Watchdog

Lawyers for detained Tajik researcher Aleksandr Sodikov say they have been granted permission to meet with their client for the first time since his arrest.

Abdulkayum Yusufi told RFE/RL that he and his colleague, Hasan Kavrakov, have been told that they will be granted access to Sodikov on July 3.

The two lawyers have been hired by Sodikov's family.

Sodikov's former lawyer, who was appointed by the authorities, met him only once after his arrest last month.

Sodikov, 31, a Tajik national residing in Canada, was detained in Tajikistan's southern city of Khorugh on June 16, shortly after speaking with civil society activists there.

He was later charged with high treason and spying.

Sodikov said he had been touring Central Asia as part of his doctoral research at Britain’s University of Exeter and the University of Toronto.

Embattled Kazakh lawyer Zinaida Mukhortova has again been detained and placed in a psychiatric clinic.

Mukhortova's relatives told RFE/RL that police detained her on July 2 in her apartment in the city of Balkhash, where she had returned from self-imposed exile in Russia.

The deputy chief physician of the Balkhash psychiatric clinic, Rysbek Ysqaqov, confirmed to RFE/RL that Mukhortova is currently incarcerated in the institution.

Mukhortova, 56, fled Kazakhstan in December after a Qaraghandy regional court rejected her appeal to cancel her forced psychiatric treatment. Doctors concluded in August 2013 that she suffered from delusions and needed treatment.

Mukhortova was forced to undergo psychiatric treatment twice in 2012 and 2013. She insisted she was mentally fit and that the legal actions against her were politically motivated.

According to Mukhortova, authorities began investigating her mental competence only after she filed complaints against a high-ranking local official.