Watchdog

Georgian human rights ombudsman Sozar Subari has released a statement condemning the reported harassment by senior Abkhaz officials of Inal Khashig, editor in chief of the independent Abkhaz newspaper "Chegemskaya pravda," Caucasus Press reports.

Khashig was accosted on the seafront in Sukhumi on February 6 by three men, allegedly including de facto President Sergei Bagapsh's nephew David Bagapsh, who heads the presidential bodyguard, the website kavkaz-uzel.ru reports, quoting local Abkhaz journalists.

Khashig says the three men forced him into their car, drove him out of town, and warned him that unless he tones down his paper's criticisms of the Abkhaz leadership, he will share the fate of murdered Russian journalists Dmitry Kholodov and Anna Politkovskaya. The men specifically mentioned an article published in "Chegemskaya pravda " on February 3 about a congress of the pro-Bagapsh United Abkhazia party.

Khashig was then driven back into the capital and dropped off.

In his statement, Subari calls on the international community and human rights organizations to show solidarity so that journalists working in Abkhazia -- regardless of origin or nationality -- have the possibility to perform their work without restrictions or danger.

On February 18, a group of independent Abkhaz journalists wrote to Bagapsh, expressing their concern at the pressure exerted on Khashig. Noting that presidential elections are due in the fall, they warned that the republic's authorities risk triggering "a civic confrontation" if they continue to respond to criticism with strong-arm methods.

Bagapsh's spokesman Khristian Bzhania told kavkaz-uzel.ru that the president has not received such a letter, and that he therefore could not comment on it.

At the same time, he denied that any members of the presidential administration have threatened Khashig.

Bzhania said he recently "discussed the situation" by telephone with Khashig, who "did not say that anyone has threatened him."

The media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says it has finally uncovered information about the prison where two journalists and human rights activists have been held for the past 2 1/2 years.

RSF has learned that Sapardurdy Khadjiev and Annakurban Amanklychev are imprisoned in the Turkmenbashi high-security prison, which is located in a remote desert near the Caspian Sea. The region is extremely hot in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter, and inmates are forced to do agricultural work in such conditions.

RSF says the inmates spend their time in filthy, overcrowded cells with no access to drinking water. The quality of what little food they receive is poor.

"We are deeply shocked by the inhumanity of the conditions," RSF said in a statement. "The detainees are forced to endure conditions that few could resist."

In August 2006, Khadjiev and Amanklychev were sentenced to seven years in prison on what RSF says were "trumped-up charges" of possession of illegal munitions. Many international rights organizations classify them as political prisoners.

Another journalist, Ogulsapar Muradova, a correspondent for RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, received a six-year sentence in the same case. She died in jail in September 2006 under mysterious circumstances. RSF says she was beaten by guards in the Ovodan Depe high security prison, located north of the capital, Ashgabat.