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Category: Watchdog

  • Kazakh Rights Defenders Add Five Men To Growing List Of Political Prisoners

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Kazakh human rights organizations have added five people to a list of political prisoners, bringing the total number to 29 in the oil-rich Central Asian nation.

    The five individuals from different parts of the country added to the list on March 17 are Maqsut Appasov, Medet Eseneev, Abzal Qanaliev, Merei Qurbaqov, and Aidar Syzdyqov.

    According to the human rights organizations’ group of experts, they either were convicted or are currently under investigation on politically motivated charges, namely for supporting or taking part in the activities of opposition groups — the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) and Koshe (Street) Party. Both parties have been labeled as extremist organizations and banned in Kazakhstan.

    Bakhytzhan Toreghozhina of the Almaty-based Ar, Rukh, Khaq (Dignity, Spirit, Truth) rights group, told RFE/RL on March 18 that the group of experts representing human rights organizations was established in 2013. Since then, the number of political prisoners in the country has risen dramatically.

    In recent months, many activists across Kazakhstan have been handed parole-like sentences for their involvement in the activities of the DVK and the Koshe Party, as well as for taking part in rallies organized by the two groups.

    DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

    Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings violates international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies, even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

    Kazakh authorities have insisted that there are no political prisoners in the country.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Denounces Repression In Russia-Controlled Crimea After Journalist Arrested On Spying Charge

    The United States has called the arrest of a journalist in Russia-annexed Crimea for allegedly spying on behalf of Kyiv “another attempt to repress those who speak the truth about Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.”

    “Russia continues to prosecute Ukrainian activists and target independent voices on the peninsula,” State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted late on March 17.

    The tweet came one day after Vladislav Yesypenko, who holds dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship and is a freelance contributor to RFE/RL’s Crimea.Realities, a regional news outlet of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, was arrested on suspicion of collecting information for Ukrainian intelligence.

    The Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service has described the move as “propaganda” ahead of the seventh anniversary of Moscow’s forcible annexation of the region on March 18.

    According to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), an object “looking like an explosive device” was found in Yesypenko’s vehicle during his arrest. The FSB also claimed he had confessed to collecting data for the Ukrainian Security Service.

    Yesypenko, along with a resident of the Crimean city of Alushta, Yelizaveta Pavlenko, was detained on March 10 after the two took part in an event marking the 207th anniversary of the birth of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko a day earlier in Crimea.

    Pavlenko was later released.

    RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has called Yesypenko’s detention “deeply troubling,” noting that it comes at a time “when the Kremlin is employing harassment and intimidation against any possible alternative voice in Russia-annexed Crimea.”

    Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.

    Rights groups say that, since then, Russia has moved aggressively to prosecute Ukrainian activists and anyone who questions the annexation.

    Moscow also backs separatists in a war against Ukrainian government forces that has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Your Heart Might Stop’: Kazakh From Xinjiang Threatened After Pressing Chinese Diplomats About Missing Brother

    Baibolat Kunbolatuly is one of the millions of Muslims from China’s western Xinjiang region who has a family member imprisoned or in an internment camp amid Beijing’s oppressive campaign against Muslims.

    The 40-year-old Kunbolatuly has been staging protests in front of the Chinese Embassy in Nur-Sultan and the consulate in Almaty since early 2020, always holding a portrait of his younger brother, Baimurat.

    A naturalized Kazakh citizen, Kunbolatuly has been seeking information about his brother, who vanished in Xinjiang three years ago.

    Locked Up In China: The Plight Of Xinjiang’s Muslims


    Radio Free Radio/Radio Liberty is partnering with its sister organization, Radio Free Asia, to highlight the plight of Muslims living in China’s western province of Xinjiang.

    But Kunbolatuly’s protests came to an abrupt end when he was detained and sent to 10 days of “administrative arrest” on February 10 for breaching laws on protests.

    Unsanctioned rallies — including solo protests — are banned in Kazakhstan.

    Kunbolatuly says that, while in custody, he came under pressure from officials who demanded that he end his campaign.

    He adds that officials threatened that he might “end up like Dulat Aghadil,” a prominent Kazakh activist who died in custody from an alleged heart attack last year in a death that raised suspicions of foul play.

    “An official told me: ‘Your heart might stop, too,’” Kunbolatuly told RFE/RL after his release.

    He says officials told him that his actions could harm his children’s future.

    “They told me: ‘When your children grow up, they might want to work in government agencies, but they won’t be able to do so [because of your actions]. Then your children would hate you. You’re causing them to suffer,’” Kunbolatuly said.

    Officials at the detention facility in Almaty refused to comment on Kunbolatuly’s charges when contacted by RFE/RL.

    Kunbolatuly admits that he is worried about the potential impact his actions could have on his family if he continues his campaign and is rearrested.

    “I think about what would happen to my children if I were to die [in prison],” he says. “What happens to my elderly parents who are already suffering because of my [brother’s disappearance]?”

    ‘We Don’t Know If He’s Still Alive’

    Kunbolatuly lives in a modest apartment in Almaty with his wife and their three children. He arrived in Kazakhstan in 2002 and received a passport six years later.

    Kazakhstan offers citizenship to ethnic Kazakhs who return to their ancestral country. Thousands of ethnic Kazakhs moved from China to Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    In 2005, Kunbolatuly’s parents left China to join him in Kazakhstan. Close family members and other relatives followed them.

    People protest on February 9 outside the Chinese Consulate in Almaty to demand the release of their loved ones who they believe are being held against their will in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang.


    People protest on February 9 outside the Chinese Consulate in Almaty to demand the release of their loved ones who they believe are being held against their will in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

    His brother, Baimurat, decided to return to Xinjiang in 2012 to look after an elderly aunt. Initially, Baimurat would frequently call or exchange texts with his family in Kazakhstan.

    But the family soon lost contact with him. The aunt and other relatives also didn’t respond to Kunbolatuly’s calls and letters.

    Many people in Xinjiang are afraid to keep in touch with their relatives abroad because even answering a foreign phone call could land them in jail.

    The only information Kunbolatuly was able to get about his brother over many years were from other ethnic Kazakhs who would manage to call someone in Xinjiang who knew something about him.

    Kunbolatuly said he heard from someone that Baimurat was sent to one of China’s notorious internment camps. Another rumor had it that Baimurat was forced to teach Mandarin to ethnic Kazakhs being held at a camp. Baimurat was fluent in Mandarin, which many ethnic minorities in Xinjiang don’t speak, his brother recalls.

    Kunbolatuly says he doesn’t know if what he heard about his brother’s fate is true. “I don’t even know if my brother is still alive or not,” he adds.

    Baibolat Kunbolatuly protests in front of the Chinese Consulate in Almaty in January 2020.


    Baibolat Kunbolatuly protests in front of the Chinese Consulate in Almaty in January 2020.

    Right groups say about 1 million people — almost all of them from Muslim minority groups, primarily Uyghurs — have been detained in internment camps in Xinjiang.

    There are widespread reports of systematic torture, starvation, rape, and even forced sterilization of the people being held in the vast camps, which are located behind barbed wire and watchtowers.

    In January, the United States declared that China has committed genocide in its repression of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities.

    Beijing rejects the claims and says the camps are “vocational training centers” where people voluntarily attend classes.

    Message From Embassy

    After years of waiting for a message from his brother and looking for information about him, Kunbolatuly had had enough.

    He began a protest in front of the Chinese Consulate in Almaty as well as at the embassy in the capital, Nur-Sultan, in 2020, asking that Chinese officials provide information about his missing brother.

    He eventually got a text message from the embassy that read: “On March 20, 2012, your brother shared content on the Chinese social [media] site Baidu Tieba that incited ethnic strife. Therefore, on April 11, 2018, a city court…in Xinjiang sentenced him to 10 years in prison. He is currently serving his sentence.”

    Kunbolatuly says he thoroughly studied all social-media posts shared by his brother and didn’t find a single message that could even remotely be linked to “inciting ethnic strife.”

    He also doesn’t know why it took six years for Chinese authorities to target his brother over the alleged post. Kunbolatuly didn’t receive any further comment from Chinese diplomats.

    There are many other ethnic Kazakh natives from Xinjiang who protest in front of China’s embassy and consulate in Kazakhstan.

    Their stories are similar to Kunbolatuly’s: They, too, are desperate to discover the fate of their loved ones who disappeared in Xinjiang. They, too, don’t know if their relatives are dead or alive, if they are in prison or being held in the internment camps.

    Kazakhstan is reluctant to condemn the widely documented human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The Kazakh government says it doesn’t interfere in China’s treatment of its own citizens, calling it an internal matter.

    The largest country in Central Asia is also wary of harming its relations with Beijing, a major investor in Kazakhstan’s vast natural resources and other sectors of the economy.

    Kazakh authorities have been criticized for putting pressure on activists who call on the government in Nur-Sultan to speak up about the plight of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

    Like Kunbolatuly, several others have been detained by police for protesting in front of Chinese diplomatic offices. The Internet signal often disappears or weakens in certain areas when protesters gather so they cannot organize or post photos or reports online.

    Kunbolatuly says his Facebook account was first hacked into and then deleted while he was livestreaming a demonstration by ethnic Kazakhs near the Chinese Consulate in Almaty on March 16.

    An RFE/RL correspondent who was friends with him on Facebook confirms that he can no longer find Kunbolatuly’s account. Kunbolatuly says he has also lost access to his e-mail account.

    Almaty police, meanwhile, are always pushing the protesters away from the consulate, demanding they keep at least 50 meters from the building.

    Despite the pressures, the Kunbolatuly family is determined not to stay silent. When Kunbolatuly was in detention, his mother, Zauatkhan Tursyn, joined with the other protesters in Almaty.

    The family also says it has not lost hope that one day Baimurat will be freed and join his family in Kazakhstan.

    Until then, the Kunbolatulys say they will continue to demand answers from Beijing.

    Written by Farangis Najibullah based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Journalist Arrested On Espionage Charge In Russian-Controlled Crimea

    SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — The authorities in Crimea have arrested a man for allegedly spying on behalf of Ukraine, a move Kyiv characterized as propaganda ahead of the seventh anniversary of Moscow’s illegitimate annexation of the region.

    Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on March 16 that Vladislav Yesypenko, who holds dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship and is a freelance contributor to Crimea.Realities, was arrested on suspicion of collecting information for Ukrainian intelligence.

    According to the FSB, an object “looking like an explosive device” was found in Yesypenko’s automobile during his apprehension. It also said he confessed to collecting data for the Ukrainian Security Service.

    Yesypenko, along with a resident of the Crimean city of Alushta, Yelizaveta Pavlenko, was detained on March 10 after the two took part in an event marking the 207th anniversary of the Ukrainian poet and thinker Taras Shevchenko the day before in Crimea.

    Pavlenko was later released.

    Yesypenko’s lawyer, Emil Kuberdinov, said on March 15 that he had not been allowed to meet with his client since his arrest.

    “At a time when the Kremlin is employing harassment and intimidation against any possible alternative voice in Russia-annexed Crimea, the recent detention of Vladislav Yesypenko, a freelancer for RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, is deeply troubling. Yesypenko should be released immediately, so that he can be reunited with his family,” RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said in a statement.

    Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.

    Rights groups say that since then, Russia has moved aggressively to prosecute Ukrainian activists and anyone who questions the annexation.

    The Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service said in a post on Facebook that with the arrest, the FSB was trying create the atmosphere the Kremlin needs to “celebrate the anniversary of the occupation of Crimea.”

    “Such propaganda on the eve of the anniversary is a convenient attempt to distract the attention of the population away from the numerous internal problems of the peninsula,” it said.

    “Russia is deliberately inflating the situation, trying to shift responsibility for the settlement process in eastern Ukraine to Ukraine.”

    Moscow also backs separatists in a war against Ukrainian government forces that has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

    On March 15, the Russian-imposed authorities in the Black Sea peninsula temporarily lifted coronavirus pandemic restrictions to mark the seventh anniversary of the region’s annexation with a variety of events organized by the pro-Kremlin Night Wolves bikers club, as well as patriotic events at schools and military schools on March 18.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kosovo Minister Steps Down After Election Graft Allegations

    PRISTINA — Kosovo’s foreign minister has resigned amid allegations that her husband bribed election officials to help her win a parliamentary seat.

    Meliza Haradinaj-Stublla announced on March 9 that she was stepping down from her position in the government and resigning from her political party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK).

    In a Facebook post, the 37-year-old politician described her decision as a necessary step that would allow her to focus on her legal defense — not an acknowledgement of any guilt.

    According to local media reports, her husband, Dardan Stublla, bribed election commissioners to help her win a seat in the Kosovo Assembly at last month’s snap parliamentary elections.

    Haradinaj-Stublla belonged to a caretaker cabinet operating until the new parliament convenes and elects the government.

    The AAK — a junior coalition partner in the government of Avdullah Hoti, which took office in June — is not expected to be part of the next government to be headed by Prime Minister-designate Albin Kurti.

    It received eight parliamentary seats in the February 14 election, which was won by Kurti’s leftist-nationalist Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party.

    With reporting by Balkan Insight, dpa, and AP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Freed British-Australian Academic Says Iran Subjected Her To ‘Psychological Torture’

    A British-Australian woman jailed in Iran for more than two years on widely criticized espionage charges has said in a television interview broadcast on March 9 that she was subjected to “psychological torture.”

    Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a lecturer in Islamic Studies at Melbourne University, returned to Australia in November after serving 804 days of a 10-year sentence.

    Moore-Gilbert, 33, who was freed in exchange for the release of three Iranians held in Thailand, told Sky News that she was held in solitary confinement.

    “It’s [an] extreme solitary confinement room designed to break you. It’s psychological torture. You go completely insane. It is so damaging. I would say I felt physical pain from the psychological trauma I had in that room. It’s [a] 2-meter by 2-meter box,” she said.

    “There were a few times in that early period that I felt broken. I felt if I had to endure another day of this, you know, if I could I’d just kill myself. But of course, I never tried and I never took that step,” Moore-Gilbert added.

    She also confirmed that members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had attempted to recruit her as a spy “many times.”

    Moore-Gilbert had written about the attempts in letters smuggled out of prison and published in British media in January 2020.

    Iran has arrested dozens of foreign and dual nationals in recent years on espionage charges that they and their governments say are groundless.

    Critics say Iran uses such arbitrary detentions as part of hostage diplomacy to extract concessions from Western countries, which Tehran denies.

    With reporting by AP and The Guardian

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • British-Iranian Aid Worker Released, But Summoned To Court Again

    British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has had her ankle tag removed after her five-year prison sentence expired, but it remains unclear if she can leave Iran.

    Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency said that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been summoned to court again on March 13, dashing hopes for her immediate return home.

    British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement that Zaghari-Ratcliffe must be released immediately so she can return to her family in Britain.

    Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained at Tehran airport after a family visit in 2016 and subsequently given a five-year sentence for plotting to overthrow Iran’s government.

    Her family and the foundation deny the charge while Amnesty International denounced the proceedings as a “deeply unfair trial.”

    Britain has demanded Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release and that of other dual nationals imprisoned in Iran. Tehran does not recognize dual citizenship.

    In November, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was notified in court of a fresh indictment of “spreading propaganda against the regime.”

    She was temporarily released from the capital’s notorious Evin prison and placed under house arrest in March 2020 owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In Or Out Of Jail, Veteran Iranian Human Rights Defender Narges Mohammadi Won’t Be Silenced

    Despite being repeatedly threatened by Iran’s security apparatus, harassed, sent to prison multiple times, and prevented from seeing her children, the authorities have failed to silence Narges Mohammadi.

    One of Iran’s leading human rights defenders, Mohammadi has long campaigned against the death penalty and defended victims of state violence.

    While in prison, she has gone on several hunger strikes to protest the conditions there, attended a sit-in to condemn the security forces’ killing of several hundred protesters in November 2019, and spoke out about human rights abuses in open letters and statements smuggled out of her cell.

    Since her release in October 2020, the award-winning Mohammadi has remained in a defiant mood, speaking out publicly against state tyranny and injustice. “Despite the price I’ve paid, I remain hopeful, and I’m confident that our efforts will bear fruit, although not immediately,” she says.

    Mohammadi’s 10-year prison sentence on charges stemming from her human rights work was shortened due to concern for her health during the coronavirus outbreak in Iranian prisons and after calls for her release by the UN and rights groups.

    Punished For Not Backing Down

    A journalist and trained engineer, Mohammadi tells RFE/RL that despite everything she has endured, she remains positive and determined to keep fighting for better rights, freedom, and democracy in Iran.

    Mohammadi, the spokeswoman of the banned Defenders of Human Rights Center co-founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, has been meeting with mothers whose sons were victims of the recent deadly state crackdowns while continuing to raise concerns about rights violations.

    In a video posted online last week, she highlighted violence against female detainees, including herself, saying she was subjected to force during her 2019 prison transfer from Tehran to the northwest city of Zanjan, some 300 kilometers from the Iranian capital. Mohammadi, who suffers from a neurological illness, has said the prison transfer was aimed at punishing her for protesting the killing of demonstrators.

    Mohammadi said she was physically assaulted by male guards and a prison director despite Islamic laws enforced in Iran that men should not touch women to whom they are not related. “How come you do not have to obey Islamic laws [in prison]? So what you’ve seen saying [about the need to uphold Islamic rules] was a lie,” she said.

    “I protest against assault by the Islamic establishment’s men against women and I won’t be silenced,” Mohammadi said in the video, where she also mentioned jailed environmentalist Niloofar Bayani, who has accused her interrogators of sexual threats and pressure.

    Narges Mohammadi (right) joins Behnam Mahjoubi's mother (center) and others protesting in front of the hospital in Tehran where he died.

    Narges Mohammadi (right) joins Behnam Mahjoubi’s mother (center) and others protesting in front of the hospital in Tehran where he died.

    In late February, Mohammadi was among the activists demanding accountability for the situation of jailed Sufi Behnam Mahjubi, 33, who fell into a coma after suffering from what authorities said was medicinal poisoning.

    In online videos, Mohammadi was seen asking hospital staff about Mahjubi, who later died amid accusations of medical neglect. She was also seen attempting to comfort Mahjubi’s mother outside the hospital where he was fighting for his life. She later criticized Mahjubi’s treatment in media interviews.

    Earlier this month, Mohammadi joined a group of civil society activists and rights defenders to file an official complaint against the use of solitary confinement while calling for the prosecution of officials who authorize it. Political detainees in Iran are often held in solitary confinement for weeks or months with no access to the outside world.

    Mohammadi, who has endured solitary confinement several times in prison, condemned the “inhuman” practice in a 2016 letter from Tehran’s Evin prison, where she called it “psychological torture” aimed at forcing prisoners to make false confessions.

    Mohammadi’s outspokenness could be difficult for the authorities to ignore, especially as they are in no mood to tolerate dissent amid a deteriorating economy and a deadly coronavirus pandemic that Tehran has struggled to contain.

    The prominent rights defender says she is well-aware of the risk she’s facing. “It’s not like I’m not worried, but the truth is that despite being concerned and despite the risk of arrest, I believe we have to keep working on issues that matter in our society,” Mohammadi tells RFE/RL.

    “The efforts that are being made will definitely bring results in the mid- or long term and help remove injustices and discrimination against our people in different areas — including in the economy, culture, politics, and women’s rights — and allow society to grow,” she says.

    Increasing The Pressure

    In December, Iran executed Ruhollah Zam, the manager of the popular Amadnews Telegram channel, who was convicted of inciting violence during the anti-establishment protests in late 2017 and early 2018.

    Scores of activists, academics and dual nationals have also been arrested, and a number have been sentenced to harsh prison terms. The authorities have also pressured a prominent NGO that fights against poverty, ordering its dissolution.

    Even after her release from prison, the authorities kept pressure on Mohammadi by banning her from traveling outside the country and by bringing new charges against her over her 2019 prison protest.

    She has said she will refuse to appear in court, saying her prison sit-in was a peaceful protest against “the repressive policies of the Islamic republic” and the “ruthless” crackdown on protesters two years ago who protested a large, sudden rise in the price of gasoline amid rising poverty in the country.

