Kazakhstan: Higher education on hold at home, students stranded abroad

Protests in Kazakhstan have put higher education in the country on hold and the start of term postponed, while many students remain stranded abroad. My Kazakhstan-based colleague Dana Abdrasheva and I wrote about the latest situation and the implications for higher education for University World News. Here's a reprint of the article that was published on …

Continue reading Kazakhstan: Higher education on hold at home, students stranded abroad

Paid to protest: More on student protests in Tajikistan

In my most recent post, Protests? What protests?, I discussed recent protests both against and in favour of the government in Tajikistan. Following up on this, I want to share an excellent and highly informative article from Russian-language site Fergana News, which Open Democracy has reproduced with permission and translated into English. The article, provocatively called Tajikistan's imitation …

Continue reading Paid to protest: More on student protests in Tajikistan

Protests? What protests? The continuing lack of plurality in Tajikistan

News has emerged of a number of connected protests in / relating to Tajikistan. However, if at first glance this appears to be a tiny step towards practicing the freedoms (of speech, to gather in public etc) nominally guaranteed to citizens under Tajik law, don't get your hopes up. Leading the story on 23 September, Radio Free Europe/Radio …

Continue reading Protests? What protests? The continuing lack of plurality in Tajikistan

Stripped to their last pair of knickers… currency devaluation and protest in Kazakhstan

With everything that's going on in Ukraine, you've probably missed a much smaller scale series of protests that have taken place this month in Kazakhstan. These protests, stimulated by the government's decision to devalue the tenge (Kazakh currency) by nearly 20%, are nonetheless noteworthy. Pretty much for the first time in its post-Soviet existence, young people in …

Continue reading Stripped to their last pair of knickers… currency devaluation and protest in Kazakhstan