A review hearing related to last year’s protests in southern Kyrgyzstan is a crucial opportunity for the Kyrgyz authorities to investigate the defendants’ torture allegations and to ensure justice.

I am writing to welcome yesterday's statement by your secretariat recommending that parliament postpone its hearing of draft amendments to laws regulating nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and to urge you to ensure that any new law or regulation on NGOs conforms with the Kyrgyz Republic's international human rights obligations on freedom of association.  

  The Kyrgyz government should reverse its decision to bar a Russian human rights defender from visiting Kyrgyzstan, Human Rights Watch said today.

Migrant construction workers in Russia face widespread abuse both in and outside of the workplace, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In a climate of rising hate-motivated violence against migrants, exacerbated by the global financial crisis, the Russian government is failing to protect these workers from abusive employers, employment agencies, and police.

An Uzbek refugee who was abducted last year in Kyrgyzstan is now believed to be on trial in Uzbekistan, Human Rights Watch said today. Haiatjon Juraboev is among more than a dozen refugees forcibly returned to Uzbekistan from Kyrgyzstan since 2005

I am writing to urge your government to ensure that asylum seekers and refugees in Kyrgyzstan fully enjoy the protections to which they are entitled under international and Kyrgyz refugee law. Human Rights Watch also urges you to ensure that the government investigates the recent disappearance from Kyrgyzstan of an Uzbek asylum seeker and to actively inquire after and monitor the situation of individuals returned or extradited to Uzbekistan, returns which were in violation of international law.

I am writing to express our concerns about a noticeable downgrading of women's rights by the Kyrgyz authorities and ask you to make domestic violence and the abduction of women for forced marriage (bride-kidnapping) a priority policy concern of your government.

Lesbian and bisexual women and transgender men face violent abuse, including rape, in Kyrgyzstan, both in family settings and from strangers on the street, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued today. The report calls on the Kyrgyz government to acknowledge the problem and protect the victims, and on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other European institutions to step up their response to violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.