On June 2, Kazakh human rights activist Vadim Kuramshin, convicted to 12 years of imprisonment, declared an unlimited hunger strike demanding that the prison administration should stop putting pressure on him.

Ekaterina Kuramshina, the spouse of imprisoned human rights defender Vadim Kuramshinfrom Kazakhstan, told Jarayon that her husband was subjected to beatings and harassmentduring the last few weeks organized by the administration of prison EC 164/, located in Northern Kazakhstan province.

Last month, the Kyrgyz State National Security Service detained about 10 people in the city of Osh, who are suspected of departure for Syria to implement jihad and involvement in terrorist groups.

According to information circulated by the Kyrgyz State National Security Committee, most of the detainees are suspected of involvement in fighting on the side of antigovernment forces in Syria, who after return to Osh callpeople to jihad.

“We are believers, not jihadists.”

According to some residents of Osh, these days the local authorities have increased pressure on ordinary believers under the pretext of detention of members of different terrorist groups.

In Kyrgyzstan, two special services officers were arrested and taken to a detention center as suspected of complicity in the murder of journalist Gennady Pavlyuk.

This was reported on April 8, 2014 by the Kyrgyz service of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty with reference to the press service of the Prosecutor General of Kyrgyzstan.

According to the Kyrgyz Prosecutor General’s Office, their counterparts from Kazakhstan sent the criminal case to Bishkek on April 5 in regard to staff of the Kyrgyzstan State National Security Committee. They are accused by the Kazakh authorities regarding the case of murdered journalist Gennady Pavlyuk.

By Muzaffar Suleymanov/SPJ Europe and Central Asia Research Associate.

Today, the U.N. Human Rights Committee begins its two-day review of Kyrgyzstan’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. By ratifying the treaty in October 1994, Kyrgyz authorities pledged to enforce internationally recognized provisions regarding the protection of human rights, and freedom of expression, in their country.

According to relatives of prisoner Umed Teshev, who stabbed the prison head with scissors in the city prison of Kulob, the southern part of Tajikistan, he was tortured by jailers and now his life is in danger.

The Public Committee against Torture located in Dushanbe reported that the relatives of Umed Teshev appealed to the Committee asking for help hire a lawyer.

“We spoke with Umed Teshev’s relatives. They do not have information whether Umed is alive or not. According to them, Umed Teshev’s former attorney visited him in the prison. The lawyer told his relatives that Umed’s hands were swollen, he could not move his fingers, and his left ear was cut off,” representatives of the Public Committee against Torture told local reporters.

Several independent newspapers are on trial these days in Kazakhstan, including “Pravdivaya Gazeta” (True newspaper), which existed only a few months.

In her interview with Jarayon, Rozlana Taukina, a public figure and journalist well-known in Kazakhstan, the chief editor of Pravdivaya Gazeta,speaks about reasons of the newspaper’s closure and attitude of the authorities to independent media.