Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-14-Speech-4-203"

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"en.20020314.10.4-203"2
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"Mr President, too often we have to come to this Chamber on a Thursday afternoon to make speeches we would rather not have to make. That is certainly true today. I have been to Kyrgyzstan several times in recent years, as it emerged from those dark days of the Soviet empire and set the pace for the region in terms of political, economic and health reforms. I paid tribute then, as I have done since, to those periods of progress. But in the last couple of years we have become worried about progress in that country. President Akayev, who came from a background of the Academy of Sciences, was elected in a free vote in 1991 and re-elected in 1995, has subsequently become more of an oppressive president than a democratic one. Both parliamentary and presidential elections in 2000 sadly highlighted the flawed nature of the electoral process. We were concerned about candidates being banned on technicalities not least because of their knowledge of the Kyrgyz language; about the press being suppressed and repressed; about community groups being prevented from playing their part in the process. Symbolic of all this has been the arrest of Azimbek Beknazarov, chairman of the parliamentary committee on judicial and legal reforms. He was arrested in January and brought to trial in February. The trial was then postponed until this month. This is a country with many problems within its borders, including a lack of natural resources, racial tensions and incursions from abroad. Eighty-eight per cent of its population lives on an income of under USD 4 a day. It does not need the opprobrium that will come from world opinion if it makes a mess of its democratic processes, its independent judiciary and its freedom of speech. That is why we move this motion today, asking them to listen. We will be watching for results."@en1
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