SKOPJE -- North Macedonia’s lawmakers have passed a bill that could pave the way for the Balkan country to hold its first census in almost 20 years this spring.

The bill on Population Census and Households was adopted by a slim majority of 62 lawmakers in the 120-member legislature, with the right-wing opposition VMRO-DPMNE party boycotting the vote.

The draft law was pushed by the Social Democrat-led government of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, whose coalition includes ethnic Albanian parties.

The national headcount is scheduled for April 1-21, but the long overdue process is being threatened by the VMRO-DPMNE, which has questioned the census methodology.

The party has vowed to collect signatures from the public to nullify the legislation and warned it would not recognize the results if the census goes ahead.

Skopje has not organized a census since 2002, with attempts to hold new population counts being hampered by political disputes over the size of ethnic minorities, particularly the ethnic Albanian community.

The data is sensitive because the constitution lays out special rights for minority groups making up at least 20 percent of the national or local population.

The country's population is believed to have shrunk significantly from the 2.1 million figure recorded in 2002, and the lack of new data has complicated efforts to plan for the economy and education system, as well as to update election lists.

With reporting by AFP

Albania says it is expelling a Russian diplomat for allegedly violating lockdown rules aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus in the Adriatic country.

The Albanian government declared Aleksei Krivosheev “persona non grata” and required him to leave the country within 72 hours, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on January 21, citing "repeated" violations of pandemic restrictions by the diplomat since April 2020.

The ministry said senior representatives of the Foreign Ministry first addressed the matter with the Russia ambassador in Tirana, but the diplomat continued to break lockdown rules.

“Repeated challenging of the protective rules and steps on the pandemic, and disregarding the concerns of Albanian state institutions related to that, cannot be justified and tolerated anymore,” the statement said.

Albania has imposed an overnight curfew, mandatory use of masks both indoors and outdoors, as well as social distancing.

The Foreign Ministry did not give the diplomat’s position or provide details on the alleged violations, but said the expulsion was "necessary to ensure the health and safety of all citizens, Albanian or otherwise."

The government "wishes for friendly relations with the Russian Federation to be strengthened," it said.

There was no immediate comment from Russian officials.

In 2018, Albania expelled two Russian diplomats, saying their activities were not compliant with their diplomatic status.

Tirana resumed diplomatic relations with Moscow in 1991, 30 years after the country's then-communist regime severed previously close ties with the Soviet Union.

With reporting by AP

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has reiterated his call for the European Union to impose further sanctions on Russia following the arrest of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny and said the bloc should scrap consideration of a trip by foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to Moscow next month.

Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL in Brussels on January 21, four days after Navalny was detained upon his return to Moscow after being treated in Germany for a nearly fatal poisoning with a nerve agent in August 2020, Landsbergis said he hopes the Putin critic will be released "soon," though the prospects are doubtful.

“I think that on Monday (January 25) he still will be in jail. I think that he'll stay in jail up until February 2 when [a court hearing] is due. And it is very likely that during his court proceedings, he would be sentenced for a long time in jail,” the Lithuanian diplomat said.

Navalny is accused of violating the terms of a suspended sentence from a previous criminal case because he left the country.

The 44-year-old was airlifted to Germany in August 2020 to be treated after being poisoned during a trip in Siberia. When he returned on January 17 after recovering, he was arrested at a Moscow airport. A day later he was remanded in custody for 30 days.

A court is expected to decide on February 2 whether to convert into prison time the suspended 3 1/2 year sentence that Navalny served in an embezzlement case that is widely considered trumped up and politically motivated. The suspended sentence ended on December 30, 2020.

Navalny’s case is likely to dominate an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on January 25 amid growing calls for the bloc to expand asset freezes and travel bans already imposed on Russian individuals and entities held responsible for the poisoning to include those involved in the decision to arrest Navalny and what Landsbergis called his “mock trial.”

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EU Lawmakers Demand Halt To Nord Stream 2 Over Navalny Arrest

The EU “should really be heading” toward imposing additional sanctions on Russia, said Landsbergis, who expressed reservations about whether all 27 EU member states are “prepared yet” for such a move.

The January 25 meeting in Brussels is also expected to include a discussion over a potential trip to Moscow by Borrell in early February.

