European Parliament members have strongly condemned ongoing repression by the authorities of Tajikistan against journalists, activists and protesters in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO). A history of violence escalated extending several years, following confrontational events in November 2021 and May 2022 where dozens of civilians were killed.

The European Parliament has since passed a resolution on 7 July 2022. European deputies called on the Tajik government to “put an end to repression against the residents of GBAO”.

“We call on the government of Tajikistan to stop persecuting protesters, independent journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers and civil society activists, allowing them to carry out their work freely and without the fear of losing their lives.”

Deputies also called on Tajik authorities to immediately release detained activists and journalists, namely Ulfathonim Mamadshoeva, Daleri Imomali, Abdullo Gurbati, Manuchehr Kholiknazarov, Faromuz Irgashov, Khursand Mamadshoev, Chorshanbe Chorshanbiev and Amriddin Alovatshoev.

The crackdown by Tajik security forces in Rushan on May 18, 2022 turned into a tragedy with numerous casualties among protesters. Local witnesses told of snipers and military helicopters firing live ammunition at civilians, killing at least 40. A violent dispersal in Khorog left many protesters dead and some wounded.

The firm resolution of the European Parliament asserts the collective expression of concern about “deterioration of the human rights situation” in GBAO. May 14, 2022 saw a protest in Khorog, the capital of GBAO, home to the Pamiri people. About 1,000 Pamiri citizens had gathered to peacefully demand the resignation of regional leader Alisher Mirzonabatov, known locally as “The Butcher of the Pamir.” They also demanded an effective investigation into the murder by security forces of Gulbidin Ziyobekov in November 2021.

The authorities rejected these demands and delivered an ultimatum, that if demonstrators did not disperse by 4 p.m. on 16 May 2022, they would be removed by force.

On 16 May 2022, government authorities cut off all internet access and shut down the mobile phone network over GBAO. This halt on the internet continued on until the end of June 2022, resulted in difficulties in obtaining verified information and news out of this region during that period. However, there were posts on social media based on eyewitness reports, describing how security forces arbitrarily broke into homes and ransacked them, seized mobile phones and arbitrarily detaining residents. There are also allegations of torture and extra-judicial executions of Pamiris detained during the crackdown.

Reports said that President Emomali Rahmon’s security forces attacked the civilians with tear gas grenades and this continued till 17 May 2022. On 18 May, the Ministry of the Interior announced that it would carry out an “anti-terrorist operation” in Rushan District, where mobile, landline, and internet communication was subsequently cut, and people were denied the right to enter or leave the area under occupation.

Violence by the regime escalated when residents attempted to block the road to Khorog with their cars, to prevent a military convoy from entering the city. The crackdown in Rushan turned into a tragedy, with numerous casualties among protesters. Local witnesses told of snipers and military helicopters firing live ammunition at civilians, killing at least 40. A violent dispersal in Khorog left many protesters dead and some wounded.

The culmination of the event was the assassination of Mamadbokir Mamadbokirov, an influential local leader and a hero standing against Rahmon’s authoritarian regime. He was shot dead by government security forces on 22 May 2022.

The European Parliament also warned Tajikistan that “the fight against terrorism and violent extremism must not be used as a pretext to suppress the opposition.” It reiterated that “those who were arbitrarily detained be released immediately and all charges against them dropped.”

However, experts are of the opinion that consideration of the issue of the situation in GBAO and the adoption by the European Parliament of a resolution on this issue will in no way have any effect on the actions of Tajik authorities toward this autonomous region. Nearly a year has passed, with no significant response by Tajik authorities to the resolution of the European Parliament. The key question: will the EU act like “a snow leopard” by demanding Tajik authorities comply with the resolutions that have been handed down, or will they be seen as “paper tigers” keeping quiet about the brutal, illegal and inhumane acts by that country?

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Former Vice-President of the European Parliament Eva Kaili – one of the key figures implicated in the Qatargate corruption scandal – will resume her parliamentary duties next week, Belga News Agency reports.

The news follows the 44-year-old Greek MEP’s release from house arrest on Thursday, where she had remained since mid-April.

“Next week, she will be in the European Parliament to carry out her duties,” Kaili’s lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, told the Greek television channel Skai on Friday.

Dimitrakopoulos also noted that his client will ask Parliament to determine whether her arrest and subsequent incarceration violated her rights as an MEP. He added that Kaili “thinks she will be acquitted… if the case goes to trial.”

Nothing out of the ordinary?

