Even though her schedule must be packed, Gulnara Karimova, an ambassador to the UN and daughter of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov, still seems to find time to lecture human rights activists, though not too successfully. The 40-year old businesswoman, professor, diplomat, philanthropist, pop diva, fashion, jewelry, perfume designer and recently crowned “princess of Uzbekistan”, decided to have at it — again — with Andrew Stroehlein, Human Rights Watch’s media director in Europe.

The two engaged in a sustained and quite entertaining battle of tweets 12 May after Stroehlein posted to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the Andijan massacre, in which government forces opened fire on protesters killing hundreds. In years since, the massacre has been something officials in Tashkent have had little interest in discussing – let alone acknowledging.

See the whole conversation curated here on TOL’s Storify.

Perhaps Karimova should have taken a page out of her dad’s say-nothing playbook and not engaged Stroehlein when he CC’ed her in his initial tweet. But she did, and things heated up quickly — ultimately providing a great what-not-to-do when dealing with an online troll.

But then again, what else is a princess to do? In the past, Karimova has made no attempt to shy away from Western critics, most recently dismissing reports her dad suffered a heart attack.

Earlier this year, the New York-based Human Rights Watch called Uzbekistan’s rights record “atrocious” in its 2013 report. Stroehlein and Karimova have clashed in the past over Uzbekistan’s rights records.

In an interview with New Europe, Stroehlein describes the most recent interaction with Karimova as “extraordinary.”

“ She was openly dismissive of the Andijan massacre and its victims. The regime has been trying to cover it up since their security forces fired into crowds, killing hundreds, eight years ago, and they’ve used torture and show trials to get witnesses to be quiet about it. But this was an additional step on top of even that.

“This was the ambassador saying it’s a waste of time to even talk about it, that it was too long ago to matter, and that there are newer horrors in the world… It was an incredible insult to the victims and their families.”  

To be fair, being a real modern “renaissance woman” Karimova has her hands full with more important stuff. The princess of Uzbekistan has a lot on her plate requiring her attention, from organizing fashion weeks and perfume promotions to singing with former French actor Gerard Depardieu – not to mention that bothersome ongoing bribery investigation surrounding her and Scandinavian mobile operator TeliaSonera.

If Karimova really is to become heir to the “throne of Uzbekistan”,  taking a lesson or two in Dictator Public Relations 101 might not be a bad idea.  While it’s easy for her family to silence critics domestically, the Internet (and social media especially) can be an unending and unfiltered stream of criticism.

In nearby Chechnya, for example, strongman leader (and Instagram aficionado) Ramzan Kadyrov is having his own issues with unwanted comments. In response to the online hate, he recently announced he’s considering deleting his account, according to Radio Free Europe.

With all these poor 2.0 despots facing so much blowback on social media, maybe they need to get together for their own Web conference to discuss best practices for silencing online critics.

And they can have Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev as key-note speaker. He’s probably got some ideas of how to handle those pesky online trolls.

Front page photo from wikicommons user Timir01.

Budapest. Image courtesy Flickr user mauricedb. Creative Commons.

Recently, the number of FOIA requests filed through the public freedom of information request service KiMitTud [Who Knows What] [hu] surpassed one thousand. The website, run by anti-corruption NGO atlatszo.hu, is a useful tool for journalists, and has inspired a group of Hungarian students as well, to start their own blog covering student government spendings using the information obtained through FOIA requests.

Advocates suspect that the amendments were made in response to a FOIA request [hu] request filed by a group of NGOs and media organizations to the Ministry for National Development and the National Tobacco Trade Non-profit Ltd on tobacco license tenders. After the April 27 announcement that the retail sale of tobacco would soon become a state monopoly, tobacco sales licenses distributed last week immediately became the subject of public discourse. The NGOs and news sites called for transparency about the tenders, arguing that the list of licensees proved that applicants with ties to Fidesz, the governing party, had better prospects of winning a license.

Index.hu [hu] reported that MP András Cser-Palkovics, a member of the governing Fidesz party and co-author of the amendment, said that the change was provoked by one particular news site, atlatszo.hu.

Index.hu suggested that news site 444.hu also may have sparked government desire to change the law. 444.hu recently filed a FOIA request for documentation of expenditures by certain factions of Parliament. 444.hu reporter Péter Erdélyi wrote [hu] that he consulted with the Assembly’s staff in order to make his request reasonable, yet still, two days later, the MPs submitted the draft amendment.

