Watchdog

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A web-based television channel in Kazakhstan says it has been subjected to intrusive inspections because of its independent news coverage, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

Two editors of the Almaty-based Stan-TV, Elina Zhdanova and Baurzhan Musirov, told journalists on August 23 that their offices were inspected without prior warning last week by representatives of the Almaty city architecture-and-construction-control, fire-safety control, and sanitary-control boards.

They said the inspectors told them the inspections were undertaken in response to written complaints from residents of nearby apartment blocks about a large antenna placed on the roof of Stan-TV's office. The inspectors said the residents complained that the antenna was affecting their health.

Zhdanova and Musirov said they subsequently met with some of those residents, who told them local police pressured them to write letters of complaint.

The Stan-TV representatives told journalists they plan to formally request that Almaty city police and the National Security Committee (KNB) investigate whether the inspection of their offices was legal.

Read more in Russian here

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A Kazakh activist has been jailed for 14 days for staging a protest demanding the release from jail of a labor lawyer who represented striking oil workers, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

Zhanna Baitelova was among three activists detained in Almaty on August 17 for picketing the offices of the ruling Nur-Otan party in support of Natalya Sokolova, who was jailed for six years earlier this month for "igniting social hatred."

The other two activists, Arman Ozhaubaev and Dmitry Tikhonov, were released today after spending five days in jail.

Tikhonov told RFE/RL immediately after his release that he and Ozhaubaev were treated badly by prison guards, and general conditions in the detention center were "inhuman."

Thousands of oil workers in Kazakhstan's western Manghystau region have been on strike since May to demand a pay raise, the lifting on restrictions on the activities of independent labor unions in the region, and equal rights with foreign workers.

Read more in Russian here