{"id":360,"date":"2005-03-05T09:57:00","date_gmt":"2005-03-05T09:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2005\/03\/05\/why-the-lack-of-interest-in-kyrgyzstan\/"},"modified":"2005-03-05T09:57:00","modified_gmt":"2005-03-05T09:57:00","slug":"why-the-lack-of-interest-in-kyrgyzstan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2005\/03\/why-the-lack-of-interest-in-kyrgyzstan\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the lack of interest in Kyrgyzstan?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After yesterday&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/europhobia.blogspot.com\/2005\/03\/ukrainian-implications.html\">update on Ukraine<\/a>, where protests at alleged vote-rigging back in November (eventually) managed to attract the entire world&#8217;s attention, it struck me as particularly odd that I&#8217;ve heard nothing about the very similar-sounding <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/asia-pacific\/4320047.stm\">protests going on over alleged vote-rigging in Kyrgyzstan<\/a>. This could easily have been news coming out of Kiev a few months ago (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alertnet.org\/thenews\/newsdesk\/IRIN\/430f7329f6b61e445e3fa474cfe33b18.htm\">via Reuters<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I have seen tens of elections, but have never seen such &#8220;dirty&#8221; polls,&#8221; Halimbay Mamajanov, 80, another voter, told IRIN. &#8220;There was an open and deliberate bribing of voters through endless free meals, alcohol to young people and distribution of &#8216;presents&#8217;. Also it was obvious that the authorities used their administrative resources and power, while the contesting parties deployed their subordinates and some organisations that were &#8216;supporting&#8217; them.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Whereas Ukraine&#8217;s was the Orange Revolution, could Kyrgyzstan be the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theaustralian.news.com.au\/common\/story_page\/0,5744,12400249%255E2703,00.html\">Lemon Revolution<\/a>? There&#8217;s a bit more background <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eurasianet.org\/departments\/insight\/articles\/eav030405.shtml\">via EurasiaNet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As of yet, just about the only blog I&#8217;ve found that&#8217;s been covering events in any detail is Gateway Pundit, with posts from <a href=\"http:\/\/gatewaypundit.blogspot.com\/2005\/02\/kyrgyzstan-elections-today.html\">Sunday<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/gatewaypundit.blogspot.com\/2005\/02\/lemon-revolution-gaining-momentum.html\">Monday<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/gatewaypundit.blogspot.com\/2005\/03\/velvet-revolution-cuts-east.html\">Tuesday<\/a>,  but I don&#8217;t really have time to trawl the net just at the moment.<\/p>\n<p>English-language <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inform.kz\/index.php?lang=eng\">Kyrgyzstani news sources also seem not to be covering events<\/a> &#8211; perhaps unsurprisingly when it is run by an ex-government man. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allamericanpatriots.com\/m-news+article+storyid-7170-PHPSESSID-bc9a6dd51dde6ea33708e847abdf61ba.html\">The US has condemned the clampdown on media freedoms<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone else seen this covered in more depth anywhere? By the sounds of things, the elections aren&#8217;t meant to be over until the 13th &#8211; this will be going on for some time&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>Update:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kyrgyzstan\">Wikipedia&#8217;s page on Kyrgyzstan may be of interest<\/a> &#8211; if only to find out where the place is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After yesterday&#8217;s update on Ukraine, where protests at alleged vote-rigging back in November (eventually) managed to attract the entire world&#8217;s attention, it struck me as particularly odd that I&#8217;ve heard nothing about the very similar-sounding protests going on over alleged &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2005\/03\/why-the-lack-of-interest-in-kyrgyzstan\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}