On April 28, two Fidesz MPs submitted an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act aiming to restrict data accessible to public to the data monitored by two government bodies, the State Audit Office (ÁSZ) and the Government Control Office (KEHI). The amendment, among other things, allows public institutions to refuse FOIA requests if they are “excessive,” but it fails to define what would be considered an excessive freedom of information request. The amendment was passed in less than two days, through a “special urgency procedure” which takes advantage of the governing party’s supermajority in Parliament that makes lawmaking “on the fly” possible.

Atlatszo.hu has posted a petition on Change.org [hu] calling on Hungarian president János Áder to withhold his signature from the amendment – according to Hungarian legislation the President’s signature would make the regulation approved. In addition to the petition which has amassed over 2,000 signatures so far, examples of individual citizen initiatives also showed up. 444.hu reported [hu] that a 24-hour shop in Budapest also started a petition against the questionable procedures applied in the distribution of the licenses.

In an op-ed published on atlatszo.hu [hu] András Jóri, former Commissioner for Data Protection, wrote that the idea of this“sunshine” law was introduced by a group of constitutional lawyers in Hungary after the country’s transition to democracy. Citizen movements and journalists have only been making use of these legal mechanisms since 2000. Mr. Jóri concluded that rule of law has been upheld in Hungary until now — but at this critical point, it is up to Hungarians to keep it that way.

This post originally appeared on Global Voices Online and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

The charges came in the form of a watch list by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office issued 1 May. The report, which monitors the ability of international trading partners to uphold U.S. patents and copyrights, listed Ukraine as a “priority foreign country.” The designation hasn’t been used in more than a decade and would allow Washington to seek sanctions against Kyiv through the World Trade Organization, AFP reports.

In addition, U.S. officials said they are considering reinstating import duties on Ukrainian goods, according to Reuters.

In response to the new designation, Deputy Prime Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, a former ambassador to the United States, took to Twitter and borrowed from English literature to defend Ukraine’s commitment to U.S. intellectual property rights,according to Urkayinska Pravda. 

“The Statement by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative reflects the situation of yesterday, not today. Now we have improvements,” Gryshchenko tweeted. “Like in Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing.”

Front page photo courtesy ssoosay/Flickr. Creative Commons.

The bill has reached the floor of the Milli Majlis, or national assembly, and would make profanity or libel on the web a crime – just as such things are when delivered via other methods of communication.

If the Majlis passes the proposal as written, those who idly use uncivil verbiage against someone could face up to three years in prison, fines of up to 1,000 manats ($1,274), or community service, according to the Baku-based Media Rights Institute.

A written defamation, or libel, would net a similar sanction when committed online, EurasiaNet.org reports.

The trend is troubling to those who advocate free speech on the Internet, which is under threat in many countries that don’t have a tradition of free print or broadcast media. As in places like China and Iran, Azerbaijani authorities are already known for checking Facebook and other social media and taking action against government critics, according to EurasiaNet.org.

The media rights group noted that the measure contradicts a 2011 pledge by the government to reduce curbs on free speech. “MRI stresses that the initiative is contrary to the commitment and directed at adopting harsher punishments for use of freedom of expression. It should be seen as a step aside from its commitment to decriminalize defamation,” the group said.

Front page image courtesy Flickr user ssoosay. Creative commons.

The free Gropometru (pothole meter) app developed by the XL Team software firm has enabled users to pinpoint almost 60,000 potholes in one month, most of them in Bucharest,co-creator Alin Chican tells Balkan Insight. Some 4,000 users have downloaded the app.

According to Jurnalul.ro, drivers can manually flag the locations of potholes on the map included in the app. Drivers can even use an acceleration meter and GPS to automatically detect potholes by measuring changes in the car’s vibrations and record their positions.

In early April, Romanian authorities cancelled a road contract for a highway passing through Transylvania due to high costs and slow progress on the project.

Last month, Natalya Timakova, the spokeswoman for Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in a peevish interview with the radio station Voice of Russia, attacked her country’s online culture. She was provoked, she said, by web users’ disrespectful habit of referring to her boss as “Dimon” – the equivalent of calling Barack Obama “Barry”, or David Cameron “Dave”.

“He is not “Dimon” to you, “ she said, “he is the head of the government. You don’t have to call him Dmitry Anatolyevich, but you could at least call him Dmitry and use the polite form of the word “you”. These are the rules of good manners.”