Kaili was arrested on 9 December last year on suspicion of accepting bribes and other favours from the Qatari and Moroccan Governments in exchange for her support for pro-Qatari and pro-Moroccan legislation. She denies any involvement in the scandal.

Upon her arrest, federal investigators discovered €150,000 in cash at Kaili’s Brussels apartment. A further €600,000 was found in a suitcase carried by Kaili’s father as he was leaving a luxury hotel in downtown Brussels.

Following the revelations, Kaili was stripped of her position as Vice-President and expelled from her centre-left parliamentary group, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

Kaili’s partner, Francesco Giorgi, with whom Kaili has a young child, has already confessed to accepting bribes, although he denies that Kaili is guilty of any wrongdoing.

In addition to his links to Kaili, Giorgi is a close associate of two other key figures implicated in the scandal. At the time of his arrest with Kaili on 9 December, Giorgi was working as a parliamentary assistant to Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino (S&D), who has since been placed under house arrest in Italy.

Giorgi also previously worked as an advisor to Italian former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri (S&D) who, like Giorgi, has already confessed to accepting bribes.

During his interview on Greek TV, Dimitrakopoulos claimed that Panzeri was the “mastermind” behind the corruption scheme and that Kaili’s fingerprints had not been found on any money seized by the Belgian authorities.

Source: Brussels Times

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In exile the oligarch has assiduously courted European politicians to promote his defence

This tawdry scandal has focused on claims that Qatar funded an influence operation in the European parliament which resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of MEPs and a former vice-president. Over €1.5 million in cash has since been discovered stashed away in flats, offices, and hotel rooms across Brussels, France and Italy. The payments were allegedly part of a lobbying operation to bolster Qatar’s reputation and counter scrutiny during the World Cup of its human rights record. It is a devastating blow to the EU’s credibility. 

The investigation is focusing on the parliament’s human rights sub-committee which Panzeri was chairman of. Even though it is not a legislative body, the committee shines an influential spotlight on human rights abuses by countries outside the EU which makes it an ideal target for lobbying by international kleptocrats. 

And like Qatar, oligarchs have used Europe as a vehicle for rehabilitating their reputation and diverting attention away from allegations of criminality and controversy. A case in point is the Kazakh oligarch fugitive Mukhtar Ablyazov who last month was found guilty of a $218 million fraud in a US court and has been on the run from the UK courts since 2012. He was convicted in the UK of lying under oath about owning a London mansion, forging documents and contempt of court. He had been accused of embezzling $6 billion from Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank as chairman by channelling funds to thousands of offshore companies of which he was the beneficiary.  

Ablyazov fled to London, bought several properties and was sued by BTA bank for fraud. He lived a lavish lifestyle, living in a nine-bedroom mansion with an indoor swimming pool on Bishops Avenue, Hampstead, and a 100-acre estate on the edge of Windsor Great Park. But he declined to disclose details of his assets to the High Court and in 2012 was found guilty of contempt of court. ‘It is difficult to imagine a party to commercial litigation who has acted with more cynicism, opportunism and deviousness towards court orders than Mr Ablyazov’, declared Lord Justice Maurice Kay. 

An arrest warrant was issued against the oligarch who was sentenced to 22 months in jail for contempt of court. But just before the judgment was issued Ablyazov jumped out of a hotel room window, caught a coach from Victoria down to Dover and escaped to France by ferry. In his absence the High Court ordered Ablyazov to pay £1.02 billion and in 2019 issued a second arrest warrant. He was jailed in France but obtained political asylum. 

In exile the oligarch has assiduously courted European politicians to promote his defence that the fraud allegations are politically motivated because he was a vocal opponent of the Kazakhstan regime. One of his most diligent lawyers and active supporters was Panzeri who promoted Ablyazov’s agenda. Multiple parliamentary motions condemned the persecution of ‘dissidents’ and one even called for the protection of Ablyazov himself.   

Panzeri worked closely with NGOs like the Brussels-based Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF) which campaigns against human rights abuses. The MEP hosted events, made introductions and acted as a de facto lobbyist for Ablyazov. Despite the overwhelming evidence against Ablyazov, the NGO remains a staunch supporter of the oligarch. ‘ODF has included Ablyazov within our advocacy of defending thousands of victims of political persecution in Kazakhstan’, a spokesperson told me. ‘ODF defended Ablyazov, as well as his family members and associates between 2013 and 2016, at a time when Kazakhstan, through Russia and Ukraine, prosecuted dozens of people in politically motivated cases.’ 