EU officials familiar with the matter have told RFE/RL that some member states feel that such a trip would be particularly useful after Navalny’s arrest, though it has met strong resistance from the three Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

“My personal point of view is that it's a very unfortunate time to go to Moscow because apparently Russia is raising the bar and seeing how much abuse towards the values that we hold dear can we take and not do anything,” Landsbergis said.

He also criticized Germany’s resistance to growing calls for a halt in the construction of the near-complete Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

“Every country needs to answer to itself: how much abuse can we take?” he asked.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has joined a growing chorus of calls demanding that Bosnia-Herzegovina immediately provides “adequate, winterized” accommodation for hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers stranded in freezing temperatures in the country's northwest.

The authorities have done “little” to address an unfolding humanitarian emergency after a fire destroyed a temporary camp in December, with hundreds now living in tents that "do not meet basic humane housing conditions," the New York-based rights watchdog said in a statement on January 21.

Bosnia has been under growing international pressure to address the future of stranded migrants and asylum seekers since the Lipa temporary emergency camp was destroyed on December 23, leaving an estimated 1,200 people stranded outdoors, the statement said.

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HRW said that within days of the fire, about 350 people were transported to a camp in Sarajevo at their own expense, while the remaining 850 were "stranded at the destroyed camp site or forced to seek shelter in the nearby forest."

Authorities have set up 30 tents near the site, each with the capacity for about 30 people. But the Danish Refugee Council told HRW that not all of the tents are suitable for winter conditions, with some generator-powered heaters failing during the night.

In addition to the 850 people at the Lipa site, another 900 migrants and asylum seekers are elsewhere in the Una Santa canton, forced to sleep in the open or squat in abandoned buildings, the statement said.

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Reopening the Bira camp in nearby Bihac, which was closed in September due to pressure from local residents, "appears the most viable option" to ensure that people previously in Lipa can be housed during the winter in buildings with heating, electricity, toilets, and showers, according to HRW.

The group called on EU institutions to pressure Bosnian authorities at "state, entity, cantonal, and local levels" to adequately address the ongoing crisis and ensure that the 28,5 million euros ($34.6 million) of EU funding allocated to Bosnia in December and January for managing migration and providing humanitarian assistance are properly used.

The European Commission should also seek "meaningful long-term solutions” to the situation…instead of allocating largely short-term and emergency funding, and tie its support to the Bosnian authorities to clear progress in terms of suitable reception conditions and fair and effective access to asylum."

Since early 2018, the EU has provided 88 million euros ($106.8 million) to the Balkan country for migration management, including 13.8 million euros ($16.8) for humanitarian assistance.

SEE ALSO:

Reports of 'Brutal' Beatings By Croatian Police At Bosnian Border Spark Concerns For Migrants Seeking EU Refuge

Many of the migrants in northwestern Bosnia are seeking to enter European Union-member Croatia, which HRW said has "responded with violent police pushbacks that breach EU, human rights, and refugee law and exacerbate the degrading conditions for migrants."

The watchdog urged the European Commission to "trigger legal action against Zagreb for the continued patterns of violent pushbacks at its border" with Bosnia.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has concluded that Ukrainian authorities committed a series of human rights violations during the pro-European Maidan protests in late 2013 and early 2014 that ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych.

In a ruling on January 21 on five lawsuits filed by 33 Ukrainian nationals, the ECHR said that during the protests, there were multiple violations of the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. The violations deal with the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to liberty and security, freedom of assembly and association, the right to life, and the right to respect private and family life.

"The Court observed that it had found multiple violations of several Articles as a result of how the authorities had conducted themselves during the Maidan protests and the absence to date of an independent and effective mechanism within Ukraine for the investigation of crimes committed by law-enforcement officers and non-State agents," the court said in its ruling, adding that "Ukraine was to pay some of the applicants the awards in respect of pecuniary and nonpecuniary damage and costs and expenses set out in the relevant judgments."

The Maidan protests, known as the Euromaidan movement, began in November 2013 when protesters gathered on the Maidan, the central square in the capital, Kyiv, after Yanukovych announced he was postponing plans to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union and would seek closer economic ties with Russia.

Security forces opened fire at unarmed protesters. Ukrainian prosecutors say 104 people were killed and 2,500 injured in the protests.

