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Paper abstract:

This research will focus on the march "No to Violence Against Women" and " Bride Kidnapping is a Crime" that was held by the Kyrgyz women's rights defenders and activists in the capital city, Bishkek on March 8, 2020, on the grounds that the traditions practiced in the Kyrgyz society devalue women and produce violence against them. During the march, the organizers and participants of this march were attacked by a group of masked men wearing Kyrgyz traditional hats, and the march was terminated. Nearly 70 women participants, including the march organizers, were arrested by the police and taken to the police station. This is an indicator that to what extent freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are protected in the country and whether gender inequality is seen as a problem by policy makers. The purpose of this paper, focusing on this solidarity march, is to critically examine problems in women's access to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in the context of the gender equality in the Kyrgyz society, and to answer the question of whether the traditional interests of the Kyrgyz society and democratic freedoms are parallel. This paper is based on primary sources, including the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic and institutional reports, and on the secondary sources such as research articles, book chapters, and analytical materials.

Keywords: Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, Gender, Solidarity March, Kyrgyzstan.

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Dighomi Meadows is on the front lines of a battle for Tbilisi's waters and lands-- those that remain untouched by development and the hands of companies ready to sacrifice the environment for short-term financial gain. Upstream from Tbilisi, the Mtkvari river still flows without the brown color that results from waste entering from the Georgian capital's residents and enterprises. But for how much longer? A determined group of residents-turned-activists launched a grassroots campaign to stop construction companies from simultaneously exploiting meadow resources and dumping waste into the river. Ongoing court battles offer a window into citizen rights at a time when Georgia's vaunted openness and transparency appears to be fading as Georgian Dream and Bidzina Ivanashvili appear to want to bend state institutions, including the judiciary, to their will. The battle has serious environmental consequences also: Dighomi Meadows has served as a floodplain to minimize, albeit not eliminate, the threat of flooding from the Mtkvari in downtown Tbilisi. This proposal has been inspired by the author's recent visit to the Meadows and discussions with activists, which will feature prominently in the paper, alongside visual evidence of the damage and the context of a Georgian political and judicial system in flux.

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Paper abstract:

Women civil activists have been a significantly powerful voice in patriarchal Central Asia throughout its documented history, from the late pre-Russian Empire colonisation times to the modern early XXI century. While having substantial similarities to the Soviet past, women’s civil society in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have developed their civil destiny on rather diverse paths in independent years. Both have constantly been reconfiguring their work and activism due to turbulent political environments and remaining reliant on foreign development donors; at the same time, women activists in Kyrgyzstan have been the leitmotiv of several political revolutions, whereas activists in Uzbekistan found their secure ways to perform activism closely working with the government. Varying from grassroots groups of Muslim women, LBTQ activists and feminist groups to experienced large-scale networks of women NGOs and quasi-state women collectives, this myriad of women performing civil activism has inspired me to substantiate the phenomena of women activist professionals.

This paper is both an academic and activist attempt to describe and contrast contemporary women civil activists in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan through post-colonial and critical development perspectives and add one more post-colonial voice in authentic theory-making. In contrast to conventional liberal feminist and civil society interpretations, I argue that the primarily criticised professionalisation of women activists and women NGOs in both countries does not eliminate the essence of civil society but rather opens up more considerable manoeuvring opportunities for the survival of Central Asian women civil society in patriarchal communities and repressive and fragile political environment. I argue that women activists have fashioned hybrid identity and strategies – developing expertise in women’s policy advocacy in cooperation with donors and the state while preserving a women’s civil society’s commitment to fighting for gender equality and women empowerment.

As a feminist post-colonial and critical development study, this research accurately approaches existing theories with a higher emphasis on empirical data. The latter is based on the data gathered for my PhD dissertation throughout the 2019 – 2022 years - participant field observations in different localities of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and problem-centred interviews with more than 40 prominent women civil activists.

In the light of the upcoming PhD defence and publication of a book, it will be a tremendous opportunity for me to share findings with similar academic intellectuals passionate about Central Asia.