Watchdog

The U.S.-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Kazakhstan to hold an impartial appeal hearing for a jailed opposition leader.

The hearing is scheduled for November 19.

The HRW’s statement called the case against Vladimir Kozlov "a blow to freedom of expression and political pluralism."

He is the leader of the unregistered Algha (Forward) party.

The HRW's Europe and Central Asia director, Hugh Williamson, called Kozlov's conviction "unsound" and "fundamentally incompatible with human rights treaties Kazakhstan has signed."

Kozlov was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in jail last month for his role in a mass strike by oil workers in the country's west that ended in violence in December 2011. Police shot dead 17 people in the western towns of Zhanaozen and Shetpe.

Kozlov insists his case is politically motivated.

With reporting by Interfax

DUSHANBE -- Tajikistan's nongovernmental organization Coalition Against Torture has issued a statement demanding investigations into the alleged mass beatings of prison inmates.

According to the rights group, prison guards brutally beat at least 50 inmates after their transfer from a Dushanbe jail to a prison labor camp in the northern city of Khujand a week ago.

The activists say that at least four of the beaten prisoners were witnesses in the September death of an inmate that has received heavy media coverage.

The statement lists six other suspicious deaths in custody.

Tajik Interior Ministry officials told RFE/RL that they plan to start visiting all prisons in the country soon to talk to inmates and deal with reported cases of rights violations.

With reporting by Interfax