Shunning a deal backed by the West and Russia to end the standoff, Yanukovych abandoned power and fled Kyiv on February 21, 2014. The former president, who was flown to Russia in secret and remains there, denies ordering police to use their weapons on protesters and claims the violence was a “planned operation” to overthrow his government.

Moscow responded to his downfall by seizing control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and fomenting separatism in Ukraine -- one of the causes of a war that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

Authorities in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv have declared January 22 a day of mourning for 15 people killed in a fire at a nursing home.

Nine people were rescued and were receiving treatment in hospital after the blaze tore through the facility located on the western outskirts of Ukraine's second-largest city, the State Emergency Service said on January 21, while Prosecutor-General Iryna Venedyktova said 11 people were injured.

Venedyktova said a criminal investigation had been launched and the preliminary cause of the tragedy was the "careless handling of electric heating devices.”

Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said investigators were questioning the manager of the facility, called Zolotoye Vremya (Golden Time), and three service personnel.

The emergency service said the fire broke out at around 3:00 p.m. on the second floor of the two-storey building while there were 33 people inside.

The fire was extinguished less than two hours after it broke out, and around 50 firefighters took part in the operation, it said.

The service published a photo of the building with bars on the windows of the first floor, while smoke is billowing out of broken windows of the second floor.

The facility was home to people aged between 25 and 90, according to Ukraine's Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova.

Deadly fires are not uncommon in Ukraine, one of the poorest countries in Europe, where safety regulations are poorly enforced and ageing infrastructure is badly maintained.

In December 2019, a fire killed 16 people at a technical college in the Black Sea port city of Odesa.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer for Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, has been detained by police on a charge of calling for an unsanctioned rally in relation to a planned nationwide protest on January 23 in support of the jailed Kremlin critic.

Sobol's lawyer, Vladimir Voronin, tweeted on January 21 that police stopped his car and took his client to a police station to charge her there. Before that, three men had been at Sobol's apartment and tried to hand her a written warning from the Moscow Prosecutor's Office about the planned protest.

Earlier in the day, a lawyer with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Fund, Vladlen Los, who is Belarusian citizen, was briefly detained and informed that he must leave Russia before January 25.

At a January 18 hearing that Navalny called a "mockery of justice," a judge ruled to keep him incarcerated until February 15, by which time a different court is expected to decide whether to convert a suspended 3 1/2 year sentence he served in an embezzlement case, which he says is being trumped up into real jail time.

His team subsequently called for nationwide protests on January 23.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has concluded that Russia committed rights violations -- including torture and preventing people from returning to their homes -- after a five-day war with Georgia in 2008, a ruling the Caucasus nation immediately hailed as a victory.

In its verdict made on January 21, the ECHR said that about 160 Georgian civilians captured by Russian troops faced "humiliating acts which had caused them suffering and had to be regarded as inhuman and degrading treatment", adding that Georgian prisoners had been subjected to "arbitrary detention."

The conflict erupted in August 2008 and ended after less than a week with Russian soldiers remaining in Georgia's regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Moscow then declared were independent states.

Georgia filed a lawsuit against Russia saying it violated the European Convention on Human Rights during the war and after it.

Russia has said it had to intervene to protect its citizens and peacekeepers from extermination by launching an operation against Georgia to bring about peace.

According to the ruling, "there had been an administrative practice...as regards the acts of torture of which the Georgian prisoners of war had been victims."

The court also ruled that Russia was responsible for many Georgian nationals being prevented from returning to South Ossetia or Abkhazia after the war, and ordered Russia "to carry out an adequate and effective investigation" into such cases.

The ECHR stated that the events during the active phase of hostilities in the war had not fallen within Russia's jurisdiction and declared this part of Georgia’s application inadmissible, as no side enjoyed effective control over the war-affected territories.

Despite part of the ruling going against Georgia, President Salome Zurabishvili hailed the court decision as a "victory for the whole of Georgia."

"The (Georgian) state is recognized as a victim of this war and it is a great achievement for our country, our society, our history and for the future," she said.

"It is the basis on which we must build our future and unity," she added.

Just a small handful of other countries have followed Russia’s lead in recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia's independence, while Tbilisi and other countries consider the two breakaway regions to be Georgian.

With reporting by AFP

TASHKENT -- Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov has replaced the leadership at a large industrial facility controlled by the clan of influential tycoon, Kazakhstan-based Uzbek-Belgian billionaire Patokh Shodiev.

