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Political Stability and Human Security in Tajikistan in Time of COVID-19

Name: Political Stability and Human Security in Tajikistan in Time of COVID-19
Start: 2020-05-11T11:00:00-04:00
End: 2020-05-11T13:00:00-04:00

11 May, 2020 @ 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Conflicting reports from Tajikistan create confusion about how COVID-19 is affecting the country. Tajikistan admitted to its first COVID-19 cases on April 30 as the World Health Organization is sending a team to investigate previous claims that the country was coronavirus free. Independent media outlets which broke stories of suspected COVID-19 deaths have been blocked as death tolls continue to rise. As Tajikistan’s neighbors and Russia limit border access to slow down virus transmission, the country’s economic and food security are threatened. This panel will explore the effects and outlook of the pandemic on the political, economic, and food security as well as the impacts on the medical system in Tajikistan as it heads towards a presidential election later this year.

Speakers

Marintha Miles

Marintha Miles is a PhD candidate at George Mason University, currently researching the nexus between social movements and globalization in Tajikistan. She was formerly Deputy Director the Central Asia Program at George Washington University.

Dr. Edward Lemon

Edward Lemon is an Assistant Professor of Eurasian Affairs at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School in Washington DC. His research focuses on political and security issues in Central Asia, with a particular focus on Tajikistan. His research has been published in the Central Asian Survey, The RUSI Journal,Caucasus Survey, Central Asian Affairs, Review of Middle Eastern Studies and Journal of Democracy.

Salimjon Aioubov

Salimjon Aioubov was appointed Acting Director of RFE/RL’s Tajik Service in April 2019. Previously, he was a senior broadcaster with RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, and also Project Director for RFE/RL’s Central Asian Newswire, a platform that aggregates original RFE/RL reporting and other information for Central Asian media seeking independent news. Aioubov has worked for numerous Tajik print, radio, and television outlets over the course of two decades, covering the civil war in Tajikistan and UN-mediated inter-Tajik peace talks and refugee issues resulting from the war, Organization of Islamic Cooperation conferences, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization summits.

Steve Swerdlow

Steve Swerdlow, esq. is a human rights lawyer and expert on human rights issues in the former Soviet Region. Between 2010 and 2019, Swerdlow was Senior Central Asia researcher in the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch. An attorney with two decades of scholarly and human rights experience researching and advocating on the post-Soviet region, Swerdlow headed Human Rights Watch’s work on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, was the founding director of HRW’s Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan field office, and has been among the first independent human rights workers to conduct extensive fieldwork on the ground inside Uzbekistan since the government’s decision to allow human rights organizations back into the country in 2017. He now is a consultant with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Labour Organization, where he conducts trainings to build the capacity of human rights activists and journalists in Central Asia.