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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 22
31 August - 6 September 2001


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Trial of foreign aid workers opens in Kabul
AFGHANISTAN: Deported Afghan refugees arrive in Jalalabad
AFGHANISTAN: Voluntary repatriation from Pakistan increasing
AFGHANISTAN: Closure of NGOs blow to visually disabled
PAKISTAN: UNHCR assured of no more deportations
PAKISTAN: Polio mobile teams hampered by religious groups
KYRGYZSTAN: Four detained for handing out Islamic literature
TAJIKISTAN: Struggle to assist Pyandzh river refugees
UZBEKISTAN: President proposes reduction of death-penalty crimes
KAZAKHSTAN: Former premier on trial


AFGHANISTAN: Trial of foreign aid workers opens in Kabul

The trial of eight foreign aid workers accused of preaching Christianity
opened in Kabul on Tuesday behind closed doors without the defendants
being present, the BBC reported. Despite earlier assurances from the
Taliban that the trial would be open, the diplomats representing the
defendants' countries have been denied access to and information about
court proceedings.

On Wednesday the diplomats were turned away from the Supreme Court and
prevented from meeting Chief Justice Nur Mohammad Saqib.  "We are greatly
disturbed by the fact that the media has all the access [to information]
and that the diplomats and families are being excluded,"  a spokesman from
the German embassy in Islamabad told IRIN on Thursday. He added that this
was "contrary to all international practice". He dismissed as rumours
media reports which quoted Saqib saying that he would not rule out the
death sentence for the aid workers.

Saqib was quoted by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islam press agency as saying
that the eight foreigners would be sentenced according to Islamic law, and
depending on which laws they were found to have broken, punishment by
hanging could be resorted to. However, he also said the defendants would
be allowed to hire lawyers if they wished.

The accused face a number of charges, but the main one they will be tried
on is the preaching of a banned religion. Meanwhile, AP reported on
Wednesday that the Taliban has set up a commission to monitor the
operations of NGOs in Afghanistan. The commission, which includes
representatives from the religious police, has been formed to "prevent
anti-Islamic activities of international aid organisations".

AFGHANISTAN: Deported Afghan refugees arrive in Jalalabad

Twenty-eight Afghan families deported by the Pakistani authorities last
week were seeking assistance in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad,
UNHCR officials there confirmed on 30 August. "Some of the family members
of the group came to see me today, but at the moment we are not in a
position to assist them," Hassan Mohmoud, a UNHCR officer in Jalalabad,
told IRIN.  This was the first time Pakistan has deported whole families
back to Afghanistan, an action strongly condemned by the UN agency. The
families, numbering 132 people, are mainly ethnic Tajiks from Sangcharak
District in Afghanistan's northern Sar-e Pol Province. Deportations
carried out since last November by the Pakistani authorities have mainly
been confined to Afghan males.

On 31 August, UNHCR officials in Pakistan announced a suspension of
refugee-screening in protest against the deportations, citing the incident
as a breach of an agreement signed on 2 August between Islamabad and the
UN agency. [For full report go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/afghanistan/20010831.phtml]

AFGHANISTAN: Voluntary repatriation from Pakistan increasing

UNHCR officials in the eastern city of Jalalabad have reported record
numbers of Afghans arriving as part of the agency's voluntary repatriation
programme. Last Wednesday 1,617 Afghan returnees were received, the
largest number in a single day so far. "Compared to the same period last
year, the number of repatriated is much higher now," Hassan Mohmoud, the
UNHCR officer in charge in Jalalabad, told IRIN on Thursday.

The programme, which began on 7 July, has facilitated the return of almost
14,000 Afghans to date from Pakistan's North West Frontier Province
(NWFP). Many of the returnees travel through the eastern province of
Nangarhar, stopping at the UNHCR's encashment centre in Jalalabad, where
they are registered and given a repatriation package of US $90 in cash,
150 kg of wheat and one plastic sheeting per family before proceeding to
their villages. [For full report go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/afghanistan/20010830a.phtml]

AFGHANISTAN: Closure of NGOs a blow to visually disabled

Two Christian aid agencies were ordered to close by the Taliban on 31
August, and expatriate staff given 72 hours to leave the country, the BBC
reported. The closures of the International Assistance Mission (IAM) and
Serve came just weeks after the arrests of 24 aid workers for allegedly
proselytising. "These two organisations represent a huge body of
experience, and their loss will be a great one for the visually disabled,"
Peter Coleridge, programme manager for the Comprehensive Disabled Afghan
Programme (CDAP), based in Islamabad, told IRIN on Monday.

IAM had been at the forefront of eye care in Afghanistan for the past 34
years, and last year performed almost 10,000 eye operations, half of which
were for cataracts - a curable cause of blindness. "There are between
20,000 and 40,000 people in Afghanistan suffering from cataracts which
could be treated," Tim Mindle, IAM health coordinator, told IRIN in a
recent interview in Kabul. Serve, a smaller organisation, concentrated its
activity on caring for the blind and disabled.

On 2 September, Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Motawakkil said the
Taliban had found evidence that the two closed aid agencies had been
involved in preaching Christianity. Following the expulsion order given to
non-Afghan workers on 31 August, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the
Taliban to assure the security and freedom to operate of all humanitarian
personnel in Afghanistan in accordance with international law.

