Watchdog

Uzbek human rights activist Mutabar Tojibaeva has been released from the Tashkent Women's Prison after serving almost three years of an eight-year sentence, imposed after she criticized the government's bloody response to the uprising in Andijon in May 2005.

Tojibaeva was not amnestied, however, and will continue to serve a three-year suspended sentence.

Tojibaeva, 46, told Human Rights Watch (HRW) after her release that she believes she was freed due to her declining health. She underwent cancer surgery in March.

HRW welcomed Tojibaeva's release but said her conviction should be annulled and that she should "be allowed to do her human rights work without further government persecution."

HRW says at least 11 human rights defenders are still imprisoned in Uzbekistan for politically motivated reasons.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is urging Kazakhstan to restore access to RFE/RL's Kazakh-language website.

The call came in a letter to the Kazakh foreign minister from Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE's representative on media freedom.

Access to the site and RFE/RL’s other Central Asian web pages has been blocked for more than five weeks despite requests by RFE/RL to restore the service, provided by state-run KazTelecom.

Haraszti said he was "hopeful" that the problem was merely technical. But he noted that Astana, due to chair the OSCE in 2010, pledged to provide uncensored Internet access as a member of the rights and security organization.

Kazakh officials so far have not publicly commented on the letter.