It was an unfortunate comment. There are many ways to stand up to online bullies, but letting them know they are getting to you is not one of them. Medvedev, a little and belittled man to whom Vladimir Putin loaned the presidency for a while, was subsequently laughed at all the more. The Russian-language hash-tags #Dimon and #DimonDontCry were trending on Twitter within an hour of the interview’s transcript appearing online.

‘Pathetic’, ‘bumblebee’, ‘merry dwarf’, ‘nanopresident’, ‘Iphonchik’ (a diminutive from Iphone) and ‘Luntik’ (a small fluffy purple cartoon figure) — certainly no way to refer to a Prime Minister. Photo: Kremlin website.

But anyone who has had anything to do with the more vicious end of Russia’s online culture will surely have sympathised. It is a bear pit out there on the Runet.

This month, I have a book out. It describes, via travel and history, how in the 1960s Russia’s birth rate and life expectancy fell out of the European mainstream and into steep decline. It is, I hope, a sympathetic book that addresses the seriousness of the problem while also giving a slight air of hope that it is not terminal. It is the fruit of years of work, dozens of conversations, hundreds of hours of writing and thousands of miles of travel.

The Telegraph gave it five stars and called it a “superb hybrid of travel and social analysis”. The Observer called it “lively, well-written and commanding”. But those are not opinions you’ll meet on Amazon. But those are not opinions you’ll meet on Amazon.com. Although the book is not to be published in America for two weeks, someone called Vladimir Gusev gave it one star out of five.

“This book was outdated by all standards before it even went to print: 1) it recycles ancient western stereotypes: GULAG, KGB, VODKA, SNOW 2) it is not based on any modern facts,” he wrote, in a remarkably confident assessment from someone who could not conceivably have read the book.

Now, if there is one lesson to learn from Medvedev’s press secretary, it is that showing irritation does not help the situation. So, I will not do so, even though it is clear from the comments that Mr Gusev never read the book. Besides, it is more interesting to ask why a Russian would specially register on a foreign web site to criticise a foreign book that few of his compatriots will ever read?

The trigger-happiness of Russia’s online critics clearly concerned Timakova, Medvedev’s spokeswoman, who appeared convinced that the problem of anonymous trolling is specific to her country, rather than international.

“There are accounts in foreign languages on social networks, and the character and tone of discussions is so different! There people write, as a rule, on topic. There may be critical things, but the presentation is totally different. It is always respectful, giving an argument, not just with a desire to insult,” she wrote.

Anyone who has spent any time surfing the Web will know that is not true. Whatever language you write in; there are sites where you can vent spleen. The Russians are merely part of that trend, albeit a large one.

The threads beneath the reviews of my book in the Observer and Telegraph are dominated by critical comments written in the mashed-up language of Russglish, most of them making the argument that Britain has a drinking problem too, which is no doubt true but hardly relevant to the holocaust that vodka has unleashed on the Russians.

And my criticism was minor compared to that heaped on Moscow-based correspondents, who are constantly accused of being mercenary, ignorant and lacking respect for Russia and the Russian people. Often the attacks are so baroque as to be unintentionally hilarious. The Independent’s Shaun Walker, for example, has boasted on Twitter of being called a “pathetic, low-intellect New World Order shill” and a “mental midget”.

Indeed it is here, in spreading beyond their online borders, where Russians stand out from other nationalities. Most Britons keep their bile to British sites, and the same goes for French people or Germans, but Russians can be found taking and causing offence anywhere you go. Partly this is a result of their sheer numbers. There are more web users in Russia than any other European country.

Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine the average European reader either noticing or caring what a Russian journalist wrote, and it is strange how worked up Russians can get about foreigners’ opinions. I suspect this global tetchiness is a result of how restricted the media landscape is at home. With few sources of news to comment on in their own language, it is unsurprising that Russians should seek richer seams of offence to mine elsewhere.

Last week, the publishers of Bolshoi Gorod announced the web-version of fortnightly Moscow magazine will be closing (and the print version’s future looks precarious). BG has been a rare independent voice in recent years, and its closure would further limit a media market already dominated by the financial clout of state television and the government-owned news agencies.

Among those news agencies is RIA Novosti, and among RIA’s projects is Inosmi, a web site that collates and translates foreign-language news sources for Russian readers under the slogan “Everything that’s worth translating”. The idea for the site is a good one, since it brings some alternative colours into the rather monochrome Russian media.

It has not lived up to its founders’ expectations. It serves not so much as a forum where Russians can debate world affairs, but as a bridgehead where they can discover what’s been said about Russia, then fan out (via the helpful links inosmi provides to its source material) and swamp the original articles with critical comments.

