As Sergey Makarov, co-author of the campaign, says “this campaign is aimed to raise tolerance and understanding among youth, and to prevent conflicts, like the one happened in the South of Kyrgyzstan.” Makarov also says that they will send 2 thousand T-shirts to Osh and Jalalabad cities in southern Kyrgyzstan.

More photos here and here.

Grave reports continue coming from friends in Osh and Jalalabad. Videos and photos of killed Uzbeks, burning houses, restaurants and shops that belonged to Uzbeks started appearing in internet. Thousands of Uzbeks are seeking shelter in Uzbekistan. Today, the Uzbek authorities finally agreed to accept Uzbek refugees. Uzbeks in the South have lost their trust to the interim government and are hoping for Russia’s help, but Russia is not being active.

The emergency situation introduced in several cities in the South including Osh and Jalalabad is not helping. Many police and army institutions were attacked, and great numbers of weapons are now on people’s hands. People say that attacking groups wear police and army uniforms. Therefore, many have lost their trust in law enforcement institutions.

The Interim government is blaming everything on the Bakievs that the latter are intending to disrupt the referendum scheduled for 27th of June, 2010.

People write "Kyrgyz" on their cars to avoid attacks of angry mobs

The death toll is much much higher than the official figures, as people are still finding dead corpses around Osh, and many were burnt down in their houses in mahallas (Uzbek neighborhoods). While I was writing this, I got several gruesome calls from friends in Jalalabad that some groups seized buildings belonging to army and police. Tonight, Jalalabad will suffer its worst night ever! My heart is with them!

I am calling all international organizations to help Kyrgyzstan in this crisis. Today, we are suffering the results of previous governments mistakes, who ignored the issue of inter-ethnic tension, and who let the whole generation to be brought up with ethnic hatred. Please, we need your help like never before!

Friends, readers, please, send out this message to the world! Help Kyrgyzstan’s nation to overcome this crisis!

Background info: Kyrgyzstan is located in the heart of Central Asia. It hosts military bases of two great powers – Russia and US, and therefore, plays a significant role in region’s stability. Kyrgyzstan used to be known as “island of democracy in Central Asia”, and witnessed two popular uprisings in five years that led to change of the government. The country is geographically divided into two – the North and the South. While the North is mostly populated by ethnic Kyrgyz, the South has a great minority of ethnic Uzbeks. Some figures say there are about 1000000 Uzbeks living in Kyrgyzstan. Inter-ethnic clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz already happened in early 90s of the past century leaving more than hundreds of people dead.

More info about today’s crisis is here, here, here, and here.

Here are videos of gruesome events (some maybe shocking):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aDlnIdkjM4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-_kmwF1bK8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBHMjZrbwYM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy4oMD_Gl08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvWbhhAhMeE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt2bWKiZU58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiT3tMoP-gw

And I did not regret it. The Tour’s programme was very interesting and useful. I had a chance to meet with high profile officials at the Foreign Office and get to know closer about the mainstream and new media development in Germany. The programme was also not-overloading with too much work. Therefore, it gave me a great chance to explore the life in Berlin – not only the touristic side of it, but also life of ordinary Berliners, which is usually hidden from tourists, their likes, tastes and culture.

And of course, one of the greatest things about the Blogger Tour was that I met 17 great people, whose company I enjoyed whole 10 days! They were all simple, unique, smart and with a great sense of humor (especially Michael (China), who enjoyed his freedom of speech at the Foreign Office, and Mahmoud from Bahrain, who ended up being our Blogger Papa ). We all ended the Tour not only with strong friendship ties and promises to meet again, but also with an excellent idea of creating a goup blog, which is being discussed and created at the moment, that will be about developments happening in our countries from international perspective, and will have more like a think-tank character. I will write more about it when we launch the blog.

Last, but not least, I want to express special thanks and appreciation to the organizers of the Tour, especially Lisa, Lucien and Deniz, for their commitment in organizing the event and paying great attention and care for every detail, be it big or small. You did an excellent job, my friends!