Aripov visited the Uzbekistan Metallurgic Plant in the eastern city of Bekobod on January 20, where he announced at the gathering of the facility's administration that plant director Jahongir Mustafoev was being removed and will be replaced by Rashid Pirmatov.

Employees of the plant who attended the gathering told RFE/RL that Aripov also removed Sergei Chaikovsky from the post of deputy director and appointed Dilshod Ahmedov in his place.

Patokh Shodiev's brother, Qobul Shodiev, who is the director of the SFI Management Group, which has operated the metallurgic facility since January 2017, was not present at the gathering held by Aripov.

According to some employees, the move could be a sign that Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev's government intends to remove SFI Management from the country’s metallurgical sector.

A spokesperson for the SFI Management Group refused to comment on Aripov's decisions, saying that the company had yet to receive any formal notification of what happened at the gathering.

Separately on January 20, an explosion killed three people at another facility operated by the SFI Management group -- the Yangi Angren Thermal Power Station in the Uzbek town of Nurobod in the Tashkent region.

Investigators are working on finding the cause of the deadly blast.

BAKU -- Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have reached a preliminary agreement on the joint exploration of a once-disputed section of an undersea hydrocarbons field in the Caspian Sea believed to hold lucrative energy reserves.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on January 21 that President Ilham Aliyev and his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, supervised the online signing of a memorandum on the mutual intention to jointly explore and develop the Dostluq (Friendship) undersea field.

The field used to be called Kapaz by Baku and Serdar by Ashgabat.

The undersea field was discovered by Soviet explorers in 1986. Experts estimate that the Dostluk hydrocarbons field contains natural gas and at least 50 million tons of oil.

For many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Baku and Ashgabat were at odds over the ownership of the undersea field.

The settlement of the issue will help pave the way for a trans-Caspian pipeline -- a multibillion-dollar plan to link Turkmenistan's giant gas fields to Europe via Azerbaijan.

Russian officials have stepped up their campaign against jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, rounding up his associates and warning social media and news networks against spreading information about nationwide protest this weekend.

At least five allies of the 44-year-old were detained on January 21, including top figures from his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).

The police sweep comes as demonstrations are planned in dozens of cities on January 23 in support of Navalny following his detention last weekend upon his return to Russia from Germany, where he was being treated for a nearly fatal poisoning with a nerve agent since August.

Those detained included Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer and ally of Navalny, Vladlen Los, a lawyer for FBK, Anastasia Panchenko, coordinator of Navalny's headquarters in the southern Krasnodar region, Georgy Alburov, an FBK employee, and Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh.

Late in the evening of January 21, Sobol walked out of a Moscow police station where she had been held since morning.

"The Kremlin is having a panic attack. They are ordering that everyone be detained," Sobol told Current Time outside the police station, describing the authorities’ behavior as "absolute lawlessness."

Several of those detained have hearings scheduled for January 22, including Yarmysh and Sobol.

Los, who is Belarusian citizen, said he was briefly detained and informed that he must leave Russia by January 25.

SEE ALSO:

EU Lawmakers Demand Halt To Nord Stream 2 Over Navalny Arrest

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most-prominent critic, was remanded in custody on January 18 for a month in a summary hearing held in a Moscow police station a day after his arrival from Germany.

The court claimed he violated probation requirements in a previous criminal case while receiving life-saving medical treatment in Berlin in a case widely considered trumped up and politically motivated. He faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison.

Navalny has accused Putin of ordering his assassination and has called for Russians to "take to the streets" to protest against his detention, which has sparked widespread Western condemnation, with the United States, the European Union, France and Canada all calling for his release.

EU lawmakers on January 21 passed a resolution calling on the bloc to "immediately" stop completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to take Russian natural gas to Germany in response to Navalny's arrest.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis renewed his call for further sanctions on Russia, adding in an interview with RFE/RL that a trip by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to Moscow next month should be canceled.

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The Kremlin denies any role in Navalny's poisoning and with support for the protests appearing to grow, Russian officials have begun to issue warnings that participation in any unsanctioned rallies will be met with punishment.

Deputy Interior Minister Aleksandr Gorovoi said that police across Russia "are getting ready to defend public order during the events scheduled for Saturday as some quasi-politicians have announced unsanctioned events across the country via their structures."

