Watchdog

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A jailed Kazakh human rights activist says authorities are pressuring him, his wife, and his lawyer at the minimum-security labor camp in eastern Kazakhstan where he is serving a jail sentence, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

Yevgeny Zhovtis, head of the Almaty-based Kazakh Bureau for Human Rights, today issued a statement saying that the labor camp administration is trying to isolate him from the outside world.

Zhovtis was sentenced last year to four years in a minimum-security labor camp in Oskemen for a traffic accident in which he killed a pedestrian.

Zhovtis said 100 of the 130 inmates in the camp work outside, but claimed that he is prevented for political reasons from leaving the camp's territory.

He said the labor camp administration does everything possible to prevent any exchange of information between himself and people outside the prison. He said his wife and his lawyer, Svetlana Vitkovskaya, undergo a "special search" every time they see him.

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Journalists and editors from several Armenian media outlets have held a press conference to demand the immediate release of their jailed colleague Nikol Pashinian, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.

The editors of the newspapers "Aravot" and "Hraparak," the websites hetq.am and Armenia Today, as well as the director of the embattled television station A1+ said on November 18 that Pashinian is being harassed and his rights abused in prison.

They added that Pashinian's imprisonment is questionable and the conditions he faces in jail prove the case against him was politically motivated.

Pashinian, the editor of the pro-opposition daily "Haykakan Zhamanak," was sentenced earlier this year to seven years in jail for his role in the 2008 postelection unrest in Yerevan, a sentence both he and the opposition consider politically motivated.

A general amnesty declared by the government last year means he will serve half of that sentence.

Pashinian alleged last week that two masked men woke and hit him during the night in his cell at the Kosh prison near Yerevan. Both the prison administration and Justice Ministry deny that allegation.

The editors told journalists that they will continue to demand Pashinian's release.

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Read more in Armenian.