So here they are – bloggers and organizers… and my dear friends!

Photos and collage made by me.

“Fidelio” by Ludwig van Beethoven. Source of photo.

The Komische Oper is not big. It is small, but very cosy, and its stage is very close to front rows. As I was sitting in the middle of the front row, I felt I was in the action of opera myself. Well, it is not fully applicable to compare it to watching a 3D IMAX movie, but it was smth like that – being very close to the action.

The other thing that made “Fidelio” very special is that producers did a great job in merging old with modern. In the beginning of the opera, when the curtain was taken up, we saw a group of workers in modern clothes with modern tools, like electric drills dismantling the scene, I re-read the name of the opera in the program thinking it was not Fidelio. However, when Marzelline (Karen Rettinghaus) started singing, my journey to a fantastic world of old/modern “Fidelio” began. No words, just emotions.

Deep appreciation and non-stop applauses to Anton Keremidtchiev (Don Pizarro), Mirko Janiska (Don Fernando), Caroline Melzer (Leonore), Thomas Ebenstein (Jaquino), Karen Rettinghaus (Marzelline), Will Hartmann (Florestian) for their excellent voice and acting!

Participants (some are absent) of Blogger Tour 2010 at the Federal Foreign Office with Mr. Michael Zenner, Commissioner for Communication at Federal Foreign Office of Germany

Today was definitely one of the most interesting days of the Blogger Tour 2010, as we spent almost all day at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany meeting with Markus Löning, a new Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid, and Michael Zenner, Commissioner for Communication at Federal Foreign Office.

You may say “so what? what is so special about it?”. Well, for a person like me with international relations and political science background, who is also extremely interested in human rights and media issues, this is certainly a great experience.

Mr Löning, despite he is new to office, told Germany’s commitment in promoting human rights values around the globe. Answering to my questions, Mr Löning expressed deep concern about human rights issues in Central Asian region, where Germany has often to balance between its interests and commitment to promoting human rights values. He told me that he would pay a visit to Kyrgyzstan in near future, and we decided to organize a meeting with Kyrgyz online activists to talk about human rights and freedom of speech in the country.

Mr Michael Zenner, who kindly invited us for a fancy lunch in the Federal Foreign Office, spoke how his office got interested in social media and blogging. We had a graet lunch talk, where we shared with Mr Zenner our ideas and thoughts about the role of social media on our countires. And it seems Mr. Michael Zenner was pleased by the fact that the Blogger Tour 2010 was a great success in many senses, as it was his department at the Federal Foreign Office that initiated Tour, which turned out to be one of the greatest experiences I have ever had as a blogger. Why?

(a.) Cuz I met 14 awesome bloggers from different parts of the world. I could have met 15, but Cuban authorities did not allow a blogger from Cuba to leave the country to come to Germany. (c.) I had a great chance to meet with German foreign policy makers  and discuss with them the issues taking place in Kyrgyzstan and broader Central Asia region, (b.) I had enough time to explore Berlin. Not the touristic Berlin, but the Berliners’ Berlin, which is not globalized yet by bloody tourists coming from all over the world.

After the lunch with Mr Zenner, we had a small roundtable talk about the idea of creating a group blog of participants of Blogger Tour 2010. Mr Mahmood Al Yousif, aka father blogger, moderated the discussion which resulted in unanimous decision of creating a group blog the content of which will be original and about issues happening in our countries, but from international perspective. We will discuss it more tonight, so keep tuned for more info

- Stasi-archive in Berlin. Yeah, it is a big place full of old used-to-be-secret paper files.  Yeah, it shows how GDR was tough on its people. But, honestly, I was not really surprized seeing all these secret files the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, shortly Stasi) of GDR opened on people who were against the communist regime in GDR. The tour guide did a great job trying to impress us with astonishing facts on how Stasi officers recruited civilian informants to spy on their close people – friends, parents, siblings or spouses. Well, such things happened often in Central Asia, especially in countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, where every security agencies are very developed. So I was not impressed much. But, I really liked the way Germans are preserving these documents, and even giving files’ copies to their subjects! All a person needs to do to look at their Stasi-archive file is to fill an application. Then staff of the archive, which is also a museum now (and Germans are great in creating museums out of everything!), will search for your file, and if there is one, make an appointment with you and show you your file. And most people are very keen to look at their files. Well, who does not want to read the spy reports about them?

