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Hungary’s descent into the Partly Free category in Freedom House’s just-released annual assessment of global media independence should set off alarms for those who believed the country’s press freedom was firmly established.
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March 28, 2012
Belarus: Economics May Succeed Where Diplomacy Has Failed
by Katherin Machalek
Research Analyst, Nations in Transit
Last week, the authorities in Belarus executed two young men who had been convicted of an April 2011 subway bombing in Minsk. While the deeply flawed trial and the swift, primitive nature of the men’s deaths may have disturbed the international community, they were not unusual for Belarus, which has consistently hovered close to the worst possible ratings on issues like the rule of law in Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World and Nations in Transit reports.
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March 21, 2012
Russia 2012: Increased Repression, Rampant Corruption, Assisting Rogue Regimes
On March 21, David J. Kramer, President of Freedom House, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about human rights abuses in Russia. Below are excerpts from his testimony at the hearing. The full testimony can be read here.
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February 29, 2012
With Russian Help, Belarus Heads Downhill
by Ilya Kunitski*
When Belarus’s authoritarian ruler, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, goes to ski in Russia, it is rarely just for a nice vacation. The southern Russian resort town of Sochi, planned site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, is a favored spot for Belarusian and Russian officials to gather and discuss bilateral relations in a relaxing setting. Lukashenka’s trip to Sochi last month was no exception, with official Belarusian media duly reporting that his time on the slopes would be combined with a working visit.
Little information on the details of the trip emerged, aside from video and photographs of Lukashenka skiing together with Russian president Dmitri Medvedev.
Photo Credit: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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February 16, 2012
February 08, 2012
Despite Protests, Business as Usual in Kazakhstan
by Katherin Machalek and Sylvana Habdank-Kołaczkowska*
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet today with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev to sign a strategic agreements focused on energy and raw materials. Merkel, whose country has been cultivating access to Kazakhstan’s natural resources for some time, is not likely to devote much of the discussion to her guest’s domestic troubles. Nazarbayev prefers to present Kazakhstan as an eager business partner, committed to its international obligations and open to gradual reforms, and foreign governments and companies often have an economic interest in accepting this image at face value. However, recent events suggest that popular frustration with the country’s authoritarian system is becoming more difficult to ignore.
On January 28, hundreds of Kazakhs—some estimates put the figure as high as 1,000—took to the streets of Almaty in a rare antigovernment protest, shouting for their leader to leave office. Such demonstrations are exceedingly unusual in Kazakhstan, where most forms of political organization are effectively banned, and the president, affectionately referred to as “Papa” by his people, enjoys an official approval rating of nearly 90 percent. But the veneer of contentment was cracked on December 16, when police in the western city of Zhanaozen opened fire on striking oil workers, killing at least 17. The confrontation occurred as authorities attempted to mount independence day celebrations in the town square, which the workers had occupied for some seven months. The violence, captured on video, sparked public outrage and led to a harsh security clampdown in the surrounding area.
Worker protests gained momentum over the subsequent weeks, spreading throughout Kazakhstan’s western oil region and taking on a distinctly antigovernment tone. A union organizer told the New York Times that the protests were “no longer about money.” After the shootings, he said, “it was about dignity. After so many months [of strikes], the economic questions fell by the wayside.” Thus by January 28, protesters were chanting “Freedom!” and “Nazarbayev must go!”
President Nursultan Nazarbayev | Photo Credit: Olaffpomona
Nevertheless, Nazarbayev’s 20-year-old regime appears satisfied with its existing, well-tested playbook. It continues to embrace the rhetoric of democracy and devote considerable resources to portraying itself as a democratic state, both at home and abroad. Despite the steady decay of its democratic institutions, which at this point exist in name only, and the deterioration of its already appalling human rights record, Kazakhstan’s massive energy wealth and careful balancing of relations with all world powers mean that it rarely faces serious scrutiny or criticism from the international community. In a sign of foreign governments’ priorities, Kazakhstan was awarded the rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for 2010, over the objections of human rights organizations.
Meanwhile, in the absence of external pressure, Nazarbayev has been employing the usual tricks to paper over the damage to his domestic stature caused by the unrest in Zhanaozen. For example, the president vetoed a January 6 decision by the Constitutional Council to cancel the January 15 parliamentary elections in Zhanaozen, where a state of emergency had been declared. He explained that the decision would have violated the voting rights of the city’s residents. Given the fact that the Constitutional Council is appointed by the president and his rubberstamp parliament, the ruling and veto were most likely conjured up for the benefit of Nazarbayev’s image management.
Another old strategy can be seen in the outcome of the January 15 vote. Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan party had monopolized the parliament since 2007, making it an easy target for criticism. A reform law in 2009 paved the way for a return to a tightly controlled multiparty system, guaranteeing the second-place party seats in the parliament even if it does not reach the 7 percent vote threshold. In the January 2012 elections, the regime paid another ostentatious but ultimately meaningless tribute to pluralism by reporting that not one but two parties other than Nur Otan had passed the 7 percent barrier. Needless to say, both of these parties—the business-oriented Ak Zhol and the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan—are decidedly pro-Nazarbayev. Leaders of Kazakhstan’s genuine opposition parties, Alga and Azat, were quickly arrested as protests challenging the election results emerged in the weeks following the vote. But the news that one-party rule was ending in Kazakhstan made headlines at an opportune moment for the regime.
