Watchdog

A lawyer for jailed Tajik opposition businessman Zayd Saidov has been detained in Dushanbe.

Tajikistan's Anticorruption Agency told RFE/RL that Shukhrat Qudratov was detained on July 21 on bribe-related charges. No further details were available.

Qudratov is the second lawyer for Saidov to be detained by Tajik authorities.

In March, Saidov lawyer Fakhriddin Zokirov was arrested for his alleged debts to a local bank. He is still in pretrial detention.

Saidov, the leader of the unregistered New Tajikistan opposition party, was sentenced to 26 years in jail in December after he was found guilty of financial fraud, polygamy, and sexual relations with a minor.

Saidov and his lawyers have denied the charges and claim they are politically motivated.

Saidov was arrested in May 2013 after harshly criticizing the government while presenting his party’s political program one month earlier.

Russian and international rights organizations have called for justice on the fifth anniversary of the killing of slain Chechen rights activist and journalist Natalya Estemirova.

Amnesty International is holding an event in Moscow to commemorate her death and is collecting signatures for a petition demanding officials thoroughly investigate her death.

Estemirova was abducted in the Chechen capital, Grozny, on July 15, 2009. Her body was found the next day in Ingushetia.

The Memorial Human Rights Center, where Estemirova worked, said an investigation by authorities showed the possible involvement of law enforcement officers in the crime.

No one has been arrested for her murder.

David Kramer, president of the rights watchdog Freedom House, said Russian officials had "dragged their feet and pushed forward a version of events [of Estemirova's death] that is obviously fabricated, shielding her killers from justice, effectively validating their actions."