Russia's telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, went as far as urging social media networks, including video-sharing app TikTok, to stop the spreading of posts by users that call on Russia's youth to take part in "illegal" public gatherings such the planned Navalny demonstration.

"Despite being poisoned and repeatedly thrown into jail, Aleksei Navalny refuses to go away, so Russian authorities will likely try to make him and his supporters disappear via censorship," said Gulnoza Said of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Even though he was behind bars, Navalny's anti-corruption campaign delivered a solid blow to Putin this week when it released a probe into an opulent Black Sea property in the Krasnodar region allegedly owned by Putin.

The two-hour video report had been viewed more than 44 million times since its release on January 19, becoming the Navalny's most-watched YouTube investigation ever.

With reporting by Reuters, TASS, AFP, Interfax, and Current Time

ASHGABAT -- The inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington was watched and followed in countries around the world. But not in Turkmenistan.

State-run media and news sites calling themselves semiofficial in the tightly controlled Central Asian state mentioned nothing of the January 20 proceedings in the U.S. capital, according to RFE/RL correspondents.

The silence comes at odds with authoritarian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov's previous statements on the incoming 46th president of the United States.

Berdymukhammedov sent a letter to Biden in late November congratulating him on his election victory, saying he was "convinced that friendship, mutual understanding, and interested partnership between Turkmenistan and the United States of America will continue to be strengthened for the benefit of the peoples of both countries."

Government critics and human rights groups say Berdymukhammedov's government has suppressed media and dissent and made few changes in the restrictive country since he came to power after the death of autocrat Saparmurat Niyazov in 2006.

CHITA, Russia -- A military court in Siberia has sentenced Private Ramil Shamsutdinov to 24 1/2 years in prison for killing eight fellow servicemen in a rampage he says was brought on by his hazing in the army.

The Second Eastern Military District Court, which announced its decision on January 21, closely followed the prosecutor's call for a prison sentence of 25 years and set aside a jury's call for a more lenient punishment.

Shamsutdinov's lawyer, Ruslan Nagiyev, told RFE/RL that the sentence will be appealed.

Shamsutdinov's defense team has said their client went on a shooting spree in October 2019, killing eight fellow soldiers -- including two high-ranking officers -- in the town of Gorny in the Zabaikalye region after he was tortured and beaten by other soldiers and officers during his induction into the service.

On December 28, a jury found Shamsutdinov guilty of murder and attempted murder, but also said he deserved leniency, which according to Russian law meant his sentence shouldn't exceed 13 years and four months in prison.

The case shocked many in Russia and attracted the attention of rights activists after Shamsutdinov claimed that he committed the act while suffering a nervous breakdown caused by what he had endured.

The Defense Ministry accepted at the time that Shamsutdinov "had a conflict" with one of the officers he killed. In March, Private Ruslan Mukhatov was found guilty of bullying Shamsutdinov and was handed a suspended two-year prison term.

Deadly shootings among Russian military units as the result of widespread hazing have been a focus of human rights organizations for years.

In November, a soldier at a military air base in the western region of Voronezh shot an officer and two soldiers dead.

In recent years, photos and video footage have been posted online by members of the Russian military that show the severe bullying of young recruits as they are inducted into the army.

Russia's telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has urged social-media networks, including the video-sharing app TikTok, to stop the spreading of posts by users that call on Russia's youth to take part in "illegal" public gatherings, such as one planned for this weekend to support Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.

In a January 20 statement, which was also placed on the VKontakte social network, Roskomnadzor said the request to TikTok had been sent at the request of the Prosecutor-General's Office.

"Materials are being spread via TikTok, calling young users of the social network to take part in illegal mass protest events," the statement says.

"We request that you immediately take comprehensive measures to prevent the distribution of such unlawful information on the TikTok platform," it added.

Roskomnadzor's statement comes two days after opposition politician Navalny called on supporters and other Russians to start street protests following his arrest on January 17.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic, was detained and later jailed for alleged parole violations upon his return to Russia after being treated in Germany because he was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent in August.

The 44-year-old accuses Putin of ordering his assassination and has called on Russians to "take to the streets" to protest against his detention. His team has called for a nationwide protest on January 23.

The Kremlin denies any role in Navalny's poisoning.

