Watchdog

The international rights group Human Rights Watch is urging Tajik authorities not to deport a detained Kyrgyz human rights activist to Kyrgyzstan.

Nematullo Botakoziev sought political asylum in Tajikistan after Kyrgyz authorities accused him of organizing mass protests in 2008 and issued a warrant for his arrest.

For the last few weeks he has been held in custody in Dushanbe.

In a statement, Human Rights Watch called on Tajik authorities to grant Botakoziev access to his lawyer and investigate allegations that his detention was arbitrary.

Andrea Berg, Central Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, told RFE/RL's Tajik Service she was concerned about Botakoziev's health, as he had suffered heart attacks in the past.

"We're asking the Tajik authorities to grant his lawyers access and the UNHCR access to him, and we're urging them to release him because today marks one month since he's been detained and kept in isolation and the one-month [maximum] detention period expires today," Berg said.

Tajikistan's ombudsman, Zarif Alizoda, said the recent Norouz holiday had resulted in a delay in the investigation into Botakoziev's case.

The International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival opens in Kyiv today, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

More than 40 European films and documentaries will be shown at the festival in the next week.

The festival begins with Polish director Bartosz Konopka's film "Rabbit a la Berlin." The film is about rabbits living safely and without problems in the no-man's land along the Berlin Wall and the sudden challenges they face after the wall is demolished. It is an allegory for how East Europeans learned to live in a free society.

Volodymyr Yavorsky, director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and one of the festival's organizers, told RFE/RL that the films will be shown in Kyiv and more than 100 other Ukrainian towns and cities.

Festival director Henady Kofman told RFE/RL that Ukrainian directors are trying to use the festival to acquaint the public with films that have not previously been shown in the country.

One of the films, "Love Me, Please!" by Russian director Valery Balaian, shows the current state of neo-Nazism in Russia. It also tells the story of journalist Anastasia Baburova, who was born in the Ukrainian town of Sevastopol and shot dead, allegedly by a Russian ultranationalist, in Moscow last year.

The festival will end on April 2 with the presentation of awards to the directors of the best films.