The Kazakh oligarch claims the fraud and money laundering allegations are ‘the culmination of the campaign by former President Nazarbayev and his allies to wrest ownership and control of BTA bank from (Ablyazov)’. His lawyers stated he fled London because of ‘a death threat’ and was ‘constantly in fear of his life’ by Kazakh intelligence agents.  

Ablyazov remains in exile in France. But his luck appears to be running out. Last month he lost his appeal regarding his asylum status. Characteristically he appealed again and is allowed to stay in the country until the final ruling. ‘In the Judgement of CNDA (French Asylum court), Mr Ablyazov was recognised as a politically prosecuted person as part of his fight to bring democracy to Kazakhstan’, his lawyer Karim Beylouni told me. 

But the oligarch also potentially faces an ongoing criminal investigation in France for fraud. The prosecutors and BTA bank have filed an appeal with the Supreme Court after a court ruled the statute of limitation has expired. ‘Ablyazov bankrupted one of Kazakhstan’s biggest banks by committing one of the largest frauds in modern history, amounting to at least $7.5 billion’, Elena Fedorova, a BTA bank lawyer, told me. The appeal will be heard before June of this year. 

Today the claim against Ablyazov remains the biggest civil fraud case in British legal history. Despite his conviction for contempt of court and multiple offences, the prosecuting authorities have been remarkably complacent. The Crown Prosecution Service reviewed the evidence and refused to act. In 2019, after the second arrest warrant was issued, the UK National Crime Agency had access to all the files but declined to investigate because of ‘insufficient resources’. His extradition to face justice looks very unlikely.  

Meanwhile, Ablyazov’s cunning ploy of using political persecution as a diversionary tactic has been effective and the European parliament has been a willing accomplice. But his close relationship with one of the main suspects in this latest criminal investigation may return to haunt him.  

Source: The Spectator

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Brussels (22/2 – 50)

The European Union’s plan to implement the EU Hybrid Toolbox (EUHT), which was launched last year, has received supports from the EU Parliament and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The EUHT was launched in June 2022 with the intention to gather all civilian and military instruments that can be employed to counter hybrid threats. Hybrid threats combine military and non-military as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyber-attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular armed groups and use of regular forces.

In 2016, the elections in the United States were manipulated by a foreign state actor through targeted propaganda and the leaking of hacked material that compromised one of the presidential candidates. In the same year, the British referendum on remaining in the European Union was also targeted by sophisticated propaganda efforts.

The recent European Parliament resolution supports the implementation of the common security and defence policy – annual report 2022, was issued on January 18. The parliament meeting’s notes state that there is a new urgency to boosting EU security and defence capabilities, including building on the unprecedented support for Ukraine which was most notably through the European Peace Facility (EPF) and ensuring complementarity with NATO. The European Parliament noted that on December 12, 2022, the Foreign Affairs Council decided to increase the overall financial ceiling of the EPF by EUR 2 billion in 2023, with the possibility of a further increase at a later stage.

The EU Council has initially intended to have the EUHT operationalization by the end of 2022 as the conflict in Ukraine demonstrated the importance of having a coordinated reaction capability to counter hybrid campaigns and is likely to provide the momentum to bring the development of the EUHT to fruition.

Russia’s hybrid aggression makes it necessary to design the defence of a free Europe in a comprehensive and multifaceted manner incorporating all critical areas, from the improvement of traditional military capacities to the protection of critical civilian infrastructure, supply chains and energy facilities, as well as the active fight against disinformation and cybersecurity threats. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has also underlined the lack of investment in security and defence in numerous EU and NATO Member States.

Having deployed thousands of additional defensive land, air, and maritime forces to its eastern flank, NATO also supports the issuance of the EU Hybrid Toolbox, stating that its allies face threats and challenges from both state and non-state actors who use hybrid activities to target political institutions, influence public opinion and undermine the security of NATO citizens. NATO is also helping to coordinate requests for assistance on behalf of Ukraine, where the explosion damaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines was a targeted attack against the EU’s critical infrastructure.

NATO cited that hybrid methods of warfare, including propaganda, deception, sabotage and other non-military tactics, have been used to destabilize adversaries. However, in the recent years, the attacks have seen more speed, scale and intensity, due to the rapid technological change and global interconnectivity.

The EU already have many options for the EU Hybrid Toolbox implementation, such as the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox, but the main challenge will be to enable a fast and coherent response. The EU Hybrid Toolbox would allow hybrid threats to be dealt with in a coordinated fashion with the full force of the EU’s power as soon as possible rather than when they have turned into a full-fledged crisis. This would also position the EU more strongly as a global partner for countering attacks on the international order.

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