Women in Politics: in honor of Benazir Bhutto

Yesterday Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister, was assassinated in Pakistan. She was one of the inspiring female politicians and working in a country full of conflict and actively speaking against severe abuse of women in her country. She was a person of great courage and thousands of women activists are mourning about this loss.  Benazir had the courage to speak against Shariya laws in an Islamic country and against an abusive political regime in Pakistan. It’s amazing that she had so many supporters, it is rather unusual for Pakistan.  She was the first woman ever to be in such a high position in an Islamic state.  

The new parliament: 90 seats, laptops and women.

There are comments in the blogosphere about the new parliament: now the parliament has more space, laptops and women…  Was just watching evening news and realized that the 22 women in parliament remain invisible. The journalists continue to do close-ups of men and interview them only. The one woman who was mentioned in the news was former head of Constitutional Court Cholpon Baekova.  I am so wishing for women who speak in the parliament. Can’t wait to see them in action.  Hoping that they will realize how important their presence is for us, other women. 22 out of 90.

On the mono-party parliament, there are ten committees and mostly Ak Jol party members in them.  The dominating party chose the new Prime Minister today. He is an ethnic Russian (I assume from the last name and looks) and a mathematician. President Bakiev approved the parliament’s choice. How surprising! Bakiev also said today that the political battles are over now and Kyrgyzstan is entering the new year with a new promising parliament.  

Kyrgyz Ombudsman asks politicians to swear on Koran

Just to discuss the hypocrisy of interpretation of the concept of human rights in Kyrgyzstan. I was just watching Tursunbai Bakir uulu (who was Kyrgyz ombudsman for five years) on an ‘analytical’ program. He was talking about how flawed the elections wear and saying that the people in power in Kyrgyzstan do not fear God and do not prepare for their second life after death. At one point of the interview he took out a tiny Koran out of his pocket and said that he always carries one with him. During his speech he has not mentioned human rights a single time, yet religon was indeed the main topic of conversation.  According to Bakir uulu,  Kyrgyz people need to have an ideology which will be rooted in religion to replace the old communism ideology and not to have ‘vacuum’ in their heads.  At some point he also said that he prays five times a day but does not even make his staff to do so in response to concern about his religiosity being an issue.

I can’t wait for the new ombudsman elections and actually need to ask around about the possibility of taking part in the elections process.

Activists peacefully protesting arrested in Bishkek

Just couple of days ago I wanted to join a protest called ‘I don’t believe’ in front of the Central Election Commission. The election process turned out very flawed and I do not believe that people voted in favor of a party they did not know much about. I did not go because of loads of work in the office and this very day found out that all the people who joined the protest were arrested. They received their sentences yesteday ranging from 500 soms (10 Euro) fines to 7 days incarceration. Strangely enough the wellknown activists received more drastic sentences. One of the people who is supposed to spend 7 days in jail is Mirsulzhan Namazaliev who is a youth activist and my fellow blogger.

These events reminded me about the arrests and bans on freedom of assembly during Akaev’s time. Is this history repeating?

Kurman Ait and a little bit about gender and Islam

Today is Kurman Bairam, a big Muslim religious holiday. It’s an official day off and according to the tradition you have to cook special ethnic meals today and visit your family and friends. Three people brought food from their homes to my organization’s office today. Meanwhile, I am thinking about gender and religion.  Just to give a glimpse of what visual images I have of Islam.  The picture shows a square full of praying men, this is the usual start of Muslim religious holidays in Kyrgyzstan. Women are not supposed to pray close to men. One of the reasons I know of is that the kneeling may expose parts of women’s bodies (because women are supposed to cover their ‘seductive’ ‘bodies completely, yet it does not save them from ‘revealing’ when they kneel as they are not supposed to wear trousers). 

I am not a Muslim woman and I do not know how it feels not to be able to attend a funeral ceremony at the cemetery or pray at the same square with men on a religious holiday. What I do know is that some intepretations of Islam bring enournous harm to women. Read an article today about sexual relations in Iran, it is scary. 12-year-old women being married, rape in marriage being a common thing and of course a taboo issue. To name some other ways to control women’s bodies: virginity testing in state clinics, stoning for alleged adultery, honor killings of women who allegedly had premarital sex by their families, death sentence for same-sex affection.

It scares me that I see more women in Kyrgyzstan following religious traditions. More women wear head scarves, more men come to the square to pray on religious holidays, some state leaders are openly supported by states with Sharia law.  I do not want women in Kyrgyzstan to experience what their sisters go through in Iran. I would not wish anyone to go through a virginity check or a rape.