    “Iranian authorities’ persecution of human rights defenders often continues even after they are released from prison,” Human Rights Watch Iran researcher Tara Sepehrifar told RFE/RL. “Yet Narges, like several other Iranian human rights defenders, continues to show resilience and commitment to peaceful resistance against repression by speaking up and also building pressure by utilizing potential legal avenues open for challenging authorities’ abusive behavior.”

    Mohammad’s teenage daughter and son, Kiana and Ali, live in France with their father, political activist Taghi Rahmani, who left the country in 2012 to escape a jail sentence. Mohammadi remained behind, believing she could be more effective inside the country, and has not seen her children since July 2015.

    Mohammadi says the authorities have rejected her demand to be allowed to visit her twins, who took to social media in late January to condemn the travel ban against their mother.

    Even if the ban is lifted, Mohammadi is not planning to live in exile like many other activists who have been forced to flee Iran to escape state repression. “I told Tehran’s prosecutor that I want to be with my family for two months and then return. Unfortunately, they refused [my request] and I don’t plan to leave the country illegally,” she says.

    Standing with the people is the principle that has guided her throughout her life, she adds.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Angry Kazakh Mothers Demand More Government Support, Response

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Dozens of mothers, some of whom have children with medical conditions, have gathered at Almaty’s city hall days before International Women’s Day to demand city officials increase support to families.

    The women entered the building of the city administration on March 5, demanding that Mayor Baqytzhan Saghyntaev meet with them and chanting, “Saghyntaev, come out!”

    The women complained that they had been added to the city administration’s list for distribution of free apartments to families in need, but had failed to move up despite being on it for years.

    The women also demanded more financial and social support for handicapped children.

    Saghyntaev did not meet with the women, sending the chairwoman of the city administration’s directorate on social issues, Nazira Toghyzbaeva, and the deputy chief of the housing directorate, Ermek Amirov, to talk to the women.

    The two officials explained that the state program on the distribution of free apartments to families with lower incomes is being implemented and that all families included on the list can follow the process online. They added, however, that special programs for supporting families with several children, as well as those with handicapped children, have yet to be worked out.

    In the capital, Nur-Sultan, dozens of mothers have been demanding increased social allowances since late February. Many have spent several nights camped inside the building of the city administration.

    Earlier this week, 32 mothers in Nur-Sultan officially filed their demands with the Ministry of Social Support, which informed them that they will receive an official response in mid-April.

    The women answered that they will not leave the city administration building until they receive the responses.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • HRW: Kyrgyz Draft Constitution Endangers Rights, Weakens Checks And Balances

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) is urging Kyrgyzstan to withdraw a draft constitution submitted to lawmakers last month, saying it undermines human rights norms and weakens the checks and balances necessary to prevent abuses of power.

    “The current draft constitution does not reflect the high human rights standards Kyrgyzstan says it aspires to,” Syinat Sultanalieva, Central Asia researcher at the New York-based human rights watchdog, said in a statement on March 5.

    Kyrgyzstan has been in political crisis since parliamentary elections in October led to protests that triggered the toppling of the government and the resignation of then-President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

    President Sadyr Japarov was among several prominent politicians freed from prison by protesters during the unrest. He had been serving a 10-year prison sentence for hostage-taking during a protest against a mining operation in northeast Kyrgyzstan in October 2013. He has denied the charge.

    Since winning a presidential election in January, Japarov has advanced the draft constitution.

    Votes of at least 80 members of the caretaker parliament, or a two-thirds majority, are required to adopt the proposed constitution before it is put to a national referendum.

    HRW said the legislature should postpone consideration of the text until after a new parliament has been elected to “allow for a full deliberative and consultative constitutional reform process.”

    The government should also refer the draft to the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission of constitutional experts.

    “President Japarov has pledged to uphold and respect human rights,” Sultanalieva said, adding: “A new constitution lays the foundation for these actions, so it is vitally important for this document, and the process of preparing it, to uphold beyond all doubt the highest standards of human rights and the rule of law.”

    In its annual report released earlier this week, the Washington-based human rights watchdog Freedom House said the draft constitution “could reshape Kyrgyzstan’s political system in the mold of its authoritarian neighbors.”

    HRW said provisions in the draft regarding the role of the executive and parliament “erode the constitution’s current system of checks and balances.” It cited a proposed article providing the president with powers previously exclusive to the parliament, such as initiating new laws and referendums, in addition to the existing power of veto.

    The group said two other articles would allow the president to indirectly recall the mandates of members of parliament. If the president obtains the support of a majority of lawmakers, the head of state can strip a parliament member’s immunity from criminal prosecution, which HRW said would create “the conditions for political pressure on members who are critical of the ruling party or the president.”

    Other “problematic” provisions would transfer power from the parliament to the president to appoint members of the cabinet, and appoint and dismiss judges, the prosecutor-general, the chairman of the central bank, as well as nominate and dismiss half of the Central Election Committee.

    HRW noted that several proposed articles “directly violate” international human rights standards, including one that would prohibit activities, public events, and dissemination of information contrary to the “moral values and the public consciousness of the people of Kyrgyzstan.”

    The draft constitution also excludes an article guaranteeing freedom of identification of ethnic identity, a move that would create “a dangerous potential for ethnic profiling and discrimination against ethnic minorities.”

    The draft also includes a provision imposing “unnecessary, burdensome” financial reporting requirements on nongovernmental organizations, trade unions, and political parties.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Jailed Belarusian, Iranian Exile, Slain Afghans Among U.S. ‘Women Of Courage’ Honorees

    The U.S. State Department will honor 14 “extraordinary” women from Belarus, Iran, and other countries who have demonstrated leadership, courage, resourcefulness, and a willingness to sacrifice for others.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host the annual International Women of Courage (IWOC) awards in a virtual ceremony on March 8 to honor jailed Belarusian opposition figure Maryya Kalesnikava, as well as Shohreh Bayat, an Iranian chess arbiter who went into exile after violating her country’s strict Islamic dress code, the State Department said in a statement on March 4.

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    It said a group of seven other “extraordinary” women leaders and activists from Afghanistan who were assassinated while serving their communities will also receive an honorary award.

    The IWOC award, now in its 15th year, is presented annually to women from around the world who have “demonstrated exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality, and women’s empowerment — often at great personal risk and sacrifice.”

    This year’s recipients include Kalesnikava, a ranking member of the Coordination Council, an opposition group set up after Belarus’s disputed presidential election in August with the stated aim of facilitating a peaceful transfer of power.

    The opposition says the election was rigged and the West has refused to accept the results. Thousands of Belarusians have been jailed during months of crackdowns on the street demonstrations against strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

    Kalesnikava was arrested in September and charged with calling for actions aimed at damaging the country’s national security, conspiracy to seize state power, and organizing extremism.

    Ahead of the presidential election, “Belarusian women emerged as a dominant political force and driver of societal change in Belarus due in no small part to” Kalesnikava, according to the State Department.

    The opposition figure “continues to be the face of the opposition inside Belarus, courageously facing imprisonment, it said, adding that she “serves as a source of inspiration for all those seeking to win freedom for themselves and their countries.”

    The State Department said Bayat will be honored for choosing “to be a champion for women’s rights rather than be cowed by the Iranian government’s threats.”

    Bayat, the first female Category A international chess arbiter in Asia, sought refuge in Britain after she was photographed at the 2020 Women’s Chess World Championship in Shanghai without her head scarf, or hijab, as her country mandates.

    “Within 24 hours, the Iranian Chess Federation — which Shohreh had previously led — refused to guarantee Shohreh’s safety if she returned to Iran without first apologizing,” the State Department said.

    “Fearing for her safety and unwilling to apologize for the incident, Shohreh made the heart-wrenching decision to seek refuge in the U.K., leaving her husband — who lacked a U.K. visa — in Iran.”

    In addition to the individual IWOC awards, Blinken will also present an honorary award to seven Afghan women whose “tragic murders” in 2020 underscored the “alarming trend of increased targeting of women in Afghanistan.”

    The women include Fatema Natasha Khalil, an official with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission; General Sharmila Frough, the head of the Gender Unit in the National Directorate of Security; journalist Malalai Maiwand; women’s rights and democracy activist Freshta Kohistani; and midwife Maryam Noorzad.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Activist Convicted Of Mocking Putin Released

    SAMARA, Russia — A court in the Russian city of Samara has found civil rights activist Karim Yamadayev guilty but said he should be released after spending more than a year in detention for mocking President Vladimir Putin and two of his close associates online.

    The Central District Military Court on March 4 found Karim Yamadayev guilty of public calls for terrorism and insulting authorities and ordered him to pay a fine of 300,000 rubles ($4,000).

    The court also barred Yamadayev, who was held in the Tatarstan region before being moved to Samara, from being an administrator on social networks for 2 1/2 years.

    Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Yamadayev to six years and seven months in prison, but no jail time was included in the sentence.

    Yamadayev, a former police officer in Tatarstan, was arrested in January 2020and charged over a video he posted in late 2019 on his YouTube channel, Judge Gramm.

    The video in question features Yamadayev, dressed as a judge, reading death sentences to two men whose heads are covered with black sacks. White signs hang from their necks with the names “Dmitry Peskov” and “Igor Sechin.”

    Peskov is Putin’s long-serving press spokesman, while Sechin is the powerful chief of the state-owned oil giant Rosneft.

    Another man in the show portrays a third defendant, who also has his head covered with a black sack and a sign with the name “Vladimir Putin.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Activist Convicted Of Mocking Putin Released

    SAMARA, Russia — A court in the Russian city of Samara has found civil rights activist Karim Yamadayev guilty but said he should be released after spending more than a year in detention for mocking President Vladimir Putin and two of his close associates online.

    The Central District Military Court on March 4 found Karim Yamadayev guilty of public calls for terrorism and insulting authorities and ordered him to pay a fine of 300,000 rubles ($4,000).

    The court also barred Yamadayev, who was held in the Tatarstan region before being moved to Samara, from being an administrator on social networks for 2 1/2 years.

    Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Yamadayev to six years and seven months in prison, but no jail time was included in the sentence.

    Yamadayev, a former police officer in Tatarstan, was arrested in January 2020and charged over a video he posted in late 2019 on his YouTube channel, Judge Gramm.