Russian law prohibits calling on anyone under the age of 18 to attend unauthorized street protests. At the time the law was approved in 2018, Navalny said it was designed to impede his own activities.

The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling on the European Union to "immediately" stop completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to take Russian natural gas to Germany in response to the weekend arrest of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.

European lawmakers on January 21 voted overwhelmingly -- with 581 votes in favor, 50 against, and 44 abstentions -- to call on the EU and its member states to “critically review cooperation with Russia in various foreign policy platforms and on projects such as Nord Stream 2.”

Navalny was detained at Sheremetyevo airport late on January 17 upon his return to Moscow after being treated in Germany for a nearly fatal poisoning with a nerve agent in August 2020.

The next day he was remanded in custody for 30 days in a summary hearing held in a Moscow police station. The court claimed he violated probation requirements in a previous criminal case that is widely considered trumped up and politically motivated.

Russia has rebuffed the global outrage and chorus of international calls demanding Navalny's release. He faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison.

The nonbinding resolution urges member states to take an active stance on the arrest of Navalny and his followers at their next meetings and to “significantly strengthen the EU’s restrictive measures vis-a-vis Russia.”

This includes expanding asset freezes and travel bans already imposed on those held responsible for Navalny’s poisoning to include “individuals and legal entities” involved in the decision to arrest and imprison the opposition leader.

Those targeted by sanctions should also include "Russian oligarchs," President Vladimir Putin's "inner circle," and "media propagandists,” according to the resolution, which also calls on the bloc to "devise a new strategy for the EU's relations with Russia, centered around support for civil society."

Manfred Weber, the leader of the conservative European People's Party (EPP) faction in the European Parliament, and a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told Der Spiegel Online that after the nerve agent attack and arrest of Navalny, energy issues must be put on the table.

"This is the most powerful instrument we have. And the Nord Stream 2 project is therefore one of the ways to generate further pressure," he said ahead of the vote. "Simply appealing to Russia is not enough."

Any additional sanctions on Russia would need unanimous consent from all 27 EU member states.

EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the issue next week, but any concrete decisions are likely to wait until the completion of Navalny's judicial proceedings.

There is mounting pressure on the German government at home and abroad to halt Nord Stream 2, which is designed to double capacity of the existing undersea Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

The U.S. government and several EU members want to prevent the pipeline from being completed, saying it will strengthen Russia's energy hold on Europe and undercut Ukraine's role as a transit country for Russian gas.

On January 19, the United States sanctioned a Russian pipe-laying vessel in its latest bid to stop completion of pipeline, which is 94 percent completed.

Despite the growing criticism, the German Economy Ministry said on January 20 its plans for the project were "unchanged.”

With reporting by Der Spiegel

A pan-European human rights watchdog has expressed concern after a Russian court handed a long prison sentence for hooliganism to a university mathematics student who says he was tortured while in custody.

"The allegations we are hearing with regard to this case are certainly of concern, and we will continue to follow its development closely," a spokeswoman at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) told RFE/RL on January 20, two days after 25-year-old Azat Miftakhov was sentenced to six years in prison.

"ODIHR is continually following the human rights situation in all 57 countries of the OSCE region, and frequently raises issues with individual states," Katya Andrusz said.

The press service of the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights organization, on Janaruy 19 said the organization was following the case "closely."

A court in the Russian capital on January 18 found Miftakhov, a postgraduate student at Moscow State University, guilty of being involved in an arson attack on the ruling United Russia party's office in Moscow in 2018.

Miftakhov has denied the charges, which his lawyers say stem from his anarchist beliefs and support for political prisoners.

A prominent Russian human rights organization, Memorial, has declared Miftakhov a political prisoner.

The student was arrested in early 2019 and accused of helping make an improvised bomb found in the city of Balashikha near Moscow.

He was released several days after the initial charge failed to hold, but was rearrested immediately and charged with being involved in the attack on the United Russia office in January 2018.

The Public Monitoring Commission, a human rights group, has said that Miftakhov's body bore the signs of torture, which the student claimed were the result of investigators unsuccessfully attempting to force him to confess to the bomb-making charge.

Others who were detained along with Miftakhov but later released also claim to have been beaten by police.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says an ongoing "crackdown" on human rights groups in Kazakhstan for alleged financial-reporting violations casts "serious doubt" that the Central Asian country's leadership is serious about improving its human rights record.

