Human Rights Defenders in Central Asia

Human Rights Defenders in Central Asia

The Open Society Justice Initiative and Physicians for Human Rights have said they are gravely concerned about the health of Azimjon Askarov, a 60-year old human rights defender currently serving a life sentence in Kyrgyzstan following a manifestly unfair trial. Fifty human rights groups including the Open Society Foundations have written to Kyrgyzstan’s president Almazbek Atambaev urging him to free Askarov on humanitarian grounds. In Kazakhstan, Yevgeny Zhovtis, former head of the Kazakhstan International Bureau of Human Rights, is scheduled to be released from prison in mid-February under a general amnesty from a jail term that is the subject of a complaint before the UN Human Rights Committee filed on his behalf by the Justice Initiative.

9-II-12, soros.org