The president’s calculated response to the recent, embarrassing eruption of dissent in his country will have been familiar to anyone who observed the staged drama surrounding his future status in early 2011. Preempting any Arab Spring–inspired democratic sentiment, he feigned humility and allegiance to democratic values by vetoing a long-anticipated constitutional amendment that would have triggered a referendum to extend his current term until 2020. After the one-party parliament rejected its leader’s veto just one week later, Nazarbayev appealed to the Constitutional Council, which ruled that the proposed amendment did, in fact, violate the constitution. (The council also politely noted that the president should feel free to reject its decision.) As an alternative to the proposed term extension, Nazarbayev called for a snap presidential election in April, almost two year ahead of schedule, catching the opposition unprepared. The president explained that his plan took account of both “the will of our people and fidelity to democratic principles.” With the elaborate performance finally completed, Nazarbayev enjoyed another landslide victory, confirming his presidency through 2016 while promoting the narrative of a modest leader bound by the checks and balances of a genuine democracy.
As in Russia, where restive citizens are contemplating the possibility of another six or even 12 years under the rule of Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan’s people may be losing patience with their 70-year-old eternal leader. Signs point to an escalation in protests, with another unsanctioned antigovernment rally scheduled for February 25. But with little outside pressure, ample resources, and a glaring lack of new ideas, Nazarbayev and other authoritarian leaders of the former Soviet Union are simply recycling their time-honored tactics, apparently holding fast to the assumption that the next decade will be much like the last. Given what has happened in the Middle East over the past year, interested parties like Merkel would be wise to start hedging their bets.
* Katherin Machalek is a research analyst, and Sylvana Habdank-Kołaczkowska is the project director, for Nations in Transit.
February 02, 2012
As Russia Prepares for Protests, New Media Battle the Old
by Robert Orttung and Christopher Walker*
Writing on the revolutions of Central Europe in the New York Review of Books two decades ago, scholar Timothy Garton Ash made the observation that “the crucial medium was television. In Europe, at the end of the twentieth century all revolutions are telerevolutions.”
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January 20, 2012
December 14, 2011
December 09, 2011
December 02, 2011
November 23, 2011
The International Day to End Impunity: A global call for justice
by Melanie Dominski
Sr. Program Associate, Freedom of Expression Campaign
Two years ago today, in the southern Philippines province of Maguindanao, 100 armed guards overtook a civilian convoy and executed the passengers in what has become known as the Maguindanao massacre. Of the 57 victims, 32 were journalists, making the incident the deadliest single attack against journalists on record and earning the Philippines the second-place slot on the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) list of the most dangerous countries for members of the media. In the course of this brutal attack, at least four female journalists were allegedly raped prior to being executed; virtually all of the female victims reportedly suffered genital mutilation, and many of the victims were beheaded.
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November 21, 2011
November 03, 2011
In courting Uzbekistan, the United States stoops too low
by Susan Corke
Director for Eurasia Programs
At an October 22 briefing designed to tout the enhanced relationship between the United States and Uzbekistan ahead of the first visit to the Central Asian country by a U.S. secretary of state in seven years, a senior State Department official was asked whether this strategic partner was still boiling people alive. The fact that this question needed to be asked is a worrisome sign for U.S. moral authority.
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November 01, 2011
October 18, 2011
Little to celebrate in Kadyrov’s Chechnya
by Arch Puddington
Vice President for Research
One of the most popular items pinging back and forth across the internet is the infamous video report on the glitzy extravaganza sponsored by the president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, to celebrate both his birthday and the unveiling of a series of lavish new buildings in the Chechen capital, Grozny. What made the spectacle especially notable was the presence of several celebrities from the world’s great democracies, including American actress Hilary Swank and the Belgian-born Hollywood action hero Jean-Claude Van Damme. In her words of appreciation, Swank said she “could feel the spirit of the people, and everyone was so happy.” “Happy birthday, Mr. President,” she added.
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October 13, 2011
October 06, 2011
Having crossed his Rubicon, Putin lands in Central Asia
Photo Credit: www.kremlin.ru
by Tyler Roylance
Staff Editor, Publications
When Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin announced last week that he intended—and had always intended—to return to the presidency, he effectively tore down a flimsy veil of constitutional rectitude that had separated Russia from the autocracies of Central Asia. For over four years, Russians were invited to believe that unlike the perpetual presidents in those countries, their leader would uphold the rule of law and make way for new blood in the form of his chosen successor, Dmitri Medvedev. Now, however, it appears that Medvedev’s entire presidency was an artifice designed to circumvent the ban on more than two consecutive terms.
In this sense, the maneuver was only the most elaborate and circuitous among many similar techniques employed by the rulers of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, as well as Azerbaijan and Belarus. These presidents have relied on rigged referendums and rubber-stamp legislatures to enact repeated term extensions of one type or another. When it comes to elections, they have methodically suppressed any genuine opposition parties and then won lopsided votes against the nonentities that remained. In 2007, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan brazenly secured a new term without bothering to remove the constitutional restriction. (For a summary of term-limit manipulation in each country, see the text box on page 5 of the release booklet for Freedom House’s Nations in Transit 2011 survey. Russia’s gradual convergence with Central Asian governance standards is apparent in the Nations in Transit scoring data.)
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