Keywords

1 Introduction

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, human rights education and knowledge dissemination in Central Asia has passed through different stages of development. The mix of democratic and authoritarian, as well as autocratic systems in the region poses challenges, in particular for human rights defenders (HRDs). Over the course of the last three decades, the opportunities open to these activists have changed, either becoming more limited or broader, depending on the governments and characteristics of the country’s political system. In response to this, in 2021, the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) in Regensburg, Germany, and the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, jointly implemented a project on “Human Rights in Central Asia—Between Internationalization and Nation-Building,” funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The objectiveFootnote 1 of this research project and its workshops, which took place in a hybrid format from 4 to 8 October 2021 in Bishkek, was to explore the dissemination of knowledge on human rights, human rights policies, and empowerment, as well as human rights education in the context of processes of transformation, state-building, and nation-building in the states of Central Asia since the 1990s. The one-week workshop, designed for both civil society activists and young professionals, included open lectures on human rights, human rights education, data protection, and European Union (EU) programs on human rights in Central Asia, as well as keynote speeches, which were open to the public.

This article provides a review of the observations and lessons learned from the workshops conducted regarding human rights education and knowledge dissemination in Central Asia, including the vital or exclusory role played by the expertise of civil society activists in the countries of the region. In the first part of the article, we summarize the key discussion outcomes from the two workshops, including human rights instruments and legislation pertaining to CSOs.Footnote 2 In the following we outline the lessons learned in the sphere of human rights education and knowledge dissemination, with regard to materials and teaching, and both the role of academia and social media usage. This is followed by an overview of the role of civil societies in the region in the context of human rights education. In the next part of the article, we summarize the aspects of the sustainability of CSO projects and measurement of their impact. All this demonstrates not only a lack of knowledge on human rights-related issues in the region, but also the paucity of human rights education and material needed to enable effective knowledge dissemination and education on human rights in the Central Asian states. Drawing these points together, in the last chapter of the article, we formulate a set of recommendations for domestic, regional, and international state and non-state actors of human rights knowledge dissemination working in, with, and on the region, before concluding with our main findings.

2 Human Rights Instruments and CSO Legislation

2.1 Human Rights Instruments

The knowledge of human rights instruments,Footnote 3 signed and ratified by the countries in Central Asia, is limited and varies from country to country, partly depending on the characteristics of their political system. That said, no educational efforts have been made to provide this knowledge. Information and education are therefore needed to raise the awareness of people in the region about their rights and how to exercise them.

Not only are people less informed, but there is also a prevailing view in the region that human rights education and knowledge dissemination is a westernized, top-down approach. The resulting bias in society means that people are not informed about the international obligations their governments took on when signing treaties related to human rights issues. In contrast, government officials often work against these rights and civil society’s commitment to protecting them, for example by labeling organizations foreign agents or interrupting the workshops held by activists. Consequently, raising awareness and training people to conduct human rights education and knowledge dissemination to counter governments’ actions and accusations is essential.

2.2 CSO-Related Legislation

Besides the human rights treaties, legislation targeting CSOs and how they are treated varies across the region. Russia’s influence on the Central Asian states and the extent to which the country could serve as a law-making role model for the region, particularly in the civil society sphere—with legislation such as the “foreign agent law”—is therefore a matter of discussion and concern. Although there are no such foreign agent laws in the countries of Central Asia, experts assume reporting requirements and schemes in the respective countries to be in the tradition of such a law and CSOs and activists are, in practice, being labeled or referred to as foreign agents. This is something that happens during workshops, for instance, which are often interrupted by officials, or in the media. In this section, we provide a short overview of the legislation in Central Asia that is related to CSOs and are assumed to be in the tradition of Russia’s foreign agent law.

In Kyrgyzstan, for example, according to a report by the organization International Partnership for Human Rights, there is no law that treats CSOs as foreign agents (IPHR 2021a).Footnote 4 However, in 2021, amendments to the Law on Non-Commercial Organizations (NCOs) raised concerns in the international community about a new financial reporting scheme requiring CSOs to submit annual information regarding their funding to the Ministry of Justice. This additional workload will most certainly have an impact on the effectiveness of Kyrgyz CSOs (UN Special Rapporteur 2022). Government critics have also been intimidated and harassed in the past (IPHR 2021b). Similarly, in Tajikistan, the Law on Public Associations requires that these organizations provide detailed information on the types and sources of funding they receive, as well as their beneficiaries and partners. All foreign funding must be registered with the Ministry of Justice. According to the Ministry, in 2020, more than 100 organizations were denied registration due to missing information (IPHR 2021c). Missing reports about foreign funding have also been used against CSOs in Kazakhstan in recent years to suspend their activities for a certain amount of time. There have been various cases of individual activists being charged with broad criminal offenses—such as involvement in extremist groups and inciting discord (IPHR 2021b). Civil society organizations in Uzbekistan also face difficulties with bureaucratic registration requirements, including many reasons for the government to deny official registration (IPHR 2021d). There have been recent crackdowns on protests, unregistered organizations, and individuals affiliated to them (Freedom House 2021). Even though, over the past few years, we witnessed a gradual process of opening up of the political system, including the adoption of a Concept on Development of Civil Society in 2021–2025, activists and CSOs still cannot carry out their work without facing repression (HRW 2020a). In Turkmenistan, too, CSOs operate under difficult circumstances. There is only very limited space for civil society and organizations cannot operate openly in the country (HRW 2020b). Activists have been imprisoned on various charges, such as hooliganism or fraud (Civicus 2022).

