KYRGYZSTAN: POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
Igor Kotler, President and Executive Director of the Museum of Human Rights, Freedom, and Tolerance, Visiting Senior Research Fellow and Head of the US-Russia-Former Soviet Union Dialogue Project at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at the Rutgers University presents an article on the political development of Kyrgyzstan, a small state in Central Asia that was previously part of the USSR. Talking about the history of the formation of this state and its political system, Igor Kotler dwells in detail on the issue of respect for human rights in this country.
Dr. Kotler was born in St Petersburg, Russia. Came to the US in 1987. He studied history at UCLA and taught Jewish, Russian, Soviet, American and World history at UCLA, the University of Judaism (now American Jewish University), FIDM, Golden Gate University and Moorpark College in California and religion at the University of Phoenix. He served as Historian at Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation in Los Angeles and as Senior Historian at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. He is also the Associate Director of the International Council of Dialogue and Diplomacy, and Senior Research Associate at the International Educational and Research Center of the Holocaust and Genocides History at the Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow)
Igor A. Kotler published over 30 articles and book chapters in three languages. He co-edited three books in English and Russian based on conferences dedicated to the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. He is a member of the NJ State Commission on Holocaust Education. He participated in many conferences on anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia in the United States, Russia, Germany, and Latvia, including the UNHCR Refugee Congress in 2011. He actively works in tolerance and human rights education and do research on country conditions of the former Soviet states.
