more about "Ложь и лицемерие Путина", posted with vodpod
01
Nov
09
Ложь и лицемерие Путина
by TOL
2 October 2009
Mikheil Saakashvili can rest assured that the new, critical report on Georgia’s role in the Ossetian war will have almost no domestic repercussions.
Usually assessments of wars are left for the history books after scholars have pored over musty documents and questioned aging officials on who did what, how, and why. And of course, ascertained blame.
This week, however, a 1,000-page report on the 2008 Georgian-Russian war was issued under European Union auspices. The report’s authors aimed to dig deeper than any previous inquiry and figure out, as definitively and independently as possible, what happened during those five fateful days. They essentially damn both sides. Russia had set the stage for the conflict with “years of provocations, mutual accusations, military and political threats and acts of violence,” and had then acted with force and aggression incompatible with the real threat to its peacekeepers, including illegal excursions into undisputed Georgian territory. Georgia had, however, fired the war’s first shots, shelling South Ossetia – an unjustified act according to international law because of the failure to substantiate proof of a real Russian invasion.
In a democracy, such as Georgia purports to be, a conclusion like that might be fatal for the sitting president who ordered those shots, especially coupled with the disastrous results: the predictable over-reaction of Russia, the lack of military intervention from the West, and the loss of a further chunk of this small country’s territory.
Continue reading ‘The War – Our Fault? Their Fault? Who Cares?’
Dagestan’s internal political clashes spill over into Moscow’s streets further undermining stability in the republic
The head of politically important and volatile Khasvyurt district of Dagestan Alimsoltan Alkhamatov was gunned down in Moscow on September 27. The Moscow police claimed to have identified the killers, arrested one crime accomplice and seized their weapons. Alkhamatov had allegedly survived two or three previous attempts on his life (Interfax, RIA-Novosti, September 28, 2009). An hour earlier, one of the top policemen, deputy head of criminal investigations department in Dagestani police, Alimsoltan Atuev had been killed in Dagestan (RIA-Novosti, September 27, 2009).
These events caused a stir in both Dagestan and Moscow to the extent, that president Medvedev telephoned head of Dagestan Mukhu Aliev, offering him any assistance he needed. Aliev pleaded: “Endowing the crime with political and ethnic colors is not permissible” (riadagestan.ru, September 28, 2009). However, it is exactly the political and ethnic rivalries in Dagestan, that are widely believed to have resulted in the killing of Khasavyurt district head. Also the police did not exclude that the killing of a top policeman in Dagestan might be connected to the killing of Khasvyurt’s administrator (RIA-Novosti, September 28). Continue reading ‘Dagestan rivalries burst out in Moscow’
23
Sep
09
Europe must stand up for Georgia
Open letter: Twenty years after half of Europe was freed, a new wall is being built – across Georgia, say Vaclav Havel and others
Open letter
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 September 2009 00.05 BST
Number of good points, but I’m afraid, the authors miss the fact, that the situation in Georgia has a matreshka-like structure. Yes, Russian government has tried to undermine Georgia’s independence, but Georgian government persistently mistreated Ossetian people. Besides, however, the authors think that only democratic countries have the right to unilaterally redraw borders of smaller countries (see Kosovo), then they could as well say, that all countries are equal, but some, i.e. democratic ones are more equal, that the others.
Not only the authors demonstrate a perverted understanding of democracy, but also deep impracticality, they seem to believe in “territories” and “territorial integrity”, rather than in people, that actually live on those territories.
Civil.Ge, Georgia Daily News Online | He said some in Europe “irritated” with Georgia’s resistance “to imperialistic threat.”
via Civil.Ge | Saakashvili: Georgia Confronts ‘Imperialist Monster’ .
This is just amazing..I can understand everything, president Saakashvili wants to rally whole world to reclaim the territories he finally lost (even though it was not him who initiated the loss). But I don’t understand, how he can claim that the events in Georgia “are having serious influence on the world political order”. This is just so blatant bragging, that I don’t even know, for whom it is said. Does he think, the world will turn upside down, if the government in Georgia fails?
Google books: Tome raider | The Economist
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The Merits of Complexity
by Valery Dzutsev
3 September 2009
The case of Dagestan offers hints for how the beleaguered North Caucasus media can begin asserting themselves.
Annoyed by a certain article in the newspaper, the republican government minister upbraided the editor in chief: “Your paper receives money from the government and you must obey what government officials tell you.” The editor replied, “But Mr. Minister, we receive money not from your personal pocket but from the budget, which belongs to all the republic’s people. So we are trying to do what is good for the whole republic.”
The editor of a major weekly paper in Dagestan told me this story several years ago. This kind of dialogue between a journalist and an official could take place only in Dagestan among the Russian North Caucasus republics. The story is one of many anecdotal reports that confirm the unusual – for the North Caucasus – robustness of media in the republic. Dagestan, the region’s most ethnically diverse and populous autonomous republic, happens also to enjoy a comparatively free media arena in this region where the media are generally underdeveloped and under tight state control.
full text at
http://www.tol.cz/
more about "Azeri youth activists jailed", posted with vodpod
This is just outrageous, the youth activists’ jokes were so innocent, that I can’t believe Azeri government could do that. I think, it shows, that the government in Azerbaijan is quickly sliding into the worst category of unfree countries.
New York, August 27, 2009—Azerbaijani authorities should drop all charges against video bloggers who satirized the government, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Emin Milli, 30, who runs an online video blog known as ANTV, and Adnan Hajizade, 26, a video blogger and coordinator of the Azerbaijani youth movement Ol! (Yes!), posted video sketches that criticized government policies and social issues. They interviewed local residents and posted their opinions online, sharing them through networking sites YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and others. Among issues discussed on their blogs were education, corruption, and the poor infrastructure in Azerbaijan, according to multiple news reports and CPJ sources.
Baku police detained Milli and Hajizade on July 8, after the bloggers reported that they had been physically attacked at a local restaurant. Milli and Hajizade were debating politics with friends when two unknown men interrupted their conversation and started a brawl, they said. When the bloggers went to report the incident, they were arrested for “hooliganism”—a criminal charge that carries up to five years in jail. The two have been in custody since they were initially detained. A second charge, “inflicting minor bodily harm,” was added on Monday. If convicted on both charges, the bloggers face up to seven years in prison. A trial is scheduled to start on September 4 at the Sabail District Court in Baku.
“These charges against Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade are politicized—we call on Azerbaijani authorities to release them immediately,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. “Staging provocations has become a favored method to silence independent voices in Azerbaijan.”
Both domestic and international rights groups have condemned the arrest of Milli and Hajizade as staged by authorities in retaliation for their blogs’ critical content. In a number of entries, Milli and Hajizade interviewed local residents and filmed street gatherings in protest of official policies. According to multiple sources, a satirical video the bloggers produced and posted on YouTube in late June was used as a pretext to incarcerate them. The video criticized Azerbaijan’s alleged import of donkeys from abroad at excessively high prices. The video sketch depicts a pseudo press conference, at which Hajizade, wearing a donkey suit, talks to a group of Azerbaijani “journalists”; Milli reportedly filmed.
Two days after Milli and Hajizade went to report the Baku restaurant incident, the Sabail District Court sentenced them to a two-month preliminary detention in a closed hearing, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
In a similar scenario, Genimet Zakhidov, the prominent editor of the pro-opposition daily Azadlyg (Freedom), was detained in November 2007 and sentenced to four years in prison in March 2008 for “hooliganism and causing minor bodily harm.” Police arrested Zakhidov after a man and woman staged a brawl on the street near his Baku office.
CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information visit www.cpj.org.