- DPA. “Independent, reliable, up-to-the-minute. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year” – that’s how DPA describes itself. DPA is German Press Agency (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) that provides worldwide news to variety of mainstream media organizations, and is competitor of AFP, AP and Reuters. We had a nice talk with Christoph Dernbach, editor-in-chief and managing director at dpa infocom, who told that DPA often works with citizen journalists using new media tools to gather information in places, where they do not have their own reporters. Yet another proof to my thesis that citizen journalism is a great outsourcing for mainstream journalism, not a competitor, as many mainstream media representatives think.

- DW TV. Deutsche Welle TV, Germany’s own CNN and BBC, but unlike the latter two, DW TV does not rush after “breaking news”. As Fabian von der Mark, editor at the Television Directorate of DW TV, explained, DW TV tries to give elaborated news that is backed by analyses. We had a short walk around the office of DW TV, and even climbed to its roof that’s full of huge satellite dishes for transmitting news around the globe.

And of course we met Gabriel Gonzalez, project manager of the Deutsche Welle Blog Awards „BOB‘s“. Gabriel told us how BOB’s competition is organized, and what kind of requirements the jury has to blogs. Mahmoud Salem (aka SandMonkey) from Egypt told that some BOB’s jury members are very corrupted, and gave example of a jury from Egypt, who selected winners from his circle of friends.

- We also met with Eberhard Pohl, deputy political director of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany. Unlike other meetings, this one was not liked much by many bloggers. Mr Pohl is a great speaker, but it seems he is one of those politicians who speak a lot and beautiful, but say nothing, or very little. We asked different questions, but most of the answers were in “not-my-field-of-expertise” style.

These are the summary updates on the Blogger Tour 2010, where I am proudly representing Kyrgyzstan. More updates to come soon. Stay tuned!

So finally I am here, in beloved Berlin, participating in the Blogger Tour organized by the German Federal Foreign Office. The first day of the event started with a great breakfast in Park Inn hotel, where participants are staying. At the moment, we are in DEPAK – Deutsche Presseakademie – and listening to presentatnios on topic “Blogs  & Politics in Germany”.

Robin Meyer-Lucht, blogger at www.carta.info and first of four speakers on topic “Blogs  & Politics in Germany”, is speaking about their blog and the German blogosphere in general. According to him, the German blogopshere is still evolving and little commercialized, as it is much driven by “passionate authors who treasure their soap boxes” Despite this, Robin says, blogs in Germany are becoming increasingly influencial force. As far as I understood, the German blogosphere is mainly about “netpolitics”, media and copyright issues, or talking generally, it is rather about policies than politcs.

Jan Mönikes, expert for German media law and second of four speakers on topic “Blogs  & Politics in Germany”, is doing a presentation on legal framework conditions of online communication in Germany. Jan says that media laws in Germany are very complicated as media is regulated on two levels – state and federal, and there are 16 federal governments. One exception in freedom of speech in Germany – Holocaust! Holocaust denial and propagating nazi symbols is a crime in Germany, says Jan Mönikes. If you are a foreign blogger, and publicly deny Holocaust in your blog, you will be tried in absentia and declared persona non grata. This reminded me of Eynulla Fatullaev, a journalist in Azerbaijan, who was imprisioned because of his article [ru] questioning the trueness of Khojaly massacre. But, unlike in Germany, Azerbaijan does not have a such law.

Blogs in Germany are considered to be mass media! However, as the laws on laws media properly work, it is not as frightening as in Central Asia countries, where laws do not protect media from the authoriarian governments.

