Watchdog

Montenegrin prosecutors are targeting a prominent journalist in an investigation into an incident in which he sustained a serious ear injury that he says was inflicted by Podgorica Mayor Miomir Mugosa, his son, and their driver, RFE/RL's Balkan Service reports.

Mihailo Jovovic, editor in chief of the independent daily "Vijesti," and photographer Boris Pejovic said they were attacked late on August 5 while taking photos of illegally parked cars in front of a bar owned by the mayor's son, Miljan Mugosa.

Prosecutors have launched an investigation against Jovovic and Miljan Mugosa for allegedly attacking Jovovic but not against the mayor.

Jovovic is accused of attacking the mayor's driver.

Miomir Mugosa said at a news conference on August 6 that he was attacked by Jovovic and Pejovic and that he was merely defending himself.

Montenegro's Foreign Ministry said on August 7 that Miljan Mugosa has resigned as the third secretary at the Montenegrin Embassy in Washington.

Miomir Mugosa is a leading figure in the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic.

Two Uzbek refugees living in Kyrgyzstan who have been missing for the past week have been found in southern Kyrgyzstan, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

Cholpon Jakupova, the head of the Adilet (Justice) human rights office in Bishkek, told RFE/RL that Sanjar Khudaiberganov and his 11-year-old son, Sarvarbek Erkinzoda, are in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh.

Jakupova said she received confirmation of that information from the UN refugee agency's representatives in Osh.

"[The UN officials] cannot provide any further details or information about their condition," Jakupova said.

Rights groups had feared that the two asylum seekers -- who went missing on July 30 -- may have been forcibly returned to Uzbekistan.

Khudaiberganov and his family had applied for refugee status at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bishkek in June 2008, but their application was still under review when they disappeared.

Dilobar Khudaiberganova, Sanjar's sister, told RFE/RL that strangers had recently begun following her brother in Bishkek.

Khudaiberganov fled to Kyrgyzstan in 2008 because he feared persecution and ill treatment in Uzbekistan and being harassed by police on several occasions.

His brother, Iskander, had been arrested and sentenced to death in 2002 for terrorism and subversive activity, among other charges.

Other members of the Khudaiberganov family were involved in human rights activities.

More than a dozen asylum seekers in Kyrgyzstan have been forcibly returned to Uzbekistan since 2005. Many others have vanished.