Women and Youth party receives the least number of votes

Yesterday’s elections proved yet another point: the way Kyrgyz society is structured does not allow for diversity in the parliament. One pro-presidential party winning the elections with 47,43% of the votes (at least not 70%) and aiming at one-party parliament.  So all-male system is now changing to one-party system with hopefully some representation of women, youth and non-Kyrgyz ethnic groups. As expected the party called the ’New Power’ (Novaya Sila) won as little as 0,23% (a little bit over 4000) of the votes. The New Power included mostly women and young people and was not able to invest into a large-scale campaign involving mobile phone operators or popular artists. I don’t have their poster on the wall.

Somebody told me today that Kyrgyzstan is not ready for a party like that. Was it ready for a party established two months before the elections and directly linked to the president? By the way, the president himself said today that the parliament ‘will not be the same as the previous one despite the outcome of the elections’. He meant women, youth and different ethnic groups will be represented. 

a reported rape case

Sexual violence is a taboo issue, I started writing about it in October and was trying to collect information about it. As of now I still have not found available services for survivors.  From personal conversations I know that quite a few women have been raped either by strangers or boyfriends or in marriage, yet the rapes go unreported. I personally know a dozen of women who were raped at some point of their lives, some by relatives. Only one of this dozen of cases was reported to the police with criminal charges following. I know a woman who was raped during the days of revolution by the looters. Given my in a way ‘privileged’ circle of communication, I would assume that there is a lot more out there.

What made me think about the issue today is the reported case of alleged rape by 41-year-old father of his 19-year-old daughter. The Ministry of Interior says that the father has been continuously drunk and raping his daughter since September 2007. 

Parliamentary Elections 2007: how did the day go?

The election day process did not touch me directly as I was on my way to Bishkek and after a 6-hour delay in Moscow airport due to heavy fog in Bishkek.  But I’ve been calling/msning people who were actively involved in documenting the process.  So far a lot of people were not able to cast their vote due to not being registered with their election constituency. It took hours to go to court and get their constitutional right secured. One of neweurasia active bloggers who is also a youth liberal activist spent couple of hours trying to get to vote as well.  

I also got feedback from interpreters working with the OSCE monitoring mission in Kara-Balta. As I am writing this post, some of them are pressued by the local election committees not to translate everything that is happening during the ballot count.

The last parliamentary elections brought about a drastic change in power and provided Kyrgyzstan with same-sex parliament (as it is said in Russian).  These elections came unexpected but brought about a ‘democratic’ quota which should ensure representation. The elections as usual (see reports from 1995, 2000, 2005) went with a lot of violations, yet few election results will be questioned. I would say that it’s going to be some 70-80% voting for Ak Jol and then 5-10 % for other parties with SDPK, ArNamys, Ata Meken being in top 3 following Ak Jol. Will this mean that women/young people/non-Kyrgyz make it to parliament and will have a significant representation? We will see. The Russian elections showed that Put(t)in(g) your name on the ballot and winning a seat does not mean that a person actually counted on being in the parliament. Maybe putting names of the pop stars on the ballots will help win elections… Dima Bilan for Ak Jol, for example. Interesting ways to get democratic decision-making to work.

Witch-hunting: Criminal case against Edil Baisalov

Catholic countries eliminate the history of the catholic church’s fight against women aka witch-hunting and inquisition. Hunting down people whom the dominating structures cannot explain or understand is a basis of authoritarian and patriarchical power. Right now Kyrgyz authorities started a witch hunt for Edil Baisalov who has not been writing on his blog since 4 December and is accused of making confidential ballot forms public by publishing them on his blog. The news agencies are dissemintating information about Baisalov trip to Almaty as a sign of escaping the justice.  Head of Kyrgyz state human rights commission Tursunbek Akunov’s reacted particularly strange. He said that ‘real patriots do not leave the country in times like this’.   Tursunbek used to have Baisalov’s solidarity when he was on hunger strike in his opposition times.  There are also reactions from political parties supporting the decision of Central Election Commission to deregister Baisalov and ask his party to pay for the 2 million destroyed ballots.

24.kg news agency is full of ‘news’ citing anonymous sources in Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan about Baisalov leaving Kyrgyzstan to ask for asylum in the embassies of different countries.  

Edil himself is quoted by Akipress saying that he went to Almaty to spend time with his friends over the weekend.  

Mistrust in Kyrgyz Central Election Commission

The Cental Election Commission continues its crusade for limiting the number of potential MPs. Some parties remain loyal to the ‘big sister’ and some unite with NGOs to express their mistrust in Commission’s actions.  Some parties support CEC in its decision to deregister Edil Baisalov an action that only a court may make decisions about).

It’s a pity that the system remains the same. Clon blogs, new presidential parties with 90% supporting them, deregistering candidates half way through, show trials. Will the new parliament (those who make it) shake up the system?