But, as Mönikes says, the legal status of bloggers in Germany is still inclear. There is a debate going on whether or not bloggers must be considered as journalists or not. There is strong argument that good-quality bloggers should be given a status of journalist. There are two sides of it: good side is that as “online-media-journalists”, bloggers possess all rights conferred upon the press in Germany. The bad side is that all journalists must respect the “press codex” – a collenction of non-official rules for professional journalism. This includes regulations regarding accurate research and coverage.

Two other presentators were Jens Berger from www.spiegelfechter.de and Mathias Spelkamp from www.immateriblog.de, who talked about their blogging experiences and the difference between citizen journalism and classical journalism in Germany.

The day ended with a great dinner at restaurant Barist, where for some odd reasons we were discussing (a.) Chinese hymens* (!), aka “artificial hymen”, that someone actually could buy in Egypt (!) but unfortunately could never see (!) it in use,  (b.) what it feels like being married, though the married bloggers did not give any strong arguments for the advantages of marriage, (c.) how Uzbek and Azeri languages are very close to each other, and why some Turkish people are getting rid of some arabic words in Turkish, and last but not least, (d.) our plans for tomorrow and the ways to get Nigar drunk as it is her birthday tomorrow!

* It is a thin sheet of plastic that goes inside the woman’s vaginal canal and contains a little pocket of blood like material which ruptures upon impact and proclaims the user to be a virgin. It costs 15$. Though, it is not yet popular in societies, where pramarital sex is banned.

PS. I remember how my grandfather used to pin all his medals to his suit and take us, his grandchildren, with him to watch the May 9 parades. I remember how he used to tell us his war stories full of courage and bravery of those, who defended their family, home, and country. I remember…

The Newsweek wrote on April 30 about the impact of internet both on building democracy around the world and making the dictators much stronger with easily available information online. Well, I do believe that social media and new internet tools make it easy for people to obtain and disseminate news. But I also do believe that with the help of experienced internet geeks, dictators can strengthen their control over people. And the Newsweek  is right calling it a cat-and-mouse game. I agree with it and I am not going to argue with it.

The debate I am going to have is about the subheading the Newsweek used for its article on internet helping to build democracy. To be more precise, it is about the statement of the Newsweek that it is internet that made the recent revolts happen in Kyrgyzstan.

Many, including the Newsweek, mistakenly think that if not internet, the recent events in Kyrgyzstan, which ousted the president and took away lives of 85 people, would not have happened at all. Why mistakenly? Well, unlike the same events of 2005, which also made the president flee (but was peaceful), the demonstrations were organized on grassroots level, with minimum influence of the opposition parties, and it all started in regions like Naryn and Talas, where penetration of internet is very low and majority of people do not know what Twitter, WordPress or Livejournal is.

The graph is a part of a research "Research of Internet Audience in Kyrgyzstan" done by the Civic Initiative for Internet Policy in 2009 (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan)

This graph shows that Naryn and Talas, where people organized big demonstrations against poverty, unemployment, skyrocketing utility prices and family based ruling of the president,  have 0% and 1% share of internet audience of Kyrgyzstan respectively! The great majority of internet users in Kyrgyzstan (77%) are based in the capital city Bishkek. And a death toll list shows that most of those, who were shot dead when storming the White House, were originally from regions, not Bishkek. Therefore, it is really hard to believe that it was internet that helped people gather and demonstrate against the government.

Telling that internet did not play any role in recent revolts is also not true. Social media, especially online forums and Twitter, a microblogging service, did a great job in disseminating information about what was going on in Kyrgyzstan before, during and after April 7. These online tools were helpful especially when several independent news websites were blocked by previous Kyrgyz authorities. Kyrgyz twitterers used hashtags #freekg and #kyrgyzstan when giving information or links about uprisings, thus creating hubs of information, where one could find interesting first hand information or get links to related articles and multimedia online content. It is true that the audience that was using these new online tools were disappointed by Bakiev’s government. However, they were not the backbone of the uprising on April 7.

Thus, the Newsweek is not right when saying that the bloody uprising in Bishkek, which took away many lives and ousted the president, would have never happened without web. Internet did a great job in terms accessing and disseminating information freely. But it never was an ultimate cause of the public uprising.