    The video in question features Yamadayev, dressed as a judge, reading death sentences to two men whose heads are covered with black sacks. White signs hang from their necks with the names “Dmitry Peskov” and “Igor Sechin.”

    Peskov is Putin’s long-serving press spokesman, while Sechin is the powerful chief of the state-owned oil giant Rosneft.

    Another man in the show portrays a third defendant, who also has his head covered with a black sack and a sign with the name “Vladimir Putin.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Expresses ‘Deep Concern’ After Moscow Court Confirms ‘Foreign Agent’ Fines Against RFE/RL

    The U.S. State Department has expressed “deep concern” about what it calls Russian government efforts “to clamp down on the exercise of freedom of expression.”

    The March 3 statement from State Department spokesman Ned Price came the same day that a Moscow judge rejected five appeals by U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty against fines imposed on the company under Russia’s controversial “foreign agent” law.

    “We are concerned by today’s denial of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s appeals of fines unjustly imposed under Russia’s repressive foreign-agent-registration laws,” Price said. “These laws are a further transparent effort to impede the work of RFE/RL outlets, which are already severely limited in their ability to broadcast on television and radio in Russia and to prevent them from bringing real and objective news to the Russian people.”

    Price called Moscow’s actions “unacceptable” and added, “We will continue to support the presence of independent and international media outlets in Russia.”

    Judge Aleksei Krivoruchko of the Tverskoi district court on March 3 confirmed fines imposed on RFE/RL for failing to mark written and broadcast materials in accordance with regulations set by the state media-monitoring agency Roskomnadzor. A lower court imposed the fines on February 10.

    “RFE/RL rejects the imposition of these fines and does not accept the Russian court’s decision to strike down our appeal of them,” RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said in response to the rulings.

    “We consider Russian Internet regulator Roskomnadzor’s self-labeling regulations — in fact, orders to deface our content platforms and intimidate our audiences — to be a state-sponsored assault on media freedom that violates the Russian Constitution and Russia’s media law,” he said, adding that “RFE/RL will continue to object, protest, and appeal these requirements.”

    Despite ongoing appeals in more cases on the issue, RFE/RL now has 60 days to pay the fines and come into compliance with the regulations or face the potential closure of its operations inside Russia. It can also further appeal the March 3 decision.

    “RFE/RL will not abandon our growing audience in Russia, who continue to engage with our objective and independent journalism despite the Kremlin’s pressure campaign,” Fly said.

    “RFE/RL will not be deterred by these blatant attempts to influence our editorial independence and undermine our ability to reach our audience at a moment when the Russian people are demanding the truth,” he added.

    Since January 14, Roskommnadzor has opened 260 cases against RFE/RL for violations of the labeling requirements. A Moscow court has already levied fines in 142 cases, with the total fines approaching a value of nearly $1 million.

    Russia’s so-called “foreign agent” legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.

    Later modifications targeted foreign-funded media.

    In 2017, the Russian government placed RFE/RL’s Russian Service on the list, along with six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, and Current Time, a network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

    At the end of 2020, the legislation was modified to allow the Russian government to include individuals, including foreign journalists, on its “foreign agent” list and to impose restrictions on them.

    In December 2020, Russia added five individuals to its “foreign agent” list, including three contributors to RFE/RL’s Russian Service. All five are appealing their inclusion on the list.

    Roskomnadzor last year adopted rules requiring listed media to mark all written materials with a lengthy notice in large text, all radio materials with an audio statement, and all video materials with a 15-second text declaration.

    Human Rights Watch has described the “foreign agent” legislation as “restrictive” and intended “to demonize independent groups.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Court Sentences Pro-Ukrainian Crimean Activist To Five Years

    A Russian court has sentenced a pro-Ukrainian activist from Moscow-annexed Crimea, Oleh Prykhodko, to five years in prison on terrorism charges that he and his supporters have dismissed as politically motivated.

    Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said on Telegram that the Southern District Military Court in the city of Rostov-on-Don on March 3 ordered Prykhodko to pay a 110,000 ruble (around $1,500) fine.

    Denisova called the court’s ruling “unlawful” and “based on fabricated charges of an attempted terrorist attack and plotting an arson attack against the Russian Consulate in [Ukraine’s western city of] Lviv in 2019.”

    “I condemn the unlawful verdict by the Russian court and consider it retaliation from the occupying government for Oleh’s pro-Ukrainian stance [and] his public refusal to recognize Crimea’s annexation by Russia,” Denisova’s statement said, while also saying that Prykhodko has a medical condition.

    “I call on the international community to continue its pressure on the Russian Federation and demand the immediate release of all Kremlin critics,” the statement said.

    Prykhodko was detained in October 2019 and charged with illegally fabricating handmade explosives with the intention of carrying out a terrorist act.

    He was charged later with possession of illegal explosives.

    Prykhodko denies all the charges, calling them politically motivated.

    Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries, after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.

    Rights groups say that since then Russia has moved aggressively to prosecute Ukrainian activists and anyone who questions the annexation.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Activist Sentenced For Links With Banned Political Group

    TARAZ, Kazakhstan — A court in southern Kazakhstan has handed a parole-like sentence to an activist for her links with the banned Koshe (Street) Party, the second supporter of the opposition movement to be sentenced in less than a week.

    The Taraz City Court No. 2 late on March 2 sentenced Zhazira Qambarova to two years of “freedom limitation” after finding her guilty of organizing and participating in the activities of the opposition Koshe Party, which has links with another outlawed party, the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement.

    Qambarova was banned from using the media or the Internet to conduct political and social activities for five years. She also is not allowed to get involved in any political activities for two years.

    The activist, who was charged in September 2020, acknowledged she was taking part in the Koshe Party’s activities but denied she had organized any of them.

    She said she would appeal the ruling, claiming she was being persecuted for her public activities.

    Several activists across the Central Asian nation have been handed “freedom limitation” sentences for their involvement in the activities of the Koshe Party and DVK, as well as for taking part in the rallies organized by the two groups.

    On January 26, a Kazakh court sentenced a Koshe Party supporter, Qairat Sultanbek, to one year of “freedom limitation” after he was detained and charged in September.

    DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

    Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings contradicts international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Feminist Performance Artist Files Appeal Against ‘Foreign Agent’ Listing

    MOSCOW — Russian feminist performance artist Daria Apakhonchich has filed a legal appeal against the government’s inclusion of her on its list of “media organizations fulfilling the functions of foreign agents.”

    Lawyer Pavel Chikov of the Agora legal-defense organization made the announcement on Telegram on March 1. Denis Kamalyagin, editor in chief of the online newspaper Pskovskaya Guberniya, has also appealed his inclusion on the “foreign agent” list, the website reported on March 3.

    According to Chikov, Apakhonchich’s appeal states that she “never received money or any property from foreign sources for the creation or dissemination of statements or materials that were distributed by foreign media listed under the foreign agents law.”

    Apakhonchich added that she regards the restrictions on her rights to be politically motivated, and her complaint includes 12 pages of examples of alleged violations of her rights to expression and privacy.

    On December 28, 2020, Apakhonchich and four other individuals, including two contributors to RFE/RL’s Russian Service, were included on the government’s list of “media organizations fulfilling the functions of foreign agents.”

    They were the first to be added to the list following a new amendment to the law that authorized the government to apply the designation to individuals.

    The Justice Ministry did not offer any justification for adding these individuals to the list.

    In an interview with RFE/RL’s Russian Service following the designation, Apakhonchich said the listing was a surprise “because I am not engaged in journalism.” She added that she believed she was targeted for her “feminist activities.”

    On March 1, human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov — another of the individuals added to the list — announced that he was closing down his For Human Rights nongovernmental organization after two decades because of the obstacles created by the controversial “foreign agent” legislation.

    Russia’s so-called foreign agent legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.

    Later modifications of the law targeted foreign-funded media, including RFE/RL’s Russian Service, six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, and Current Time.

    Human Rights Watch has described the foreign agent legislation as “restrictive” and intended “to demonize independent groups.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Court Hands Down First Criminal Sentence To Participant In January’s Pro-Navalny Rallies

    KOSTROMA, Russia — A court in Russia’s Volga city of Kostroma has sentenced a man to 18 months of forced labor on a criminal charge for attacking a police officer during January 23 rallies against the arrest of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

    The Sverdlov district court said on March 2 that a 26-year-old Kostroma resident pleaded guilty to pushing a hat off of a police officer’s head and kicking the officer from behind as police moved in to detain demonstrators.

    The court ruled that the man will be placed in a specialized correctional center, where he will work at an industrial facility for 18 months. Ten percent of his salary will be given to the state.

    The news website Mediazona identified the man as Aleksei Vinogradov.

    OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, says the sentence is the first in a criminal case against someone who took part in the pro-Navalny rallies in January.

    The nationwide demonstrations held on January 23 and 31 protested the arrest of the Kremlin critic who was detained at a Moscow airport on January 17 upon his arrival from Germany, where he was recovering after being poisoned in Siberia in August by what several European labs concluded was a military-grade chemical nerve agent.

    Navalny has insisted that his poisoning was ordered directly by President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin has denied.

    Last month, a Moscow court ruled that, while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case, which is widely considered to be politically motivated.

    Navalny’s 3 1/2-year suspended sentence from the case was converted to a jail term, though the court said he will serve 2 1/2 years in prison given time he had been held in detention.

    More than 10,000 supporters of Navalny were detained across Russia during and after the January rallies.

    Many of the detained men and women were either fined or handed several-day jail terms. At least 90 were charged with criminal misdeeds, and several people were fired by their employers.

    With reporting by OVD-Info and Mediazona

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russia Files Complaint Against NGO Tackling Domestic Violence For Violating ‘Foreign Agent’ Law

    MOSCOW — Russia’s Justice Ministry has filed a complaint against one of the country’s leading nongovernmental organizations addressing domestic violence, which was added to Moscow’s controversial list of entities designated as “foreign agents” last December.

    Lawyer Pavel Chikov of the Agora legal-defense organization made the announcement on Telegram on March 2.

    According to Chikov, the government has deemed that the activity of Nasiliyu.net in “publicizing the problem of domestic violence,” “creating conditions so that victims know where to turn for help,” and “participating in promoting and conducting campaigns aimed at adopting a law against family and domestic violence” must be considered “political activity” under the country’s “foreign agent” laws.