In other words, the situation remains challenging in all Central Asian countries. Although there are no foreign agent laws comparable to Russia’s, the Central Asian regimes find plenty of ways to limit the space in which CSOs can operate and to silence activists.

3 Human Rights Education and Knowledge Dissemination

Human rights education and knowledge dissemination in Central Asia is not only dependent on knowledge of the human rights treaties or CSO-related legislation, but also on the resources organizations have at their disposal to educate people and raise awareness about human rights and how individuals can exercise those rights. These resources are summarized in the following chapters.

3.1 Teaching and Material

When it comes to teaching human rights, there is a continuing need to educate human rights trainers. This is especially important as the countries in Central Asia are multilingual and there is a lack of trainers in country-specific languages. In this respect, there is also a gap between rural and urban areas. As there are fewer human rights teachers in rural areas, there is even less human rights education there. Another issue that must be remedied is the scarcity of data collected on human rights-related issues, such as violations. These visualizations could improve human rights education, as participants would be more involved in the workshops. It is therefore important to support organizations by providing documentation of these violations, including, inter alia, statistics. Similarly, CSOs need help to improve their sustainability, for instance by developing their organizational and professional structures to address their lack of knowledge and experience. Hence, further training and specialization of organizations is essential to meet their needs and improve the quality of their operations.

At the same time, media education and media literacy should be part of human rights education and training in the region, as most communication between organizations and participants or volunteers, as well as within organizations, takes place online. In this context, it is important to raise awareness about how to handle sensitive data online. Regarding the collection of information from the media and literature on human rights, it is also important that human rights trainers and participants in their projects have a basic understanding of how the media works, and which media outlets can be trusted.

Concerning the material for human rights education, there is a lack of textbooks in different languages in Central Asia. Those that are available tend to be written in Russian but not in national languages. The use of outdated editions from the former Soviet Union causes problems, as human rights standards have changed dramatically in the region since the collapse of the USSR. Hence, there is a need to support the development and publication of human rights textbooks, both in Russian and the national languages, to enable broad human rights education. Another linguistic aspect in the field of human rights education is the need for material written in plain language, accessible and understandable for everyone, but at the same time not so over-simplified that it loses its meaning. It is also important for human rights education to not only be focused on children and young students, but adults should be able to benefit from it, too. Consequently, material must target adults as much as children. This could also improve existing education concepts and have a lasting impact on them, which, especially in rural regions in Central Asia, would make a useful contribution to reaching a broader audience (Transparency International 2021).

Beyond this, it is crucial to develop education material, such as human rights ranking and overviews, in the local and regional contexts in Central Asia. This also includes the abovementioned collection of data on human rights and human rights violations by government authorities. There is a shortage of such material in the region, and little is being done to develop it. Consequently, organizations and individual activists in the field of human rights and human rights education should be helped to adapt material from international bodies, such as the United Nations (UN), or even human rights material from the EU.

3.2 Academia

In academia in Central Asia there is a lack of knowledge about the human rights instruments that apply both within the respective states and in the neighboring countries. There is barely any information about the human rights treaties and the countries’ obligations under them. It is therefore important to improve the knowledge and expertise within the region about human rights, human rights instruments, and their implementation. Standardized indicators measuring the extent to which human rights are observed or violated throughout the region could facilitate cooperation between academia and governments. Further, creating networks between scholars in the field of human rights is essential to improve research in the field. In the following, we will provide an overview of the situation in the branches of academia focused on human rights.

International law and human rights are rarely offered as majors in Central Asian universities.Footnote 5 To summarize the situation: In Kazakhstan, there are a total of 150 universities but only five of the leading institutions offer International Law as a subject. Only three of the 39 universities in Tajikistan have courses enabling students to focus on this major. The situation in Turkmenistan is similar, with three of 42 universities offering International Law as a bachelor’s degree. Uzbekistan has 57 universities, of which four have departments of International Law. In Kyrgyzstan, there are 64 universities, of which five focus on International Law. The only university in the country that provides a Liberal Arts Human Rights Concentration is the American University of Central Asia (AUCA). Other universities do not have departments devoted to human rights. Nevertheless, the state universities do hold roundtables to discuss human rights issues in the country on International Human Rights Day.

