Watchdog

Kyrgyzstan's Kylym Shamy (Torch of the Century) human rights center has urged law-enforcement authorities to pay attention to the recurring issue of attacks against lawyers in the country's courtrooms.

The Bishkek-based nongovernmental organization expressed its concerns in a statement issued on June 18, saying violent attacks against lawyers during trials have occurred many times in the past but the perpetrators are never held responsible.

The statement came the same day as reports that lawyer Kumushbek Ybykeev had been severely beaten by relatives and supporters of the victims of a deadly traffic accident during hearings into the case at the Osh Regional Court in the country's south.

Ybykeev, who was representing a defendant in the case, was hospitalized.

According to Kyrgyz media reports, Ybykeev was threatened by several people who visited him later in the hospital.

Freedom House has urged Tajik authorities "to shed light" on the whereabouts of a Tajik researcher from Canada who has not been seen since his arrest on June 17.

In his statement issued late on June 17, the president of the U.S.-based watchdog group, David Kramer, said Aleksandr Sodikov's detention "is looking more like a disappearance."

Earlier on June 17, Tajikistan's State Committee for National Security (KDAM) said Sodikov had been detained in Tajikistan's restive city of Khorugh on suspicion of spying for an unnamed country after he met with an opposition activist.

Several officials later said that Sodikov had been released, but that information has not been confirmed by the KDAM.

Sodikov, 31, is a Tajik national with permanent residency in Canada.

He said he has been touring several Tajik and Uzbek cities as part of his doctoral research at the University of Toronto and the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.