Presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan on October 30 will mark the first time in post-Soviet Central Asia’s history that there is a peaceful and willing handover of power from one leader to another.
During a Central Asian tour that focused on regional security issues, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gingerly applied pressure on the presidents of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to improve their dubious human rights records. When pressing Uzbek President Islam Karimov to reform, Clinton reportedly secured a commitment from him to change his ways.
ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Jailed Belarusian, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz human rights defenders have been awarded at the One World-Kyrgyzstan international film festival held in Bishkek, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.
With nine months to go before Baku hosts the Eurovision pop-music competition, transparency concerns are arising about Azerbaijani government expenditures on the event.
A powerful earthquake registering 6.2 on the Richter scale struck Ferghana Valley early July 20, affecting Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The epicenter of the quake was about 45 kilometers south of the Uzbek city of Ferghana.
Human rights and press freedom advocates are on high alert in Tajikistan following a spate of police beatings, puzzling arrests and deaths in custody – including one in which police say a detainee killed himself by beating his head against a wall.
A year after ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan claimed over 400 lives, authorities continue a campaign of torture and injustice against minority ethnic Uzbeks, say two international watchdogs marking the one-year anniversary of the bloodletting. Bishkek’s failure to address the discrimination could rekindle violence, warn Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
A United Nations Committee Against Torture report released June 6 rapped Turkmenistan for maintaining a “climate of impunity,” and called on Ashgabat to address systematic human rights abuses as a “matter of urgency.” The report should complicate efforts by the European Union and United States to tighten energy relations with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s regime.
As a senior Uzbek government official touches down in Berlin on May 24, he is heading into a storm of controversy over Uzbekistan’s human rights record. The release of an Uzbek dissident ahead of the trip has not tempered the row, with revelations of his ill treatment behind bars further stoking the ire of activists.
Turkmenistan has, after nine years, presented its first report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT). UN representatives found the report to be lacking in detail, and disappointed by the responses of Turkmen officials to pointed questions.