3.3 Social Media Usage

Human rights education and knowledge dissemination also includes the tools organizations use to spread information in the region. The sharing of information by activists in Central Asia is mostly done online, i.e., on social media platforms. The lack of transparency of certain media companies therefore makes this difficult. Cybersecurity is an area where people in Central Asia are not familiar with their rights or how to exercise these. Nor are they aware of their digital footprint or vulnerability when sending sensitive information via the internet. Internet companies use artificial intelligence to filter and promote information sources, whereby misleading information and the misuse of data is a frequent occurrence. Moreover, the regulations of these companies are difficult to access or understand and can therefore not really be opposed. As these platforms are sometimes the only way to connect with people, especially in rural or remote areas, these conditions jeopardize the safety of human rights activists.

Beyond this, CSOs in Central Asia are often under surveillance and are subject to controls carried out by government officials, frequently during digital workshop sessions. The organizations are unable to prevent these interruptions, which once again increases their vulnerability.

4 The Vital (or Exclusory) Role of Expertise in Central Asian Civil Societies

In line with the discussions about human rights education and knowledge dissemination in Central Asia, we also see the importance of the vital (or exclusory) role that expertise plays in the civil societies of the countries of Central Asia. Civil society organizations are more active than the states themselves when it comes to providing education and disseminating knowledge on human rights in Central Asia and are therefore helping to change prevailing traditions. Despite government officials interrupting workshops or the negative public debate about foreign-funded organizations, activists engage in various fields throughout the region, including the empowerment of women or the education of children. For these areas of work, CSOs develop their own tools, e.g., educational games to teach about human rights.

An important example illustrating the necessity of civil society is women’s engagement in local development. Women are underrepresented in this field, especially in municipal councils. To increase the number of women involved, cooperation with municipalities, legislation, and the empowerment of women are important parameters. It is therefore crucial to integrate the gender dimension in the activities and legislation of local self-government bodies and thus to raise awareness of gender issues, a goal that organizations are actively pursuing throughout the region. Furthermore, legislation favoring women, such as quotas in election legislation to encourage women to stand as candidates for positions on local decision-making bodies, or the possible allocation of funds to municipalities conducting projects involving more women, is essential. In addition, these laws could be combined with improving the services provided by local communities to make them more attractive (IPHR 2019).

Both CSOs and activists gained expertise in the fields in which they work through many years of activity and the experience that comes with that. Academia as well as governments and other spheres of public life could benefit from this expertise. Consequently, improved cooperation and communication between CSOs and various spheres of government is essential for the development and implementation of human rights standards, their dissemination, and education on the subject. On the other hand, civil society’s role should not be constrained to only addressing interested audiences or limiting the fields of operation because of harassment. Constant obstacles such as political attacks, the public debate on foreign agent laws, traditions, and legislation that limit the work of organizations and activists must be dismantled. Instead, the work of CSOs should be valued and supported by government officials. Besides this, CSOs should include representatives from different professions and worldviews in their work, and serve as moderators between them. Again, cooperation and communication between the different spheres is essential here.

5 Sustainability and Evaluation of Successful CSO Projects

Three reasons can be identified that make it difficult for CSOs to implement sustainable projects: the international donor community, national governments, and a lack of cooperation. First, the international donors in the region have their own agendas and pursue their own goals. They rarely adjust their work or requirements to local conditions, e.g., to different forms of organization and their agendas. Although CSOs in Central Asia play a crucial role in educating and disseminating knowledge on human rights, at the same time their organizational and professional structures are weak, as they lack knowledge and experience in the fields in which they work. Consequently, some organizations carry out projects that are not in fact in line with their actual agenda, simply to suit the international donors’ requirements. As a result, these organizations disappear as soon as the project comes to an end. Second, national governments control the work of organizations and do not seem particularly interested in human rights education. Consequently, activists and organizations face some of the obstacles mentioned above, such as government officials interrupting their workshops, being labeled as foreign agents, or being confronted with reporting requirements that are difficult to meet. Third, there is a lack of cooperation with local authorities as projects are being implemented. Better cooperation with the authorities could improve the sustainability, durability, and quality of a project, even once donors withdraw when the agreed funding runs out. In this case, projects could be tied to the area in which the local authority works and, in this way, have longer-lasting effects (Civicus 2021).

