The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has called on the authorities in Belarus to begin a dialogue with the political opposition and "to unconditionally release all remaining prisoners who are serving sentences for exercising their fundamental human rights."

In a statement issued on April 20, the OHCHR welcomed the April 14-15 releases of political activists Andrey Sannikau and Dzmitry Bandarenka. The two were granted presidential pardons.

The OHCHR called for the immediate release of other jailed rights activists, including human rights defender Ales Byalyatski and opposition activist Syarhey Kavalenka.

On April 19, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka postponed an annual address to the nation and ordered officials to remove references to "excessively tough response measures" that could be taken in the face of heightened tensions with the European Union over his rights record.

With reporting by Reuters

ORAL, Kazakhstan -- A correspondent for Kazakhstan's newspaper "Uralskaya nedelya" is in critical condition following a late-night armed assault by unknown attackers.

Lukpan Akhmedyarov was attacked on April 19 near the entrance to his apartment building in the western city of Oral.

Witnesses say there were as many as five assailants.

"Uralskaya nedelya" Editor In Chief Tamara Eslyamova told reporters that Akhmedyarov had been beaten and stabbed.

”He has got eight stab wounds on his back, and they [doctors] also say he got a blow on the back of his head," she said. "There is an open wound there."

Akhmedyarov has organized and spoken at numerous demonstrations and has been critical of the killing of at least 16 protesters by police in December 2011 in the town of Zhanaozen.

On March 7, he was stopped by police three times in one day. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Kazakhstan to investigate the attack.

Eslyamova told RFE/RL that Akhmedyarov had to undergo surgery overnight.

According to Eslyamova, Akhmedyarov’s wife has been told by her employers that officers of the National Security Committee had visited the company and warned that “she might have problems if her husband would not stop organizing gatherings.”

An official at the Oral City Police Department, Quat Duisenghaliev, told RFE/RL that investigations are under way and that “two hooligans" were suspected of attacking the journalist. He declined to give further details.

Meanwhile, police spokeswoman Gulzhan Qanatova told RFE/RL that investigations have been officially launched into the "premeditated assault and attempted murder."

"Investigative and operative measures are being under way to resolve this crime," she said. "A group of the best investigators of the investigative directorate at the West Kazakhstan Oblast interior department has been created. The case is under the strict control of the Kazakh Interior Ministry's leadership.”

Elsewhere, a number of Kazakh journalists and activists held a press conference in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, on August 20, calling on Kazakh authorities to thoroughly investigate the attack.

Tamara Kaleeva, the head of Almaty-based Adil Soz (A Just Word) nongovernmental organization, claimed at the press conference that journalists in Kazakhstan are being assaulted on a regular basis.

"Our journalists are being attacked all the time," she said. "Every year we register more than 10, almost 20 assaults on journalists.”

International Condemnation

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the attack and called on Kazakh authorities to immediately investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice.

CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney said in a statement that the near-fatal attack on Akhmedyarov "shows just how dangerous it is to be an independent investigative journalist in Kazakhstan." 

The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) also condemned the attack which it described as "shocking." OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatovic said in a statement it was of "crucial importance" to determine whether the attack was connected to Akhmedyarov's journalistic work. 

Akhmedyarov has been targeted for his reporting in the past. By late 2009, at least three defamation lawsuits had been filed by Kazakh authorities against the journalist in relation to his critical reporting.

With reporting by Interfax

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin (Democrat-Maryland) says he expects a "macho" response from Moscow should Congress pass legislation punishing Russian officials implicated in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

"We fully expect that there will be some reactions that are going to try to show [Russian] machoness rather than dealing with [human rights]," the senator said on April 19 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. 

Cardin last year introduced legislation that would ban visas for and freeze the assets of some 60 Russians connected with the Magnitsky case, which has become an international symbol of Russia's human rights failings.

The lawyer died in jail in 2009 at the age of 37 after implicating top Russian officials in an alleged scheme to defraud the government.

Independent investigations found that Magnitsky was repeatedly denied medical care and beaten before his death.

Moscow is currently prosecuting only one low-level prison official in the case, amid allegations of a cover-up.

Independent of the legislation, the U.S. State Department last year imposed visa bans on implicated Russian officials.

In response, Moscow compiled a blacklist of U.S. officials it says violated the rights of two Russian citizens -- a suspected international arms trafficker and a convicted drug smuggler.

Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that the enactment of the Magnitsky bill would damage U.S.-Russian relations.

The bill, which has strong bipartisan support, may be voted on as early as this spring.

Its passage has become linked to repealing the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, Cold War-era legislation that has functioned as a symbol of Washington's opposition to Moscow's rights violations.

The Obama administration has pushed for Jackson-Vanik's repeal, which imposes trade restrictions, in order to boost U.S. commerce with Russia.

Legislation on Magnitsky similar to the U.S. bill is also pending in Canada, the United Kingdom, and a number of other Western countries.

BAKU -- Azerbaijan's state oil company SOCAR has condemned the beating of an award-winning journalist but accused him of provoking the violence.

Prominient Azerbaijani journalist Idrak Abbasov was hospitalized on April 18 after he and several other journalists were assaulted by SOCAR security personnel.

The journalists were attacked while filming a confrontation that erupted when SOCAR employees were demolishing houses in the village of Sulutepe on the outskirts of the capital, Baku.

SOCAR legal department chief Eldar Orujev told journalists on April 19 that investigations had been launched into the incident.

He added that Abbasov was interested in the confrontation as he and his relatives had illegally raised houses in Sulutepe and provoked local residents to come out against the company's employees.

The OSCE and international human rights groups condemned the Abbasov beating.

With reporting by AFP

Reports from Turkmenistan say that Major General Tirkish Tyrmyev, the former commander of the country's border forces, has been sentenced to seven more years in prison.

Tyrmyev was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2002 after being convicted of abuse of power.

Family members tell RFE/RL's Turkmen Service that earlier this year, 10 days before Tyrmyev's sentence was due to end, a new criminal case was opened against him, reportedly in connection with a fight with another inmate.

They say Tyrmyev, believed to be in his late 50s, was sentenced to seven more years in jail at a closed-door hearing on March 6.

Members of Tyrmyev's family, who live in Dashoguz Province, say they have not been allowed to see him or communicate with him since the summer of 2002. The exact location of his imprisonment is not known.

"We don’t know anything about [his health]," a close relative who did not wish to be identified told RFE/RL. "That’s why we are asking the authorities to allow us to send him [basic necessities]. We are asking them to create an option for us where we can communicate with him and send and receive letters.”

MOSCOW -- A Moscow court has extended the pretrial detention of three female punk rockers arrested after a protest performance in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral.

The three members of the Pussy Riot band were arrested after their group attempted to stage a performance against Prime Minister and President-elect Vladimir Putin inside the Orthodox church in February.

They face up to seven years in jail on charges of hooliganism.

Their original pretrial detention was to end on April 24. No date has been set for the trial.

Supporters of the band, including prominent artists, musicians and activists, tried to organize a protest event outside the court. Critics of the punk group were also at the site.

RFE/RL’s correspondent says there were scuffles between the two groups and that the police detained at least 30 people.

Lyudmila Alekseyeva, the head of Moscow's Helsinki Group, said the women did not deserve such lengthy detention and must be freed.

With reporting by AP and Interfax