At least 16 opposition activists have been arrested since the outbreak began, and human rights groups accuse the government of taking advantage of the pandemic.
An SMS system to regulate residents’ trips outside the home seems to be working smoothly, but there are still thousands of violations of the regime every day.
While the government seems to concede the inevitability of the incipient downturn, it is still clinging to rosy economic performance figures. This and more in our weekly Turkmenistan briefing.
Critics are exasperated by the government’s passivity, warning that the reforms needed for Tajikistan to weather this moment should have been adopted “the day before yesterday.”
There are worries that election observers from Armenia – which has been relatively hard-hit by the COVID-19 outbreak – could bring the virus into Karabakh.
The vote went ahead in spite of the global coronavirus outbreak; although Abkhazia hasn’t recorded any cases, election officials took pains that the disease couldn’t be spread by voting.
Afgan Mukhtarli was freed after nearly three years in prison. His rendering from Tbilisi drew attention to the clout that the authoritarian Azerbaijani government wielded in neighboring Georgia.