wouldn’t recommend it).

Then, so I feel less guilty, go and vote for registan.net to win the Best Weblog and Best Political Weblog categories.

And then check out all the other categories, for the best roundup of the best European weblogs that you will find anywhere.

Former Soviet Union — Comments Off
11
Feb 06

Press Freedom in Central Asia

Neweurasia presents their first roundup of press freedom and freedom of expression in Central Asia.

Some good news, but mostly bad news from this region which contains the 111th, 113th, 119th, 155th and 165th (out of 167) lowest ranked countries in the Reporters Sans Frontiers press freedom index.

Former Soviet Union / Uncategorized — 1 Comment
9
Feb 06

Belarus elections – electronic freedom or electronic censorship?

Presidential elections are due in Belarus this March and, showing off the country’s democratic and high-tech credentials, each Presidential candidate has launched a campaign website.

Hooray for Belarussian democracy. Well, maybe not.

Although all the sites are working at the moment, there are concerns that, as the election approaches, they may be blocked for internet users within Belarus. br23 blog writes:

On 09/09/2001 a few opposition and independent news sites were blocked inside Belarus. I myself wrote an article about that back in 2001, with the technical details on how the blocking was implemented.

I have absolutely no doubt that on March, 19, and perhaps several days prior and after the election date, quite a few websites will be blocked again. First of all, their entries will most probably be deleted from the Belarus’ root DNS server. Second, our telecom monopolist Beltelecom will probably block the actual incoming traffic from the IP addresses that correspond to those domain names.

br23 blog asks for suggestions as to how internet users in Belarus can circumvent any potential block on opposition candidates websites. If anyone out there who is more technically minded than me has any suggestions, do let him know.

However, in the meantime, probably the best approach is to attempt to stop the government of President Lukashenko from blocking access to the sites in the first place.

The more websites that carry the news that opposition Presidential candidates in Belarus actually have a website, and how President Lukasenko has previously dealt with internet-based opposition, the better.

Taking Aim