Here we present a fresh version of what is being written nowadays in the blogs in Kyrgyzstan and about Kyrgyzstan. In this roundup of the blogging activities I, as always, highlight the latest articles by NewEurasia Russian version contributors and other authors writing about Kyrgyzstan.

The steamy topic of the discussions is the “officially” waged war ( traditionally called Djihad) that according to some sources was waged by the members of the illegal religious organization “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” and is aimed , in particular, at fighting Kyrgyz official law enforcement bodies. Inga writes an article about that in Russian, stating that people in the country are terrified by the fact that confrontation between extremists and authorities is becoming more visible and apparently inevitable. She points out that in Kyrgyzstan because of the obvious reasons has provided some fertile soil for extremists. Her claim is it’s exactly internal corruption, tribalism and the lack of professionals in law enforcement bodies contribute to solidification of the network of supporters of radical Islamic movements. My material in English about that read here.

Along these lines Registan.net posts a note about the monograph being published by John Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies’ Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. Apparently the issue of Islamic fundamentalism is not solely an internal problem of Central Asian countries facing this evil on their own territory. Laurence in his posting describes the approach implemented by well known scholars dealing with issues of the development of Islamist extremist organizations. Though the quality of the analyses is questioned by Registan.net with an emphasis on this research being slightly outdated.

Nastia in her post discusses the recent announcement of one of the speakers of the Kyrgyz parliament Kubanychbek Isabekov about the necessity to renovate the building of parliament in Bishkek as well as to “refresh” the stock of the cars for Kyrgyz deputies. She mentions about the recent scandal with 2006 budget approval when it was clearly stated that Kyrgyz deputies spend too much money on their “working” needs. To read more on Nastia’s conclusions about the ways Kyrgyz deputies spend budget and extra budget money click here.

This week we also featured a post about the life of disabled people in Kyrgyzstan. Inga prepared a report on that emphasizing that while subsidies for impaired people don’t 10 $ per month some NGO’s activities became the only hope for those who are indeed neglected by the state. During her investigation she discovered though that recent policies of the state were aimed at shutting down civil society organizations out of the fear of their political influence. Inga argues that such a step is almost a criminal one since authorities don’t offer any alternatives and just deprive those who are to survive only because of the activities of these organizations.

Nastia continues discussing this topic in her article about the scope of activities of NGOs in Kyrgyzstan and about their public image in the country. She suggests that the decision of authorities to leash the civil society activities is connected with aggravated fears of official power to lose control over the situation. Nastia comes up with the conclusion that in the current situation civil society can challenge some activities of the state officials and the latter is indeed unwilling to cope with such challnges.