    The government also deemed the NGO’s public calls for government agencies “to take measures to protect victims of domestic violence” during the coronavirus pandemic to be “political activity.”

    The complaint also notes that Nasiliyu.net’s website includes contact information to the Anna domestic-violence crisis center, which has also been listed as a “foreign agent” organization.

    Chikov said the government also listed as “political activity” the NGO’s participation in a 2019 sanctioned demonstration against gender discrimination and domestic violence held to mark International Women’s Day on March 8, although the Justice Department’s complaint notes the event “took place without any disturbance to public order.”

    The ministry is asking a court to fine Nasiliyu.net from 300,000 to 500,000 rubles ($4,000 to $6,800). In addition, the ministry is seeking a fine of up to 300,000 rubles against the NGO’s director, Anna Rivina.

    Nasiliyu.net was founded in 2015 and was registered as an NGO in 2018. In December 2020, it was listed as a “foreign agent” organization, a designation that it is appealing in court.

    When Nasiliyu.net was included on the list, Rivina wrote on Facebook that “95 percent” of the reason why the organization was targeted was “because of our draft law on domestic violence and 5 percent because of our support for LGBT rights.”

    Russia’s so-called foreign agent legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.

    Later modifications of the law targeted foreign-funded media, including RFE/RL’s Russian Service, six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, and Current Time.

    Human Rights Watch has described the foreign agent legislation as “restrictive” and intended “to demonize independent groups.”

    With reporting by Kommersant

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • An Afghan Parliamentarian And The Mysterious Stash Of Cash, Gold Bars Seized At The Dushanbe Airport

    A high-ranking Afghan politician has found himself at the center of a scandal in Tajikistan involving $15 million in cash and some 90 kilos of gold bars seized from smugglers at the Dushanbe airport in November.

    Mohammad Mirza Katawazai, the deputy chairman of the Afghan parliament, angrily rejects the claim by Afghan media that he is linked to the cash and gold.

    The shock allegation was first made by Afghanistan’s 1TV channel, which said the powerful politician had been “behind the smuggling attempt” involving “dozens of kilograms of gold and millions of dollars” in cash that were discovered and seized by Tajik customs officials.

    The channel dropped the bombshell claim on its primetime news program on February 27, the day Katawazai, 39, arrived in Dushanbe for an official visit. He was part of a parliamentary delegation led by Mir Rahman Rahmani, speaker of the Wolosi Jirga, the lower house of parliament.

    Upon his arrival in Dushanbe, Katawazai faced questions by journalists asking him about the alleged links to smugglers and the confiscated loot.

    “These [allegations] are all nonsense. I’m a politician, not a businessman,” he said on February 28.

    Meanwhile in Kabul, the Afghan Interior Ministry told the 1TV channel that it has begun gathering information to launch a probe into the claims against Katawazai.

    1TV said it obtained its information linking Katawazai to the smuggled money from multiple sources but didn’t disclose their identities. The broadcaster also didn’t produce any evidence to back its claims.

    ‘Several Others Involved’

    The broadcaster also alleged that several other people — including police, local government officials, and customs services workers — have been involved in the smuggling.

    “Katawazai wants to put a lid on the matter,” the TV channel said, alleging that his trip to Dushanbe was partially aimed at resolving the fate of the money and gold found by Tajik officials.

    The politician had been desperately trying to prevent the news of his involvement in the scandal from becoming public, 1TV added.

    According to the TV station, Katawazai’s one-on-one meeting with Saadi Sharifi, the Tajik ambassador in Kabul, on December 15, was part of the deputy speaker’s efforts to resolve the issue.

    The Tajik Foreign Ministry said on its website that the meeting took place “at the request of the Afghan side.” It cited Katawazai as praising Tajikistan’s “favorable investment conditions for Afghan entrepreneurs.”

    The 1TV report also claimed that the members of the Afghan parliamentary delegation that went to Tajikistan “are aware” of the matter, which according to the channel could be raised in meetings during the trip.

    But Rahmani, the head of the delegation, told reporters in Dushanbe that talks and meetings in Tashkent will focus on bilateral cooperation, the fight against terrorism, and intra-Afghan peace talks.

    According to 1TV, the fate of the smuggled precious metal and money was even discussed during at a February 14 meeting between Saimumin Yatimov, the Tajik state security chief, and Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation.

    Authorities said Afghan peace efforts, security cooperation, and the situation along the Afghan-Tajik border was the main topic of the meeting in Kabul.

    Dushanbe Keeps Mum

    When news of the unprecedented confiscation of cash and gold first broke in Tajikistan in November, suspicion fell upon Tajik politicians and businessmen.

    Local media reported that family members of a former manager of the Shugnov gold mine in southern Tajikistan were involved in the smuggling. There was no comment from Tajik officials.

    Authorities in Dushanbe broke their silence on February 18 when they announced the gold and money had been illegally transported from Afghanistan by a group of smugglers.

    The State Customs Service said the group attempted to send the cash and gold bars to the United Arab Emirates on a flight from the Dushanbe airport. But the goods were discovered and seized before they were loaded onto the plane.

    Officials said three customs service employees at a Tajik-Afghan border crossing were detained and charged with “negligence” for failing to properly inspect the goods coming into Tajikistan.

    The Customs Services said seven people have been detained in connection with the case. No names or further details were made public by authorities.

    Tajikistan has long been used a transit route for drug traffickers who smuggle Afghan opium and heroin to Russia which then goes to Europe.

    Tajik state media often show photos and video of drugs that it says were confiscated from Afghan smugglers or their Tajik accomplices.

    But it was the first time Tajik authorities reported the seizure of such large amounts of gold and foreign currency being trafficked from Afghanistan via Tajik territory.

    In its report, 1TV aired a previous speech by Katawazai talking about the “widespread corruption in the government and parliament” of Afghanistan.

    Written by Farangis Najibullah based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Tajik Service.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Police Charge Three In Attack Of Georgian Investigative Reporter

    Georgian prosecutors have charged three people for an attack on investigative television journalist Vakho Sanaia, who believes his assailants targeted him over his work.

    The Interior Ministry said on February 26 that the suspects, who are said to have been drinking before the attack, were charged with violence committed by a group against two or more individuals.

    Sanaia says he and a relative were returning from the airport in Tbilisi at night when they were approached by the three suspects in “an aggressive manner” after their car broke down.

    “They were directly aggressive toward me as a representative of the media,” he said.

    “They started provoking me, started swearing at us, at TV Pirveli, they were aggressive toward media in general,” he added, blaming general anti-media “propaganda” pushed by the ruling Georgia Dream party against outlets critical of the government.

    Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili condemned the attack saying “the response from the state will be adequate and the perpetrators will be held accountable with the full severity of the law.”

    Georgia has been rocked by political turmoil in recent months amid repeated opposition claims that fall elections were rigged even though international observers said the October 31, 2020 vote, which triggered protests, was broadly free and fair.

    The election campaign itself was marred by violent attacks against at least five journalists during clashes between pro-government and pro-opposition activists.

    Opposition activists gathered on February 26 outside parliament demanding fresh elections and the release of all political prisoners, a reference to a raid on the headquarters of a major opposition party this week and the arrest of the party’s leader, Nika Melia.

    Melia was arrested over allegations that he incited violence at protests nearly two years ago. He has dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.

    International rights group Amnesty International called the heavy use of force to take Melia into custody before a court has heard his appeal against pretrial detention a troubling indicator.

    The South Caucasus country is ranked 60th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Writers Urge President To Release Dissident Poet Atabek

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — A group of well-known writers and poets in Kazakhstan has called on President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev to release dissident poet Aron Atabek, who has been behind bars since 2007 and is said to be in failing health.

    In a letter to the president, published on the Abai.kz website on February 24, the group said the 68-year-old poet, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of helping organize protests that resulted in the death of a police officer, is suffering from heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.

    “If he dies in custody, that will be a shame on all of us!” the letter says, urging the president to release Atabek as soon as possible.

    Atabek has maintained his innocence. He rejected a 2012 government pardon offer that would have required him to admit guilt.

    In December 2012, after his critical article about then-President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his government was smuggled out of prison and published online, Atabek was transferred to solitary confinement, where he spent two years.

    Atabek and his relatives said in 2014 that prison guards had broken his leg, which the authorities denied.

    Human rights groups in Kazakhstan say that Atabek has been constantly tortured in prison, with guards intentionally splashing water with high concentrations of chlorine on the floor of his cell to damage his health.

    Domestic and international rights organizations have demanded the Kazakh government release Atabek for years.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Prisoners Of Conscience’: A Look At Some Of The Biggest Names On The List

    Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s time as an Amnesty International “prisoner of conscience” was short-lived — but not because he was released from detention.

    Navalny received the designation on January 17 following his arrest at a Moscow airport by Russian authorities who said he had violated the terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction. Navalny and his supporters say that both the conviction and the alleged violation are unfounded, politically motivated, and absurd.

    The subsequent conversion of the suspended sentence into more than 30 months of real prison time promised to keep the ardent Kremlin critic away from street protests for the near-term, even as he stayed in the focus of anti-government demonstrators and human rights groups such as Amnesty.

    But on February 23, Amnesty withdrew the designation, citing what it said were past comments by the 44-year old anti-corruption activist that “reach the threshold of advocacy of hatred.”

    The term “prisoner of conscience” is widely attributed to the founder of Amnesty International, Peter Benenson, who used it in 1961 to describe two Portuguese students who had each been sentenced to seven years in prison simply for making a toast to freedom under a dictatorial government.

    The label initially came to apply mainly to dissidents in the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc satellites, but over the years expanded to include hundreds of religious, political opposition, and media figures around the world, including countries of the former Soviet Union and others in RFE/RL’s immediate coverage region.

    According to Amnesty’s current criteria for the designation, prisoners of conscience are people who have “not used or advocated violence but are imprisoned because of who they are (sexual orientation, ethnic, national, or social origin, language, birth, color, sex or economic status) or what they believe (religious, political or other conscientiously held beliefs).”

    Navalny’s delisting has been tied by Amnesty to comments he made in the mid-2000s, as his star as a challenger to President Vladimir Putin and as an anti-corruption crusader in Russia was on the rise, but also as he came under criticism for his association with ethnic Russian nationalists and for statements seen as racist and dangerously inflammatory.

