Watchdog

Manfred Nowak, the UN's special rapporteur on torture, visited several penitentiaries in central Kazakhstan this week, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

Between May 4 and May 11, at the government's invitation, Nowak visited several detention centers and labor camps in the towns of Vishnevka, Dolinka, and Qarabas, places well-known to millions of former Soviet citizens as parts of the infamous gulag system.

Currently, more than 10,000 prisoners are serving out sentences in 10 labor camps and two detention centers in central Qaraghandy Oblast.

Nowak earlier held talks in Astana with Askar Shakirov, Kazakhstan's human rights commissioner.

Nowak's observations will be reported to the UN Council on Human Rights.

A senior Armenian police officer has said the country's law enforcement authorities are doing their best to stop a spate of violent attacks against journalists.

Speaking at a news conference on May 8, Colonel Hovannes Tamamian, head of the Directorate-General of Criminal Investigations at the national police service, also said he believes the authorities should allow Armenian journalists to carry guns.

The announcement came shortly after savage attacks on journalists Nver Mnatsakanian of private Shant TV and Argishti Kivirian, editor of the Armenia Today news agency.

Both were attacked by unknown assailants outside their Yerevan homes.

Armenia’s leading media associations and civil rights groups have strongly condemned the attacks, saying they were made possible by the authorities’ failure to punish the perpetrators of previous instances of violence against journalists.

"I don’t believe that this case will be thoroughly and objectively investigated," Kivirian’s wife, Lusine Sahakian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

Sahakian insists the attack was an attempt on her husband's life, even though the investigation continues to be conducted under an article of the Criminal Code that deals with assaults resulting in "light bodily injuries."