PAKISTAN: UNHCR assured of no more deportations

UNHCR resumed its screening programme of Afghan refugees on Monday after
receiving assurances from Pakistani officials that no more deportations
would be carried out. UNHCR had suspended the exercise last week after 28
Afghan families from the makeshift camp of Jalozai, in the NWFP were
deported by provincial authorities to Afghanistan. "We have reassured
UNHCR that there will be no such deportations in the future," the joint
secretary of Pakistani government's States and Frontiers Regions
department, Sahibzada Mohammed Khan, told IRIN on Tuesday.

The deported Afghans were told by Pakistani officials that they were being
taken to another camp in Pakistan, but were in fact taken to the border
and handed over to Taliban authorities, the UN said. When asked why the
Afghans were deported, Khan said the move had been in response to
"directives from the NWFP governor, Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah". UNHCR and
Pakistan reached an agreement to establish a joint screening programme on
2 August under which Afghans found to be in need of protection would be
granted temporary legal status to reside in Pakistan.  [For full report go
to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/pakistan/20010905.phtml]

PAKISTAN: Polio mobile teams hampered by religious groups

The work of mobile polio vaccination teams operating in the NWFP has been
hampered by the mistaken belief of religious groups in the area that they
are promoting contraception, which they consider un-Islamic, a UN official
told IRIN on Monday. "This concerns us enormously, as they are turning
teams away, leaving the children vulnerable," UNICEF's project officer for
health and nutrition in the provincial capital, Peshawar, Dr Suleman Daud
Khan, said.

UNICEF plans to send 1,400 mobile teams to carry out six rounds of polio
immunisation in areas of the NWFP this year in collaboration with the WHO
and local health officials. Teams were turned away from villages in Bannu
and Lakki Marwat due to "strong religious sentiment", Khan said. UNICEF is
now trying to focus on raising awareness in these areas of the NWFP on the
importance of immunisation if the organisation is to reach its target of
declaring Pakistan polio free by 2003. [For full report go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/pakistan/20010905a.phtml]

KYRGYZSTAN: Four detained for handing out Islamic literature

Four alleged members of a banned Islamic party, Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation
Party) were detained on Monday for handing out extremist literature in
Kyrgyzstan, AP reported. The party is one of two Islamic groups banned by
the Kyrgyz authorities, which assert that its members incite ethnic
tension. Three of those detained were found handing out extremist party
leaflets in the Jalal-Abad District, and another in the town of Batken,
according to an interior ministry spokesman, Dzholdoshbek Buzurmankulov.
The Hizb ut-Tahrir party has been active in several predominantly Muslim
former Soviet republics.

TAJIKISTAN: Struggle to assist Pyandzh river refugees

WFP has begun another round of food distribution to Afghan refugees
stranded for the past 10 months on flood plains of the Pyandzh river on
the Tajik-Afghan border. "We try to give as much food as possible each
time we go there, as there is difficulty in getting access to the area,"
Khaled Mansour, WFP's regional public affairs spokesman in Islamabad, told
IRIN on 31 August.

The French NGO Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) is
helping AFP carry out the distribution of another 23 tm of food, which
will last 1,500 people for one month. Since February last year, AFP has
been able to supply the refugees with 65 tm of food.  Since last October,
over 80,000 people have been displaced because of fighting in
Afghanistan's northeastern Takhar and Badakhshan provinces, including some
10,000 Afghans, who had moved to the border area on the Pyandzh.

[For full report go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/tajikistan/20010831.phtml]

UZBEKISTAN: President proposes reduction of death-penalty crimes

Uzbek President Islam Karimov has proposed a reduction in the number of
crimes in Uzbekistan punishable by death, 'The Times of Central Asia'
reported on 31 August. Karimov made the proposals, which are part of the
ongoing reform of the country's judicial system, while speaking at a
parliamentary session on 29 August. At present there are eight articles in
the criminal code which carry the death sentence, and Karimov would like
to see the number reduced to four. Crimes which would still be punishable
by death include aggression, genocide and terrorism. The fourth was listed
by the president as premeditated murder.

KAZAKHSTAN: Former premier on trial

Kazakhstan's former prime minister, Akejan Kajegeldin, is being tried in
absentia on charges which include abuse of power, tax evasion, illegal
possession of arms and taking bribes while in office, according to a
report in 'The Times of Central Asia' on 2 September. If found guilty "of
crimes against the people" he faces a possible sentence of 12 years in
prison and confiscation of his property.

Kajegeldin, who headed the Kazakh government from 1994 to 1997, has
refused to attend the hearing, and has taken refuge abroad since falling
out of favour with President Nursultan Abish-uly Nazarbayev. Kajegeldin
issued a statement through the headquarters of his Republican People's
Party in Almaty in which he denied all charges against him, and said the
trial, which opened on 15 August was politically motivated. The trial is
regarded by some observers as an attempt to destroy the political career
of the former prime minister, who became an effective leader of the
political opposition. Kajegeldin was forced to resign in 1997.

Islamabad, 6 September 2001


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