News: Europe/Central Asia
Nov 7, 2009
Turkmenistan’s release of the environmental activist Andrei Zatoka from prison on November 6, 2009, is a welcome development, but reports that the authorities effectively forced him to leave the country and confiscated his apartment, having already brought false charges against him, are troubling.
Press release
Nov 6, 2009
Turkey should not allow President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, an accused war criminal, to attend a conference in Istanbul, and should arrest him if he sets foot in Turkey.
Press release
Nov 4, 2009
An Italian court’s conviction of 23 agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for kidnapping is an historic repudiation of the CIA’s crimes. The Milan court also found that two Italian officials illegally collaborated in CIA abuses.
Press release
Nov 3, 2009
The verdict expected Wednesday in a landmark case may present a historic legal challenge to the US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) rendition program.
Press release
Oct 29, 2009
Turkmenistan should immediately release a well known environmental and civil society activist who was sentenced to five years in prison today on bogus charges, Human Rights Watch said. The trial of the activist, Andrei Zatoka, violated international fair trial standards.
Press release
Oct 29, 2009
In a move that defies logic, EU foreign ministers this week scrapped the EU's one remaining sanction against Uzbekistan – a purely symbolic embargo on arms sales – despite Tashkent's defiance of the human-rights criteria the EU had set for its lifting.
Commentary
Oct 29, 2009
Russian authorities should immediately drop criminal libel charges against Oleg Orlov, the prominent activist who heads Memorial Human Rights Center. The charges stem from Orlov’s statement that Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya, was responsible for the murder of Natalia Estemirova, Memorial’s leading researcher in Chechnya.
Press release
Oct 29, 2009
France's system of detaining and deporting unaccompanied migrant children who arrive in Paris by air puts them at serious risk.
Press release
Oct 27, 2009
The European Union’s decision today to lift the arms embargo against Uzbekistan despite its atrocious human rights record is an unconscionable abdication of responsibility toward Uzbek victims of abuse.
Press release
Oct 23, 2009
Press release