RFE/RL WATCHDOG
12/15/2011 9:43:41 PM
A blog of human rights, media freedom, and democracy developments from RFE/RL's broadcast region.For more, please visit and bookmark Watchdog . |
Some 30 relatives of Kyrgyz inmates on hunger strike picketed a pretrial detention center in Bishkek on December 15 to demand the prisoners' demands be met, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports. More Human rights activist Paval Levinau told RFE/RL that when he asked warden Vital Ahnistykau at the Vitsebsk labor camp why jailed former presidential candidate Andrey Sannikau's lawyer was unable to see his client, Ahnistykau said Sannikau wrote a letter to the labor camp's administration when he arrived at the penitentiary stating that his life is under threat. More The lawyer for an Afghan woman who was jailed for adultery after being raped says his client has been released from prison after a pardon by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. More The UN's special rapporteur on torture has said in Bishkek that police, investigators, and prison guards in Kyrgyzstan still use torture during interrogations. More The jailed leader of the Belarusian opposition Youth Front organization has had his term in solitary confinement prolonged until April. More Jailed Belarusian businessman and opposition activist Mikalay Autukhovich has been transferred to a so-called "closed-regime location." More Human Rights Watch has leveled sharp criticism at Uzbekistan over its rights record and chided Western governments for turning a blind eye to such abuses in an effort to foster closer ties with the administration of President Islam Karimov. More Sergei Udaltsov, a coordinator of the opposition Left Front movement, was among the organizers of a December 10 Moscow protest, one of dozens nationwide calling for fresh parliamentary elections following what protesters claim was a rigged poll on December 4. More An opposition activist has disappeared after reporting to police for questioning in eastern Belarus. More The Committee to Protect Journalists says the number of journalists jailed around the world has increased to its highest level since the mid-1990s and that Iran is "the world's worst jailer."More |