Besides having an impact on the sustainability of their projects, this also serves as a measurement tool to evaluate civil society projects in Central Asian countries. To this end, different indicators, both qualitative and quantitative, are used. Qualitative indicators show, for example, possible behavioral change or a change in the mindset of the authorities and the population. Another clear indicator of success and sustainability is if a human rights project influences policymaking and results in new legislation. Additionally, some organizations use feedback from their partners and target audiences during projects to evaluate success. Quantitative indicators used by civil society activists are the number of laws introduced based on their suggestions or as a result of the pressure they exerted, e.g., with regard to gender issues or the work of municipalities (as the abovementioned example of women in municipal councils showed). The number of newly established advocacy projects is another indicator. Individual activists being released from prison is a further measure of success, as is the number of participants repeatedly registering for workshops, as it directly shows how many people can be reached. Some CSO projects also use external evaluation.

6 Recommendations

Based on the outcomes of this project, observations, and lessons learned, we will present some recommendations for actors involved in human rights education, empowerment, and knowledge dissemination in Central Asia. Our focus will be on the international donor community, Central Asian CSOs, scholars, and academia, as well as local authorities.

All of these actors have the obligation to ensure that human rights education is provided and knowledge disseminated. But, as has already been mentioned, there is a lack of knowledge and research on this subject in the region. We advise scholars and academia to focus on research into human rights in the region in cooperation with government authorities and CSOs. The latter should be involved in these efforts, especially in collecting data on human rights violations or by contributing their practical experience. The findings of these projects, in turn, should be used for human rights teaching by organizations and activists. Ensuring that teachers of the subjects relevant to human rights who can provide instruction in the local languages are qualified should be of a greater importance for the international donor community and CSOs so that more people can be reached.

To be able to disseminate knowledge and information on human rights throughout the entire region, donors should not only focus on rural regions in Central Asia. Smaller cities and villages should also be included in project plans and be systematically addressed. Civil society organizations would also be well advised to use a wider range of online communication tools to reach a wider audience and more diverse target group. An important issue to address here is the role women play in civil societies. During the workshops, the gender dimension was a crucial point. Women often lack opportunities to engage in local development, politics, or civil society. There are various reasons for this, one of them being the traditional gender roles that also apply to many highly educated women. We recommend a stronger focus on women’s participation in the region. This includes legislation favoring women, such as quotas in election laws, or to encourage women to put themselves forward as candidates for positions in local decision-making bodies.

Local authorities must start promoting human rights themselves and give students in schools, for example, the opportunity to learn about the topic. A new set of teaching materials will be required to do this. Promoting human rights through local authorities will also have advantages for CSOs and donors, by increasing their space to work and educate on human rights, as well as to disseminate knowledge and information on the subject.

Another significant point of concern is the sustainability of civil society projects in the region. As mentioned above, CSOs often struggle due to inadequate organizational and professional structures, but also due to the low degree of cooperation between those involved in human rights education. Hence, the international donor community, local authorities, academia, and CSOs must all work together and establish dialog based on trust at all stages of project implementation. The needs and concerns of CSOs must be considered at every step of the way and placed at the very heart to ensure their capacity is not exceeded and projects can be implemented in a sustainable manner. To make this possible, further specialization and professionalization of CSOs is needed.

7 Conclusion

This article, which draws on the joint program between IOS Regensburg, Germany, and the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and the workshops held in Bishkek in October 2021 shows the obstacles and challenges CSOs and scholars face in their work on human rights education, empowerment, and knowledge dissemination in the countries of Central Asia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it also highlights the opportunities. The outcomes of the discussions that took place during the workshops illustrate the sheer range of parameters included in human rights education and knowledge dissemination in the region. Both legislation on CSOs and human rights instruments, as well as the circulation of knowledge on human rights in society and the use of social media to share information show the problems the countries of Central Asia still face. Civil society organizations are dependent on funding from the international donor community. In light of this, we must ask ourselves to what extent these financial dependencies create a space in which civil society can work sustainably.

Research, material, and the teaching of human rights in Central Asia need to be adapted accordingly. Both the national and international dimensions, including national languages, the number of human rights trainers, and local contexts, must be borne in mind, especially when it comes to the development of academia and the creation and dissemination of educational material on human rights in the region. Additionally, there is a need to collect data on human rights violations in each country and make these available for teaching and education. Central Asian civil society plays an important role, too. Civil society organizations have many years of experience in the fields in which they work, making them indispensable in cooperation with local authorities and governments. At the same time, CSOs and their work should be protected by the authorities, to enable them to continue their projects without harassment, thus increasing their sustainability.

Our recommendations for those involved in human rights education and knowledge dissemination in Central Asia are addressed to the international donor community as well as CSOs, scholars, and authorities. We have developed a set of guidelines based on the outcomes and lessons learned from the project and workshops conducted with a view to improving cooperation and the sustainability of projects in the region.