Watchdog

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says Islamic State (IS) militants have executed at least 13 journalists and other media workers in Mosul since seizing the northern Iraqi city in June 2014.

In a new report compiled with the Iraq-based Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, RSF said the fate of least 10 of the 48 media workers who have been kidnapped in Mosul over the past 16 months is unknown.

Describing Mosul as a "death trap for journalists," the study also said 60 journalists, citizen journalists, and media workers had fled Iraq's second-largest city.

"Some who went back paid for this mistake with their lives," it said.

The report said independent media activity in Mosul has been "non-existent," and that all journalists still in the city have had to stop working to avoid being the target of reprisals.

Meanwhile, IS militants have taken control of local television and radio stations, turning the city into an "information black hole."

Based on reporting by AFP and the BBC

Turkmenistan's government has gone to great expense to rebuild its capital and make it a beautiful, "white," city. But it is Ashgabat's residents who have paid the greatest price.

A new report from Amnesty International estimates that some 50,000 residents have been forcibly evicted from their homes as part of a campaign to "beautify" Ashgabat.

Focusing on an area it says was cleared out to make way for projects related to its hosting of the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, the rights watchdog provides some startlingly ugly satellite images to show the lengths to which the city will go.

PHOTO GALLERY: The Clearance Of An Ashgabat Suburb

A new report from Amnesty International estimates that some 50,000 residents have been forcibly evicted from their homes as part of a campaign to "beautify" Ashgabat. Focusing on the suburb of Choganly, which it says was cleared out to make way for projects related to its hosting of the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, the rights watchdog provides some startlingly ugly satellite images to show the lengths to which the city will go.

RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, has been reporting about the home demolitions in and around Ashgabat for many years now, and I have mentioned it in Qishloq before.

The system works something like this: Residents are ordered to vacate their premises for the greater good. Knowing that others who suffered the same fate have rarely, if ever, received promised compensation, many disassemble their dwellings and take the material elsewhere to build a new home. It is the responsibility of former homeowners to find a place to build the new house. What's left in the neighborhood is demolished to make way for the promised urban-renewal projects.

At least, that's the plan.

The Ashgabat suburb of Choganly, the focus of the Amnesty report, once had nearly 13,000 homes, according to Azatlyk (Amnesty International said about 10,000). It was one of the areas targeted for a renewal project, and demolition work started about one year ago. Plans called for some 1,600 new cottages to be built.

But half a year after the last vestiges of habitation were removed there is no sign anything is being built. An Azatlyk correspondent has visited the site several times during the last year and reported all that was left six months ago were clay tandyr ovens for baking bread -- and those were quickly razed by bulldozers.

An Azatlyk correspondent recently visited Choganly and said there is nothing at the site except for a few trees, a bazaar, a bus terminal, and a taxi stand.

Amnesty International said "fresh demolitions are continuing in other areas of the capital rendering many families homeless."

Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International's deputy program director for Europe and Central Asia, said in the report that "forced evictions can never be justified. Any eviction must always be a last resort and in compliance with international human rights standards." Krivosheev added that "this includes protecting the right to housing, ensuring compliance with appropriate legal and procedural safeguards and guaranteeing the right to oppose such evictions without fear and harassment."

Krivosheev also said that, "instead of using the games as an opportunity to clean up Turkmenistan's human rights record, local authorities there have only succeeded in worsening living conditions for residents, many of whom had moved to Ashgabat from the countryside in search of work or had already been evicted elsewhere."

Muhammad Tahir, the director of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service contributed to this report