Similarly, protests occurring in multiple locations on the same day are logged in each locality as a separate incident. Ongoing events such as strikes, sit-ins, rallies, and hunger strikes were coded each day as a separate event. We coded all reported protest data we could find during our searches, including events consisting of a single individual protester. Furthermore, not everyone feels it is either necessary or safe to protest in public, expressing themselves in a variety of subtle ways anthropologist James Scott has called “hidden transcripts.” While we recognize that such protests, in addition to cyber protests and petitions, are vital to understanding the evolution of dissent in the region, we have limited ourselves to the following definition:Ī protest action is a public expression of objection towards an idea or action of an individual or institution, including state organs, businesses, NGOs, and foreign governments, which occur in a physical space. The reliance on reporting means that many cases of activism not considered to be “newsworthy,” that failed to attract many people, or that took place in geographically remote locations, may be missing from the final results, schewing the dataset. Due to the nature of this data, which primarily consists of newspaper articles, the dataset is likely to have a substantial effect on the results of the empirical research. This report draws from the data collected in CAPT, which consists of materials published online. Our dataset records 98 anti-China protests with all but one (in Tajikistan) taking place in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Opinion polls in the region indicate that while Russia is still viewed favorably by many Central Asians, China is viewed with greater suspicion, with 30% of Kazakhs and 35% of Kyrgyz polled reporting negative views of their eastern neighbor. Only a handful of protests occurred in Turkmenistan since 2018, most of them related to food shortages and rising prices for staple goods.Īnother key trend in both Kazakhstan and neighboring Kyrgyzstan has been the rise in protest activities relating to China or Chinese citizens. In Tajikistan, half of all protests recorded have occurred in the Pamir region, which has a history of resistance to the central government. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, meanwhile, have recorded the fewest protests, arguably reflecting the closed nature of their respective political systems and the tight control their governments exercise over political expression. More than half of protests have stemmed from disputes over land ownership and attempts by the government to demolish or evict people from their property. Protests have steadily increased in Uzbekistan in recent years, following the death of the first President Islam Karimov in August 2016. The most frequently reported issue in Kyrgyzstan, by comparison, is related to justice, and in particular, protests related to the detention of government officials such as former President Almazbek Atambayev, who was arrested on corruption charges in August 2019. The Central Asia Protest Tracker (CAPT) dataset produced by a team at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs mapped out a total of 981 incidents in the five Central Asian republics Kazakhstan (520 protests), Kyrgyzstan (351 protests), Tajikistan (27 protests), Turkmenistan (9 protests), and Uzbekistan (74 protests) from Januto August 31, 2020.Īccording to CAPT, over half of the protests in Kazakhstan have been related to the country’s power transition following President Nur-Sultan Nazarbayev’s resignation in March 2019. While Covid-19 leads the way for recent protests, hundreds of other protests took place on more typical issues, including freedom of speech, land rights, labour disputes, and welfare-related incidents. But lockdown measures have sparked backlash, with at least 103 protests linked to the pandemic and the region’s respective government responses since the virus began to spread in February 2020. With over 200,000 registered cases, Covid-19 will have a lasting impact on Central Asia. After two days of protests, some of those interned were allowed to return home. By Bradley Jardine, Sher Khashimov, Edward Lemon, Aruuke Uran KyzyĪt a quarantine camp just outside of Tashkent in July, detainees rattled the gates to the facility, climbed on the rooftops of their temporary shipping container homes and shouted, demanding to be freed.
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