And the more of their comments you read, the more you see a similarity between Russian’s feral posters and the prime minister they mock so much. They are both demanding respect from people who aren’t giving it to them, and they are going about it in a manner guaranteed to make sure they won’t get any. Poor Dimon.

Oliver Bullough was a Reuters Moscow correspondent, and is now Caucasus Editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. This post originally appeared on OpenDemocracy.net and is republished under Creative Commons.

The Justice Ministry last week released a video showing how the cards are used. In the video a young man assures viewers that the cards do not carry the mark of the Antichrist, and says the authorities made sure the number 666 does not appear on the cards.

The video explains that users’ personal data and facial image are stored on a chip embedded in the card, according to Civil.ge, which says that more than 700,000 electronic IDs are now in circulation.

On 21 April, the day following the video’s release, about 100 members of Orthodox groups staged a protest against the cards at the ministry buildings, Civil.ge writes, warning about both spiritual and political misuse of the cards. Similar demonstrations occurred in January and last summer. One cleric said in the future political forces might misuse the information stored on the cards.

On paper, Meiecundimees uks Korsakov laks eile Latti (Our Homeboy Went to Latvia Yesterday) seems like a simple folk song about an unlucky lad named Korsakov. He carries three tons (of what, they don’t say) to Latvia and breaks his back. He gets into a fight and breaks his nose. He gazes too long at the stars and breaks his neck. He even manages to stab himself in the eye with his thumb, which he then breaks. Life isn’t easy for a tough guy, as the last line of the song concludes.

It’s the seizure-inducing music video, however, which features upside-down drummers spinning on the ceiling and a Chewbacca-headed man in wrestling leotards that has turned the Estonian band into an Internet sensation – and not just in Estonia.

Although the official music video hasn’t been nearly as popular, lead singer Indrek Vaheoja said it is supposed to show how Korsakov “became a healer and is now helping common people.” As he told escXtra.com, “our song also has healing power if listened to very loudly at least 10 times a day.

Vaheoja, who formed the band with high school friends in 1994, said the song is full of surprises and hidden meanings. One surprise may be that it is actually an homage to the band’s namesake, as the tune mimics Winnie the Pooh’s song in this classic Russian cartoon from 1969 (at about one minute in).

Some Estonians criticized the song’s garbled words and droning vocals, leaving comments such as “don’t embarrass Estonia” and “this song is more an act of terrorism or war against Europe than a piece of art” on social media sites, the Ohtuleht daily newspaper reports. Considering that Winny Puhh’s performance at Eesti Laul, the local competition to determine who represents the nation at Eurovision, crossed the million-view mark on YouTube in early April, it’s clear who’s having the last laugh.

The Baltic nation ultimately picked Estonian Idol winner Birgit Oigemeel to represent them at the Eurovision contest in Malmo next month – but don’t discount Winny Puhh’s shtick from any future contests just yet. Remember last year’s Russian babushkas with their bread-baking bit or Lordi, the 2006 Finnish entry that eventually took home the grand prize?

In the meantime, crank up the volume and let the healing begin.

The IT report analyzes the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on 144 economies, utilizing the Networked Readiness Index, which judges a nation’s progress using 54 indicators. Kazakh connectedness was ranked 55^th in 2012, while Kyrgyzstan actually dropped three places from 115th.

The World Economic Forum emphasizes the importance of ICT to a country’s competiveness and prosperity. “It is clear that ICTs offer higher benefit-to-cost ratios in all sectors of production, while simultaneously offering new ways to create value by better and more efficiently organizing the use of natural, financial, and human resources.”

Kazakhstan’s new ranking put it behind only the Baltic states and among former Soviet republics in its IT prowess. Russia ranked 54th. According to Azerbaijan’s Trend news agency, Kazakhstan’s progress includes a rise to 11th place in cell phone users and a significant climb from 133 to 29 in mobile broadband subscriptions. The economic forum praised a strong government hand in the development of an ICT infrastructure but lamented a lagging education system, according to EurasiaNet.org.

Kyrgyzstan, a much poorer nation, received criticism from the forum, as it fell behind equally poor Tajikistan, which moved up two places to 112th. The forum’s report said the country “has not managed to join its neighbors in better leveraging ICTs to boost its economic competitiveness.”

Finland and Singapore top the WEF rankings, surpassing the former leader, Sweden. Among former Soviet states, European and Caucasus countries tend to rank higher than their eastern cousins, led by Skype home base Estonia in 22^nd place.