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This week in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan admitted on Monday that it was incapable of protecting its borders, Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The Kyrgyz military did not have funds or equipment to police the 4,500 km border to protect the country from insurgents and drug traffickers, General Myrzakan Subanov, who used to oversee the former Soviet republic’s border forces, said. A week earlier, an unidentified armed group, when trying to cross the border from Tajikistan, attacked a Kyrgyz customs post. Skirmishes between the group and Kyrgyz security forces left 13 dead. The country’s border was loosely defined in the Soviet era and disputes over demarcation complicate security operations. The federal office of the German Criminal Police in Central Asia has handed over equipment, worth US $51,200, to the Kyrgyz Drug Control Agency (DCA), a Kazakh news agency reported on Wednesday. The DCA director, Bolotbek Nogoybayev, said during the handover ceremony, that the agency had cooperated with the German federal office for the past one and a half years and received assistance worth $110,594. In Tajikistan, a city court in Khujand in the northern Soghd region, sentenced on Monday five members of the banned Islamic Movement of Turkestan, formerly known as Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), to 19 years in jail on terrorism charges, AP reported on Tuesday. A sixth alleged member was sentenced to nine years. They were all found guilty of establishing an illegal group, inciting ethnic and religious hatred, illegal arms procession and polygamy. Ukraine’s decision to deport 11 Uzbek citizens, all alleged members of the IMU, was wrong, the head of Ukraine’s State Committee for Nationalities and Migration, Sergiy Rudyk, said on Thursday, ITAR-TASS reported. The Uzbek citizens were deported on 14 February to Uzbekistan, a country known for its systematic use of torture and abuse. Numerous of international human rights groups had appealed to the Ukrainian government, as well as the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, to give a legal assessment of the deportation, claiming the extradition violated international law. In Turkmenistan, marking the 15th anniversary of the energy-rich Central Asian country’s independence from the Soviet Union, President Saparmurat Niyazov will pardon and release 10,000 prisoners convicted for minor crimes, AP reported on Tuesday. The amnestied prisoners will be required to take an oath of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, and the “Rukhnama”, a book by Niyazov, which is required reading by everyone in Turkmenistan and promise not to commit crimes again. Niyazov has created a vast personally cult in the country and is criticised heavily by human rights organisations. AJ/SC

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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