Mihra Rittmann

Mihra Rittmann, Central Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, works primarily on Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, covering a wide range of human rights issues including labor rights and freedom of assembly, association, and speech. Rittmann previously worked on Uzbekistan from Human Rights Watch’s Moscow and Tashkent offices, documenting cases of torture and violations of religious freedoms, as well as the persecution of Uzbekistan’s human rights defenders. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Rittmann spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Moscow, collecting oral histories from former political prisoners of the Gulag, the Soviet prison camp system. Rittmann holds a master’s in human rights from the University of Essex and is a graduate of the University of Chicago. She speaks Russian.