    And while the rights watchdog acknowledged that the flood of requests it received to review Navalny’s past statements appeared to originate from pro-Kremlin critics of Navalny, Amnesty ultimately determined that he no longer fit the bill for the designation, even as the organization continued to call for his immediate release from prison as he was being “persecuted for purely political reasons.”

    The “prisoner of conscience” designation is a powerful tool in advocating for the humane treatment of people who hold different religious, political, and sexual views than the powers that be — in some cases helping to lead to the release of prisoners.

    Here’s a look at some of the biggest names who have been or remain on the list.

    In Russia

    Russia is a virtual cornucopia of prisoners of conscience, with formidable political opposition figures, journalists, LGBT rights activists, and advocates for ethno-national rights gracing the list.

    Political Opposition

    Boris Nemtsov

    Boris Nemtsov

    Boris Nemtsov, the opposition politician who was shot dead in 2015, received the designation in 2011, along with activists Ilya Yashin and Eduard Limonov, after they attended a rally in Moscow in support of free assembly.

    Big Business

    Former Yukos owners Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s and Platon Lebedev’s listing the same year relating to what Amnesty called “deeply flawed and politically motivated” charges that led to their imprisonment years earlier drew sharp condemnation from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

    ‘Terror Network’

    In February 2020, Amnesty applied the designation to seven men standing trial in central Russia on what it called “absurd” charges relating to membership in a “nonexistent ‘terrorist’ organization.”

    Days later, all seven members were convicted and sentenced to prison for belonging to a “terrorist cell” labeled by authorities as “Network” that the authorities claimed planned to carry out a series of explosions in Russia during the 2018 presidential election and World Cup soccer tournament.

    Religious Persecution

    Aleksandr Gabyshev — a shaman in the Siberian region of Yakutia who has made several attempts to march on foot to Moscow “to drive President Vladimir Putin out of the Kremlin” — was briefly placed in a psychiatric hospital in September 2019 after he called Putin “evil” and marched for 2,000 kilometers in an attempt to reach the capital.

    “The Russian authorities’ response to the shaman’s actions is grotesque,” Amnesty said. “Gabyshev should be free to express his political views and exercise his religion and beliefs just like anyone else.”

    In May 2020, riot police raided Gabyshev’s home and took him to a psychiatric hospital because he allegedly refused to be tested for COVID-19. Amnesty called for his immediate release.

    But in January, Gabyshev was again forcibly taken to a psychiatric clinic after announcing he planned to resume his trek to Moscow to oust Putin.

    In Ukraine

    Prominent Ukrainian filmmaker and activist Oleh Sentsov made the list after he was arrested in Crimea in May 2014 after the peninsula was illegally annexed by Russia.

    Oleh Sentsov

    Oleh Sentsov

    Amnesty repeatedly called for the release of Sentsov after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a “terrorism” conviction in what the rights watchdog declared was an “unfair trial on politically motivated charges.”

    After five years in prison in Russia, Sentsov was released in a prisoner swap between Kyiv and pro-Russia separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine.

    Sentsov was far from the only Ukrainian to be taken down for criticizing Russia’s seizure of Crimea, prompting Amnesty to call for the release of all “all Ukrainian political prisoners” being held in Russia.

    Among them is the first Jehovah’s Witness to be sentenced by Russian authorities in the annexed territory, Sergei Filatov. The father of four was handed a sentence of six years in prison last year for being a member of an extremist group in what Amesty called “the latest example of the wholesale export of Russia’s brutally repressive policies.”

    In Belarus

    In Belarus, some of the biggest names to be declared “prisoners of conscience” are in the opposition to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the authoritarian leader whose claim to have won a sixth-straight presidential term in August has led to months of anti-government protests.

    Viktar Babaryka

    Viktar Babaryka

    Viktar Babaryka, a former banker whose bid to challenge Lukashenka was halted by his arrest as part of what Amnesty called a “full-scale attack on human rights” ahead of the vote, went on trial on February 17 on charges of money laundering, bribery, and tax evasion.

    Fellow opposition member Paval Sevyarynets, who has been in custody since June, was charged with taking part in mass disorder related to his participation in rallies during which demonstrators attempted to collect signatures necessary to register presidential candidates other than Lukashenka.

    Syarhey Tsikhanouski

    Syarhey Tsikhanouski

    The popular blogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski was jailed after expressing interest in running against Lukashenka and remains in prison. Three of his associates went on trial in January on charges of organizing mass disorder in relation to the mass protests that broke out after the election.

    Tsikhanouski’s wife, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, took his place as a candidate and considers herself the rightful winner of the election.

    In Kazakhstan

    Aigul Otepova

    Aigul Otepova

    Aigul Otepova, a Kazakh blogger and journalist accused of involvement in a banned organization, was forcibly placed by a court in a psychiatric clinic in November, prompting Amnesty to declare her a “a prisoner of conscience who is being prosecuted solely for the peaceful expression of her views.”

    Otepova has denied any affiliation with the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) opposition movement, which has been labeled an extremist group by the Kazkakh authorities, and Otepova’s daughter told RFE/RL that the authorities were trying to silence her ahead of Kazakhstan’s parliamentary elections in January.

    Otepova was released from the facility in December.

    In Iran

    Nasrin Sotoudeh

    Nasrin Sotoudeh

    Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory head scarves, was arrested in 2018 and charged with spying, spreading propaganda, and insulting Iran’s supreme leader.

    She found herself back in prison in December, less than a month after she was granted a temporary release from her sentence to a total of 38 1/2 years in prison and 148 lashes.

    Amnesty has called Sotoudeh’s case “shocking” and considers her a “prisoner of conscience.” In its most recent action regarding Sotoudeh, the rights watchdog called for her to be released “immediately and unconditionally.”

    In Kyrgyzstan

    Amnesty International in August 2019 called the life sentence handed down to Kyrgyz rights defender Azimjan Askarov a “triumph of injustice.”

    Azimjan Askarov

    Azimjan Askarov

    The ethnic Uzbek Askarov was convicted of creating a mass disturbance and of involvement in the murder of a police officer during deadly interethnic clashes between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in June 2010 when more than 450 people, mainly Uzbeks, were killed and tens of thousands more were displaced.

    Askarov has said the charges against him are politically motivated, and the UN Human Rights Committed has determined that he was not given a fair trial and was tortured in detention.

    In May, after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to not review Askarov’s sentence, Amnesty said the ruling “compounds 10 years of deep injustice inflicted on a brave human rights defender who should never have been jailed.”

    In Pakistan

    Junaid Hafeez

    Junaid Hafeez

    Amnesty has called the case of Junaid Hafeez “a travesty” and in 2019 called on Pakistan’s authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release the university lecturer charged with blasphemy over Facebook uploads.

    Hafeez was charged under the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, which Amnesty has called on the country to repeal, describing them as “overly broad, vague, and coercive” and saying they were “used to target religious minorities, pursue personal vendettas, and carry out vigilante violence.”

    Hafeez has been in solitary confinement since June 2014.

    In Azerbaijan

    Leyla and Arif Yunus

    Leyla and Arif Yunus

    Human rights activists Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus were arrested separately in 2014 and convicted of economic crimes in August 2015 after a trial Amnesty denounced as “shockingly unjust.”

    After Leyla Yunus was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison, and her husband to seven years, Amnesty said that the rulings showed the “continuous criminalization of human rights defenders in Azerbaijan.”

    After the two were released on health grounds in late 2015 and their prison sentences reduced to suspended sentences, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Azerbaijan to pay them approximately $45,660 for violating their basic rights.

    In April 2016, they were allowed to leave the country and settled in the Netherlands.

    In Uzbekistan

    Azam Farmonov

    Azam Farmonov

    In 2009, Amnesty called for the immediate release of rights activists Azam Farmonov and Alisher Karamatov, who were detained in 2006 while defending the rights of farmers in Uzbekistan who had accused local officials of extortion and corruption.

    Amnesty said the two men had allegedly been tortured and declared them “prisoners of conscience.”

    In 2012, Karamatov was released after serving nearly two-thirds of a nine-year prison sentence.

    Farmonov served 10 years before his release in 2017, but reemerged in March when his U.S.-based NGO representing prisoners’ rights in Uzbekistan, Huquiqiy Tayanch, was successfully registered by the country’s Justice Ministry.

    Written by Michael Scollon, with additional reporting by Golnaz Esfandiari

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • New U.S. Award Names Kyrgyz, Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Figures Among Its 12 Recipients

    The editor in chief of a Kyrgyz investigative website and a former Ukrainian prosecutor-general are among 12 people who have been recognized by the U.S. State Department as anti-corruption champions.

    The winners of the new International Anti-Corruption Champions Award were announced on February 23 by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said in a statement that the award recognizes people who have worked tirelessly, often in the face of adversity, to combat corruption in their own countries.

    Bolot Temirov, editor in chief of the Kyrgyz investigative website FactCheck, and Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who was forced out of his job as Ukraine’s prosecutor-general last year in a parliamentary no-confidence vote, were among the recipients.

    FactCheck and open-source investigative organization Bellingcat probed Raimbek Matraimov, the controversial former deputy chief of the Customs Service, and his relatives, who are at the center of an alleged corruption scandal involving the funneling of close to a billion dollars out of Kyrgyzstan.

    Matraimov was rearrested this month on corruption charges and is currently in pretrial detention.

    Temirov was attacked near his website’s office in Bishkek in January 2020 after the investigation was published, prompting the United States and several media freedom watchdogs to call on Kyrgyz authorities to conduct a swift and thorough investigation.

    Then-Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Ruslan Ryaboshapka speaks to lawmakers during an extraordinary session of the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv to consider his dismissal on March 5, 2020.

    Then-Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Ruslan Ryaboshapka speaks to lawmakers during an extraordinary session of the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv to consider his dismissal on March 5, 2020.

    Ryaboshapka was well-regarded by anti-corruption activists for his efforts to streamline and professionalize the scandal-ridden Prosecutor-General’s Office in Ukraine. He served as prosecutor-general from August 29, 2019, until he left the post on March 5, 2020.

