Watchdog

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) says one of its representatives has been barred from Uzbekistan, in violation of European Union demands.

HRW says its Tashkent representative, Igor Vorontsov, was denied work accreditation and then told by Uzbek authorities while he was abroad that he would not be allowed to return to the country.

The EU had made accreditation of an HRW representative as one of its criteria for formally ending sanctions imposed against Uzbekistan in response to the deadly government crackdown in Andijon in May 2005.

"We continue working on Uzbekistan," Vorontsov told RFE/RL from Moscow. "But the question is that it seems I cannot visit Uzbekistan, and it makes it too difficult to work objectively. We offered them dialogue, but unfortunately, Uzbekistan doesn't seem like it's ready for dialogue."

Veronika Szente Goldston, HRW's advocacy director, told RFE/RL's Uzbek Service that she expects the EU to maintain and uphold its sanctions policy for as long as its assessment criteria are not met. In addition to appointing an HRW representative, other EU benchmarks included the release of all wrongfully imprisoned human rights defenders.

HRW says Uzbekistan continues to detain at least 11 other rights activists and journalists for politically motivated reasons.

"This was certainly a very agressive, shocking move by the Uzbek government, which was completely unexpected to us," Szente Goldston told RFE/RL. "And what we would like to see is for the international community -- in particular the European Union, the United States government, and other influential governments who have sway with the Uzbek government -- to make it absolutely clear to Tashkent just how unacceptable this kind of behavior is and that it will carry very clear and concrete policy consequences."

HRW says Tashkent was "rewarded prematurely" when EU foreign ministers decided in April to extend the suspension of the bulk of the sanctions regime on Uzbekistan, justified as being a "necessary gesture to Tashkent in recognition of a handful of positive steps it had taken."

Szente Goldston called this EU policy "misguided.”

HRW is calling on EU ambassadors to talk about rights abuses and insist that EU criteria be met when they meet with Uzbek authorities on July 28-29.

"Batumelebi," a weekly independent newspaper published in Georgia's autonomous republic of Ajara, says its reporters have been receiving death threats.

In an interview with RFE/RL's Georgian Service, the newspaper's editor in chief, Eter Turadze, said that she, as well as one of her colleagues, were followed by unknown cars on the streets of Batumi, on two separate occasions.

In a separate incident, on July 18, the newspaper says it received an anonymous e-mail that said one of its journalists -- whose name the paper does not reveal -- would soon be found dead "with the newspaper in the mouth." Another reporter, and Turadze herself, were threatened in the same letter.

The newspaper says it received another threatening e-mail on July 24 after RFE/RL's Georgian Service broadcast a report about the case.

The editorial board of "Batumelebi" is calling on regional and state prosecutors to investigate the incidents and take measures to ensure the safety of its reporters. The call was published on the front page of the July 23 issue.

The first issue of "Batumelebi," known for its critical reporting, was published in May 2001. The newspaper was frequently subjected to pressure and threats prior to the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, when Ajara was ruled by authoritarian leader Aslan Abashidze.

Rights activists and local and international organizations and agencies -- Georgia's Public Defender, Freedom House, and the U.S. State Department among them -- note a decline in media freedom in Georgia since last year's political crisis, when police used water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets to disperse thousands of antigovernment protesters. Hundreds were injured.