From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Wed Apr 04 2001 - 10:11:44 EDT
CENTRAL ASIAN OPPOSITION GROUPS SET UP FORUM
ALMATY. April 3 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) - Representatives of Kazakh,
Kyrgyz and Tajik opposition groups have set up a Central Asian Forum of
Democratic Forces. Nurbulat Masanov, who, together with other Kazakh
opposition figures, attended the forum's founding conference held in
London at the end of March, said so at a news conference in Almaty on
Tuesday.
The forum will be an association of both pressure groups and
individuals who support its goals, Masanov said.
The forum will work towards the consolidation and coordination of
the region's opposition forces, monitor the socioeconomic situation in
the region and keep the world community posted on it, stage activities
and events aimed at the protection of fundamental human rights and
interests of civil society in the region, and provide legal and material
assistance to prisoners of conscience, Masanov said.
The forum's co-chairmen will be Akezhan Kazhegeldin, the leader of
the Kazakh Republican People's Party; head of the Regional Human Rights
Protection Committee Ramazan Dyryldayev of Kyrgyzstan; and journalist
Dododzhon Atovulloyev, a Tajik human rights activists, Masanov said. All
of them have been forced to leave their countries, he said.
The forum activists present at the news conference believe that
Uzbek and Turkmen opposition figures will join the new organization
shortly.
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