    Blinken said in the statement announcing the awards that corruption threatens security, hinders economic growth, undermines democracy and human rights, destroys trust in public institutions, facilitates transnational crime, and siphons away public and private resources.

    “The Biden administration recognizes that we will only be successful in combating these issues by working in concert with committed partners, including courageous individuals who champion anti-corruption efforts and countries working to fulfill their commitments to international anti-corruption standards,” Blinken said.

    The other honorees are Ardian Dvorani of Albania; Diana Salazar of Ecuador; Sophia Pretrick of Micronesia; Juan Francisco Sandoval Alfaro of Guatemala; Ibrahima Kalil Gueye of Guinea; Anjali Bhardwaj of India; Dhuha Mohammed of Iraq; Mustafa Abdullah Sanalla of Libya; Victor Sotto of the Philippines; and Francis Ben Kaifala of Sierra Leone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakhs Continue Picket Of Chinese Consulate For Release Of Xinjiang Relatives

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — About a dozen people, mainly women, have picketed the Chinese Consulate in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, to continue to push their demands for the release of relatives held in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

    The demonstrators on February 22 held pictures of their relatives detained in China and large posters with slogans urging the Chinese government to “end genocide” and release all “innocent people from reeducation camps” in Xinjiang.

    “I came here to demand the immediate release of my younger brother, Qalypbek Babam…. He was arrested after he publicly performed a verse called Kazakhs’ Sorrow in 2019 and has been held incommunicado ever since. Authorities in Xinjiang have not given any information about the charges against my brother, while his trial has yet to be held. I am deeply concerned for his life,” one of the protesters, Kumisqan Babam, told RFE/RL.

    Another protester, Gulnur Qosdauletqyzy, told RFE/RL that she and some other protesters have been picketing the consulate almost daily for more than two weeks, but no Chinese Consulate officials have come out of the building to meet with them.

    Over the weekend, one of the protesters, Baibolat Kunbolatuly, was released from a detention center in Almaty after he served a 10-day prison term he received for “violating the law on mass gatherings” after picketing the consulate earlier.

    In recent years, many similar protests have taken place in Kazakhstan, with demonstrators demanding Kazakh authorities officially intervene in the situation faced by ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang.

    The U.S. State Department has said as many as 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of Xinjiang’s other indigenous, mostly Muslim, ethnic groups have been taken to detention centers.

    China denies that the facilities are internment camps.

    People who have fled the province say that thousands of ethnic Kazakhs, Uyghurs, and other Muslims in Xinjiang are undergoing “political indoctrination” at a network of facilities known officially as reeducation camps.

    Kazakhs are the second-largest Turkic-speaking indigenous community in Xinjiang after Uyghurs. The region is also home to ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Hui, also known as Dungans. Han, China’s largest ethnicity, is the second-largest community in Xinjiang.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Austria Expects ‘Broad Support’ For New Russia Sanctions In Response To Navalny’s Jailing

    Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg expects the European Union to adopt new sanctions against Russia over the case of opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

    A step likely could be taken when European foreign ministers meet on February 22, he said in an interview with Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

    “We will discuss at the Foreign Affairs Council appropriate reactions to the case of Navalny,” Schallenberg said.

    This would likely include targeted measures against individuals and organizations under the bloc’s newly created sanctions instrument to punish human rights violators.

    Schallenberg said he expects “a broad majority of support” for sanctions among the EU’s 27 members, but added the sanctions “have to be politically smart and legally watertight.”

    EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Twitter on February 21 that “EU actions” will be discussed at the Foreign Affairs Council meeting on February 22.

    Borrell said the courts in Russia continue to ignore a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) asking the Russian government to free him.

    A Moscow court on February 20 upheld Navalny’s prison sentence relating to his embezzlement conviction, but reduced the sentence by about 50 days considering time served. Later in the day, Navalny was fined a large sum on charges of insulting a World War II veteran.

    Both trials were decried as politically motivated.

    Navalny was arrested last month on his return from Germany where he was recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he and supporters say was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Based on reporting by dpa and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Sentenced To Four Years In Prison For Role In Alleged Plot To Kill Georgian Journalist

    TBILISI — A court in Georgia has sentenced a Russian citizen to four years in prison for involvement in an alleged plot to kill a Georgian journalist.

    The Tbilisi City Court on February 20 found Magomed Gutsiyev, a native of Russia’s North Caucasus region, guilty of illegal border-crossing, forgery, and the illegal surveillance of journalist Giorgi Gabunia.

    Gutsiyev was arrested by Georgian authorities in June with documents identifying him as Vasambek Bokov.

    Georgia’s Service for State Security (SUS) said at the time that they had arrested a Russian citizen, identified as V.B., who they suspected of planning to kill Gabunia.

    In July 2019, Gabunia crudely insulted Russian President Vladimir Putin live on air amid worsening ties between Georgia and Russia.

    The reporter called Putin a “stinking occupier” and used a string of obscenities to curse the Russian president, as well as Putin’s mother and father — and vowed to defecate on Putin’s grave.

    Gabunia’s controversial comments were condemned by Russian and Georgian authorities.

    The Moscow-backed leader of Russia’s North Caucasus region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, publicly vowed to “punish” Gabunia at the time.

    In recent years, several Kadyrov critics have been killed outside Russia, and many believe that either Kadyrov himself or Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) were behind the apparent assassinations.

    Rights groups say Kadyrov, who has ruled Chechnya since 2007, uses repressive measures and has created a climate of impunity for security forces in the volatile region.

    They allege Kadyrov is ultimately responsible for the violence and intimidation of political opponents by Chechen authorities, including kidnappings, forced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘People Just Disappear’: Family Of Missing Russian Man Fears He Was Abducted Into Slavery

    KALININGRAD, Russia — Life fell apart for Sergei Rozhkov, a 41-year-old construction worker from the capital of Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, in the first half of 2020.

    “Everything changed in May when Sergei and his wife divorced,” said Rozhkov’s younger brother, Vladimir. “He took the breakup very hard. Before, he had been cheerful and sociable, but now he closed up. He began drinking.”

    In the autumn, Sergei packed up a few things and left his home.

    “It took us a while to notice,” another brother, Aleksandr Rozhkov, told RFE/RL. “We all have our own lives and families. We talk on the phone once a week or so and get together even less often. But after he didn’t return our calls a few times, we got concerned.”

    Rozhkov’s family has not seen Sergei since. The authorities have been unable to find out anything about his disappearance, but the family’s own investigation has convinced them Sergei was abducted and is likely being forced to work on a farm in the predominantly agricultural Chernyakhovsky district in the heart of the Baltic Sea region.

    “They exploit unpaid labor,” Vladimir said. “We believe Sergei has ended up there.”

    The suspicion is not as outlandish as it might seem at first glance.

    In 2014, law enforcement authorities liberated 36 men who had been listed as “missing” from Kaliningrad from a farm in the Guryevsky district. Most of the men had been homeless or “lived an antisocial lifestyle,” a police spokesman was quoted as saying at the time.

    The enslaved men told police they had been held in primitive conditions against their will and had been beaten frequently.

    “The most common forms of enslavement in the country are for agricultural and construction work,” said Oleg Melnikov, director of the Moscow-based NGO Alternativa, which investigates cases of human trafficking and slave labor in Russia. “Every year, between 80,000 and 100,000 people go missing in Russia. Of them, about 5 to 7 percent end up in some form of slavery — sexual or for physical labor. That would be about 5,000 to 10,000 people a year.”

    Aleksandr and Vladimir Rozhkov: "We talk on the phone once a week or so and get together even less often," Aleksandr said. "But after he didn’t return our calls a few times, we got concerned.”

    Aleksandr and Vladimir Rozhkov: “We talk on the phone once a week or so and get together even less often,” Aleksandr said. “But after he didn’t return our calls a few times, we got concerned.”

    Melnikov added that since 2011, only about 150 criminal cases have been brought under Russia’s laws against labor exploitation.

    “That is because the laws are extremely poorly written,” he said. “They don’t even include a definition of who is the victim in such cases.”

    Elusive Justice

    In Kaliningrad Oblast, Yekaterina Presnyakova of the NGO Zapad, which searches for missing people, said her organization received over 220 appeals for help in 2020, including the Rozhkov case.

    When the Rozhkov brothers began their search for Sergei, they quickly learned that he had spent a lot of time over the summer with a friend named Leonid Artyukh, who is an official with the Association of Evangelical Churches of Kaliningrad Oblast.

    “I met Sergei back in 2003 when he did some construction work at my house,” Artyukh told RFE/RL. “[Last summer] Sergei began having problems with alcohol. I invited him to talk with some of our parishioners. He came only once.

    “Then I decided to try to help him, so I suggested that he go to a monastery for spiritual renewal. It is located in the Chernyakhovsky district. Sergei agreed, and I took him there,” Artyukh said.”

    Artyukh told the Rozhkovs where the monastery was located on October 22 and, the following day, they made the trip there.

    They found a two-story building in the middle of a remote field. It had about 10 bedrooms, each housing three or four men.

    “We were able to enter freely,” Aleksandr said. “No one chased us out. People were friendly. But Sergei was not there.”

    A man who introduced himself as Viktor and said he was the elder at the facility said that Sergei had been there for only two days.

    Sergei Rozhkov has been missing since October.

    Sergei Rozhkov has been missing since October.

    Viktor said Sergei left during the night, leaving his possessions and his mobile phone behind. He added that Sergei had been calm and had not had any conflicts while he was there.

    During this trip, the Rozhkov brothers also learned about the alleged use of slave labor on farms in the district, they said.

    “We believe Sergei ended up there,” Vladimir Rozhkov said, adding that the family suspects he was abducted at some point after leaving what he referred to as the “church shelter.”

    Abductions, the Rozhkovs said they learned, are something of an open secret in the Chernyakovsky district.

    “After 8 p.m., you see almost no one on the streets there,” Aleksandr Rozhkov said. “They are simply afraid to appear outside. There have been very many cases when people walking from one settlement to another just vanished. And no one there is surprised.”

    “I have lived here for 30 years,” says local resident Nikolai Semyonov. “Even before, it was dangerous to walk around in the dark. But now it is even more dangerous."

    “I have lived here for 30 years,” says local resident Nikolai Semyonov. “Even before, it was dangerous to walk around in the dark. But now it is even more dangerous.”

