Watchdog

BIRSK, Russia -- Prosecutors in Russia's republic of Bashkortostan have charged the owners of a Tatar Internet news portal with alleged extremism and shut down its webpage.

Prosecutors in Birsk, where the "Wake Up,Tatar!" news portal was published, concluded that it is of an extremist character, after the website carried an article in March about what it called "attempts by Russian authorities to lower the number of Tatars in the country and oppress Tatar identity, culture and language."

The hearings into the case are scheduled for August 23.

The Tatar Public Center of Bashkortostan says it will hold protest actions in front of the court that day.

A newspaper of the same name, "Wake Up, Tatar!" which had been published in Birsk, was ruled as extremist and shut down in June.

International rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned a Kazakh court's decision to financially punish an opposition journalist in a controversial libel case.

In a statement, the organization called the court's July 20 ruling a move "to strangle the journalist financially."

Lukpan Akhmedyarov was found guilty of insulting a local official in West Kazakhstan Oblast and ordered to pay the official 5 million tenge ($33,000).

In April, Akhmedyarov, a correspondent for the "Uralskaya nedelya" weekly in the western city of Oral, survived a vicious attack in which he was stabbed and shot with a pneumatic pistol.

Akhmedyarov says both the lawsuit and the attack against him are politically motivated.