Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia opposition groups in Kazakhstan staged their first protest ahead of presidential polls slated for 4 December. Around 1,000 opposition activists and supporters rallied in a district of the commercial capital of Almaty on Monday, demanding an investigation into the killing the weekend previously of Zamanbek Nurkadilov, a former government minister and outspoken critic of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, AP reported, citing a statement from the opposition 'For a Fair Kazakhstan' (FFK) alliance. Nurkadilov, an alliance supporter, was found dead in his Almaty home with three gunshot wounds. Opposition leaders allege that the killing was politically motivated. The leader of the FFK alliance - Zharmakhan Tuyakbai - is seen as the main challenger to long time ruler Nazarbayev. Demarcation of the Kazakh-Turkmen border has kicked off, the Kazakh media reported on Tuesday. The first deputy director of the Kazakh Border Service, Maj-Gen Khusain Berkaliyev and the head of the State Border Service of Turkmenistan, Lt-Gen Orazberdi Soltanov, attended the ceremony to put up the first border sign between the two former Soviet republics. Kazakhstan ratified an agreement with Turkmenistan on delimitation and demarcation of their 400km border in 2003. In Turkmenistan, many former convicts released following a recent amnesty have ended up on the streets begging, the Vienna-based Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights said on Monday. Following the mass amnesty recently declared in the country, the number of destitute rapidly increased in major cities, the group claimed. Amnesties in Central Asia's most reclusive state take places almost every year, with thousands of convicts released from the penitentiary system. Staying in Turkmenistan, doctors in that country must now pledge allegiance to their president instead of taking the traditional Hippocratic oath, AFP reported on Tuesday, citing the state media. The doctors must kneel solemnly and make a pledge to President Saparmurat Niyazov and his spiritual guide book the Rukhnama, the official daily ‘Neutralny Turkmenistan’ said. The new pledge also sets a dozen rules for new doctors including a ban on euthanasia. Medical graduates from most medical schools around the world take some form of the oath conceived by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, described as the father of modern scientific medicine. A Hare Krishna follower was jailed for seven years in Turkmenistan, Forum 18 reported on Thursday. A Turkmen court jailed a Hare Krishna devotee, Cheper Annaniyazova, for seven years on charges of illegally leaving the country, the religious freedom watchdog said, adding that before being sentenced, Annaniyazova was compulsorily detained in a psychiatric hospital. Despite a claimed abolition of exit visas, Turkmenistan is to Forum 18's knowledge, preventing three religious believers - two Protestants and a Hare Krishna devotee - from leaving the country. Forum 18's source insists that the heavy sentence was imposed at the behest of the Turkmen secret police to intimidate the Hare Krishna community. Turkmenistan also has the religious prisoner of conscience with the longest jail sentence in the former Soviet Union, former chief mufti Nasrullah ibn Ibadullah who is serving a 22-year jail sentence, Forum 18 added. Ten days earlier, a US government report on global religious freedom said that Turkmenistan had showed "significant improvement" in the protection and promotion of religious freedom through modification of legal and social barriers over the past year. The report was widely criticised by human rights groups. In Tajikistan, a new political party was established on Sunday, according to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency. Olimjon Boboyev, leader of the Economic Reform Party, said the party had among its members about 1,100 scientists, economists and experts in various economic sectors. The registration of the new party brings the number of officially registered political parties in Tajikistan to seven, including the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Democratic Party, the Social-Democratic Party and the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP). Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov said on Wednesday that Dushanbe needed US $13 billion to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In September 2000, leaders of the world’s 191 states, including Tajikistan, adopted the Millennium Declaration, in which they set the eight MDGs to be achieved by 2015, including halving the number of poor and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria other major diseases. Tajikistan is one of the poorest former Soviet republics where more than 50 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line. The European Union (EU) on Monday banned 12 top Uzbek officials, including the defence and interior ministers, who are considered to be "directly responsible" for violently putting down a revolt last May, from entering any EU member country. The decision was taken "in the light of the excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Uzbek security forces" against the uprising, the EU council, representing all 25 governments, said in a statement. The action was also taken "following the refusal of Uzbek authorities to allow an independent international inquiry into these events," it added. The ban covers Interior Minister Zakirjan Almatov, Defence Minister Kadir Gulamov, chief of the national security service Rustam Inoyatov, as well as other top officials in the military and government. The EU also placed an embargo on "exports to Uzbekistan of arms, military equipment and other equipment that might be used for internal repression."