    Local resident Nikolai Semyonov told RFE/RL a similar story.

    “I have lived here for 30 years,” he said. “Even before, it was dangerous to walk around in the dark. But now it is even more dangerous. I haven’t been out at night myself for a long time now. People just disappear.”

    ‘Great Danger’

    Facing a dead end after visiting the monastery, the Rozhkov brothers returned to Kaliningrad the same day. And on that very evening, Sergei suddenly called from an unknown telephone number.

    “Sergei said he’d borrowed the telephone from some woman,” Aleksandr recalled. “He said that he was at a bus stop in a settlement in the Chernyakhovsky district. He said he was lost and asked me to come and get him. He confirmed that he had left the monastery of his own volition. The call came at 19:15. His voice was calm.

    “We had no idea that he was in great danger,” he added.

    Aleksandr arrived at the bus stop in the settlement of Svoboda about three hours later. But Sergei was not there.

    “I asked around whether anyone had seen such a man,” he recalled. “They said that they had. They told me that he was sitting for a long time at the stop. Then two minivans pulled up and stopped in front of him. After a small altercation, they dragged my brother into one of the vans and drove off. I missed him by just 20 minutes.”

    The next day, the Rozhkovs filed a missing-person report with the police.

    “For a long time, the police didn’t give us any information at all,” Aleksandr said. “Now they tell us that they are looking but haven’t found anything.”

    Zapad, the NGO, has also been looking, activist Presnyakova told RFE/RL.

    “Our volunteers searched the whole Svoboda settlement,” she said. “We have gone over the entire area with drones, but without result. The police have checked all the farms in Kaliningrad Oblast. The search for Sergei Rozkhov continues.”

    Rozhkov is now officially listed as missing, and police have opened a murder investigation. His family has hired a lawyer. The prosecutor’s office told RFE/RL that a criminal investigation is ongoing, and the authorities continue to search for the missing man.

    The family’s lawyer, who asked not to be identified out of safety concerns because of her investigation into the alleged use of forced labor, said she has gotten the cold shoulder from farms she has visited seeking information.

    “You show up and the owner comes out and says, ‘I swear by my mother there is no one here.’ But it is impossible to verify what is really going on there.”

    Beatings, No Pay

    After the Rozhkovs went public with their search, other locals came forward with similar stories. One of them, 27-year-old Vladislav Feshchak, even believes he may have seen Sergei.

    In September 2020, Feshchak was searching for work when he was approached by a “foreign-looking” man in a minivan.

    “I told him I was looking for work and he offered a job on a farm,” Feshchak told RFE/RL. “I was a little drunk and I agreed. When we arrived, he suggested that I get some sleep and start working in the morning. But it turned out they had no intention of paying me or letting me leave.

    “There were five other guys there in the same situation. All of them worked without getting paid. I ran off almost immediately, but they caught me after about two hours. They told me that they would make a cripple out of me if I tried it again. I saw them beat several people being held there.”

    Vladislav Feshchak believes he may have seen Rozhkov before he himself escaped captivity.

    Vladislav Feshchak believes he may have seen Rozhkov before he himself escaped captivity.

    Feshchak escaped captivity in December but has been living in hiding with relatives ever since. He said he fears for his life. When he filed a statement with the police, he said, he was told “there are quite a few cases” like his.

    “They took my statement, but it is unlikely they will do anything,” he said.

    While he was in captivity, Feshchak believes he might have seen Sergei Rozhkov.

    “I can’t say for sure, but he looked a lot like the photographs [of Rozhkov],” Feshchak said. “When I was on the farm, some guys came to us from another farm. They took away about 400 rams. The guy in charge had four other guys helping him load the animals. And one of them looked a lot like Sergei.”

    Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting from Kaliningrad by correspondent Anna Krylova of the North Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Ambassador Says Navalny Poisoning, Jailing Is Not Just An Internal Russian Matter

    The U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, has rejected Moscow’s assertion that last year’s nerve-agent poisoning of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and protests prompted by his recent jailing is a strictly internal Russian affair.

    In an interview with Current Time on February 16 via video link from Moscow, Sullivan said the “United States has no interest in fomenting dispute within Russia or encouraging protests.”

    The envoy also criticized the targeting of media organizations inside Russia, including RFE/RL, under the country’s controversial “foreign agent” law, saying the United States is considering an “appropriate” response.

    A Moscow court on February 2 found Navalny, 44, guilty of violating the terms of his parole while in Germany, where he was recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he and supporters say was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    The Kremlin has denied any role in the poisoning.

    Navalny’s suspended sentence was related to an embezzlement case that he has called politically motivated. The court converted the sentence to 3 1/2 years in prison. Given credit for time already spent in detention, the Kremlin critic would have to serve two years and eight months behind bars, the court said.

    The court’s ruling triggered international condemnation and protests across Russia that were violently dispersed by security forces.

    More than 10,000 people were rounded up by police during rallies in more than 100 Russian cities and towns on January 23 and January 31. Many of Navalny’s political aides and allies were detained, fined, or placed under house arrest for violating sanitary and epidemiological safety precautions during a pandemic.

    Moscow has remained defiant about Western criticism over its jailing of the opposition politician and the crackdown on his supporters, calling it foreign interference in its internal affairs.

    During his interview with Current Time, Sullivan noted that “first, the use of a chemical weapon — which is yet to be explained; a banned chemical weapon prohibited by a treaty to which Russia is a party — that is not a domestic legal issue.”

    “Second, even the case itself that has been continued against Navalny last month — that caused his arrest — is something that the European Court of Human Rights [ECHR] has found an invalid basis for any further judicial action against Navalny. This is a court to which Russia is a party, so I don’t see this as a domestic political issue,” the U.S. ambassador said.

    On February 16, the Strasbourg-based ECHR called for the “immediate” release of Navalny, a demand rejected by the Kremlin as “unlawful” and “inadmissible” meddling in Russia’s affairs.

    ‘An Important Fundamental Right’

    In an interview last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced what he called a broader course “coordinated by the entire collective West, which goes beyond mere deterrence of Russia and evolves into an aggressive deterrence of Russia.”

    “They don’t like us because we have our own idea of what’s going on in the world,” he said.

    Sullivan said he and the United States will continue voicing support for the “fundamental right for people [in any country] to be allowed to express their opinions and to petition the government for redress, and to gather peacefully, to assemble peacefully.”

    “It is something that is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and something that we believe is an important fundamental right for all individuals,” he added.

    In the United States, a bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation to impose fresh targeted sanctions on Russian officials found to be complicit in Navalny’s poisoning.

    The European Union and Britain have already imposed travel bans and asset freezes against senior Russian officials believed to be responsible for the “attempted assassination.”

    Sullivan’s interview with Current Time also touched upon the “foreign agent” law, which rights group say has been used by Russian authorities to silence dissent and muzzle organizations that have a diverging view from the authorities.

    Russian regulators have hit RFE/RL, one of three foreign news organizations to be labeled as a “foreign agent,” with a series of fines in recent weeks.

    Last month, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers called for new sanctions against Moscow if the Kremlin moves to enforce the fines.

    “I think this is an issue that is under intense scrutiny back home in Washington about how media entities are being treated here in Russia, and I think you will see an appropriate response by the U.S. government to that,” Sullivan said.

    ‘Kafkaesque’ Amendments

    First passed in 2012 and expanded several times since, the “foreign agent” law gives authorities the power to brand nongovernmental organizations, human rights groups, and news media deemed to receive foreign funding for political activity as “foreign agents.”

    The law subjects these organizations to bureaucratic scrutiny and spot checks and requires them to attach the “foreign agent” label to their publications. They must also report on their spending and funding.

    Among other things, the law requires certain news organizations that receive foreign funding to label content inside Russia as being produced by a “foreign agent.”

    “More than objectionable, [the law] is a real disservice to the Russian people, to the extent that media entities like Radio Free Europe or Radio Liberty are burdened by these laws, by — for example — the disclaimer requirements which interfere with content, and subsequent fines which are going to impose reportedly large financial penalties on a media organization that is not controlled by the U.S. government,” Sullivan said.

    On February 16, the Russian Duma, the parliament’s lower house, passed what Reporters Without Borders called “Kafkaesque” amendments to the “foreign agents” law.

    The “nonsensical and incomprehensible” amendments, which include heavier fines, aim to intimidate journalists and get them to censor themselves, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog said in a statement.

    Based on an interview conducted by Current Time’s Egor Maximov

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kyiv Begins Marking Anniversary Of Deadly Shootings During Euromaidan Protests

    KYIV — Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko has marked the seventh anniversary of the shooting deaths of dozens of participants in the Euromaidan anti-government protests that toppled Ukraine’s Russia-friendly former president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014.

    Klitschko laid flowers on February 18 at the sites where the deadly shootings occurred seven years ago and at the so-called Monument of the Heavenly Hundred on Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti).

    “Every day of the fight — from autumn 2013 to February 2014 — was important. No matter how difficult it is now, we will not disown or betray the ideals and principles we fought for at Maidan,” Klitschko said.

    While the official day of nationwide commemorations to honor those who were killed in Kyiv during clashes with Yanukovych’s security forces is February 20, some parts of Ukraine begin honoring the slain protesters two days earlier, on the day when the shootings started.

    The Euromaidan movement began in November 2013 when protesters gathered on the central square in Kyiv to protest Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a crucial trade accord with the European Union. Instead, he sought closer economic ties with Russia.

    Ukrainian prosecutors say 104 people were killed and 2,500 injured as a result of violent crackdowns by authorities against protesters from February 18-20, 2014.

    Shunning a deal backed by the West and Russia to end the standoff, Yanukovych abandoned power and fled Kyiv on February 21, 2014.

    The former president, who was secretly flown to Russia and remains there, denies that he ordered police to fire on protesters, saying that the violence was the result of a “planned operation” to overthrow his government.

    In March 2014, shortly after Yanukovych’s downfall, Russian military forces seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula — a precursor to the Kremlin’s illegal annexation of the territory through a hastily organized and widely discredited referendum.

    Russia also has supported pro-Russia separatists who are fighting Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine.

    More than 13,200 people have been killed in that conflict since April 2014.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.