On the evening of September 24, local organizers of the fourth annual One World Film Festival in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, learned that their Web site (www.birduino.kg) had been hacked. According to RFE/RL and several other news agencies, on the same day, the Kyrgyz National Security Service (GSNB) interrupted the screening at the film festival of an Australian documentary, entitled The 10 Conditions of Love, about prominent Uyghur activist and World Movement participant, Rebiya Kadeer.  Claiming that they were implementing a presidential directive, the GSNB officers entered the hall of the History Museum where the documentary was being shown and demanded it be halted.   After the GSNB officers left the building, Citizens Against Corruption, a World Movement participating organization and local organizer of the film festival, bravely showed the rest of the movie to the audience.

 

In its “Defending Civil Society” report, the World Movement addresses harassment and intimidation of NGOs, and articulates six principles for protecting civil society. The second principle states that “NGOs have the right to operate free from unwarranted state intrusion or interference in their affairs.” The third principle states that “Civil society representatives, individually and through their organizations, enjoy the right to freedom of expression… States must refrain from restricting freedom of expression through vague, imprecise, and overly broad regulatory language.”

 

The 10 Conditions of Love is a documentary about the life and activities of Ms. Kadeer, now living in exile, who has openly criticized China’s human rights abuses against Uyghurs since the mid 1990s. The One World Film Festival, organized by the World Movement participating organization People in Need based in the Czech Republic, is currently the biggest human rights film festivals in Europe.  Over the last 12 years it has shown hundreds of films from all over the world. The aim of the festival is to screen selected films and by doing so to draw attention to current challenges in various parts of the world and to provide festival audiences with deeper insights into those challenges.

 

For more information about the screening in Kyrgyzstan (in English), go to:

For more information about the screening in Kyrgyzstan (in Russian), go to:

To read the “Defending Civil Society” report in English, go to: www.wmd.org/sites/default/files/media/defending-civil-society-reports/Defending%20Civil%20Society%20-%20English.pdf

 

To read the “Defending Civil Society” report in Russian, go to: www.wmd.org/sites/default/files/media/defending-civil-society-reports/Defending%20Civil%20Society%20-%20Russian.pdf

 

For more information about The 10 Conditions of Love, go to: www.oneworld.cz/2010/films-a-z/15536