Early in November, Dmitry Seniyavskiy, a trade union leader of the local branch of the Fuel and Energy Workers’ Union (FEWU) in the Karaganda Region was attacked and brutally beaten by a band of unidentified goons. FEWU leader Erlan Baltabai is under arrest on trumped-up accusations.
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Harvesting by hand remains the norm in the cotton fields of Turkmenistan’s southern Mary region. Despite reports in the state-run media of the widespread use of cotton harvesters, observers for Alternative Turkmenistan News failed to find any evidence of the machines out in the fields. Instead, the observers estimate that some 5,600 public sector workers – teachers, doctors, cleaners and others – are forced to go cotton picking every day in the region. In addition, many workers are taken cotton picking for extended periods of 10 days or a month.
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FAO marks World Antibiotic Awareness Week by calling on farmers to boost farm hygiene
Farmers have a vital role to play in stemming the spread of antimicrobial resistance among disease-causing pathogens, and can make a significant contribution simply by adopting good hygiene practices during their day-to-day farm operations.
Dmitry Senyavskii, leader of the Karaganda region industrial-tier fuel and energy trade union, was hospitalized. His injuries prevented him from meeting with a visiting international trade union delegation in the capital, Astana, three days later. Kazakh authorities initiated an investigation under the offense of “hooliganism,” but they should also examine the possibility that he was targeted because of his union activism.
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In some ways, there is nothing surprising about the videos that have been doing the rounds on social media in Uzbekistan. In one, farmers and local officials in a district near Tashkent, the capital, were made to stand in a watery ditch, heads bowed, to show contrition for failing to irrigate wheat fields properly. In another, officials were made to heave heavy clods of clay into the air repeatedly as punishment for allowing such impediments to farming to accumulate on land they are in charge of. Such ritual humiliation is rife in Uzbekistan, where nearly three decades of dictatorship under Islam Karimov, the strongman who died in 2016, bred a culture of bullying and subservience.
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Thousands of people in Turkmenistan are again being forced to pick cotton. The autumn harvest began, however, on a positive note, with the authorities taking steps to ensure that classes of schoolchildren are not sent to the fields. Some cotton pickers in the remote north of the country even received increased rates for their work early in the season, but this soon came to an end when forced laborers were brought in
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On the evening of October 25, the journalist found out that the hokim of the Kushkupir district was holding a meeting with the principals of schools and kindergartens and heads of rural medical institutions to discuss the mobilization of their employees to pick cotton. Ruzmetov immediately went to the hokimiyat and recorded the meeting on his mobile phone. When the hokim noticed the journalist’s presence, he interrupted the meeting.
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Teachers in Turkmenistan’s second largest city, Turkmenabat, are having to spend their fall break picking cotton. Schools closed on October 21st for the whole nine-day break for the first time in 15 years, and teachers and maintenance staff are having to work in the cotton fields every day.
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Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan granted the petition of FIDH member organization Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan challenging the lower court’s designation of reports by Bir Duino and Anti-Discrimination Centre (ADC) “Memorial” as “extremist” and banning the activities of ADC “Memorial”. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT) welcomes the decision, but calls on the judicial authorities to stop any judicial harassment against the two NGOs or censure of their reports upon reconsideration
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On October 1, 2018, the Cotton Campaign organized a protest in front of the United Nations in New York City. This protest demanded an end of forced labor in the Turkmen cotton industry and the immediate release of Gaspar Matalaev, a journalist detained for reporting on Turkmenistan’s forced labor practices.