The New York-based watchdog said on January 20 that the authorities had long used "restrictive laws and overbroad charges" against human rights activists and organizations, "but what's shocking about this latest attack on freedom of association in Kazakhstan is how many groups are being targeted at once and the blatantly unlawful manner in which the authorities are acting."

In a statement, Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at HRW, cited the case of election-monitoring group Echo, which was fined by tax officials in Almaty on January 15. Three days later, officials in Nur-Sultan also fined the human rights group Erkindik Kanaty.

At least four other nongovernmental organizations -- the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, the International Legal Initiative, the Legal Media Center, and MediaNet -- had been summoned to local tax offices in the coming days, Rittmann said, adding that these groups were also facing possible fines and a suspension of their their operations.

In November, tax authorities brought claims against more than a dozen rights groups, in some cases years after the alleged violations of financial reporting, according to the researcher, who urged the international community to "speak out in support of these respected human rights groups and against the coordinated and unlawful actions of the Kazakh authorities against them."

"Their future existence could depend on it," she added.

PODGORICA -- Montenegro's parliament has approved changes to a controversial law on religion that has dominated politics in the Balkan country for more than a year.

The amendments to the Law on Freedom of Religion were backed by 41 deputies in the 81-seat legislature in a January 20 vote that was boycotted by the opposition.

The amendments repeal provisions that have been contested by the Serbian Orthodox Church, its supporters, and pro-Serbian parties.

Thousands of people have protested against amending the law, calling it "treason."

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Lawmakers had already passed the changes in December, after the long-ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) lost its majority in parliament following general elections in August.

But President Milo Djukanovic, who heads the now opposition DPS, refused to sign the amendments citing "procedural reasons."

According to the constitution, the president cannot refuse to sign the legislation after a second vote in parliament.

However, the Constitutional Court must still rule on the constitutionality of parliament's actions on December 29, when the amendments were initially approved.

The original law, adopted in December 2019, required religious communities to prove property ownership from before 1918.

That is the year when predominantly Orthodox Christian Montenegro joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes -- and the Montenegrin Orthodox Church was subsumed by the Serbian Orthodox Church, losing all of its property in the process.

Under the new amendments, the government needs to launch legal proceedings if it wants to dispute the ownership of any properties.

After taking over last month, the coalition government of Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic proposed rewriting the law to ensure that properties stay in the hands of the church, which is based in neighboring Serbia.

Tehran has accused Washington of "hostage taking" after an Iranian political scientist was arrested in the United States and accused of being an agent of Iran's government.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh made the accusation on January 20, a day after U.S. authorities announced the arrest of Kaveh Afrasiabi, an Iranian citizen with U.S. permanent residency.

The Justice Department said Afrasiabi was arrested at his home in Watertown, Massachusetts, on January 18 on charges of "acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered agent" of Tehran.

If convicted on both charges, Afrasiabi faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

"For over a decade, Kaveh Afrasiabi pitched himself to Congress, journalists, and the American public as a neutral and objective expert on Iran," John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement on January 19.

Demers said that Afrasiabi "was actually a secret employee of the government of Iran and the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations...who was being paid to spread their propaganda."

Khatibzadeh dismissed the accusations against Afrasiabi as baseless and referred to him as a "well-known university lecturer."

The spokesman expressed hope the new U.S. administration, which took over on January 20 following the inauguration of President Joe Biden, would "distance itself" from President Donald Trump's "hostage-taking approach."

News of Afrasiabi's arrest followed reports that Iranian authorities had convicted an Iranian-American businessman on spying charges.

Iranian media reports identified the convict as Emad Sharqi and described him as the deputy head for international affairs at an Iranian venture-capital company called Sarava.

Washington and Tehran have exchanged several prisoners in recent years, during which Iran authorities have jailed several Americans on alleged spying charges dismissed by the United States as baseless.

With reporting by AFP and ISNA

BISHKEK --The former deputy chief of Kyrgyzstan's Customs Service, Raimbek Matraimov, has changed his last name after being placed on the U.S. Magnitsky sanctions list for his alleged involvement in the illegal funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars abroad.

A spokesperson for Kyrgyzstan's state registration service, Damira Azimbaeva, confirmed to RFE/RL on January 20 that both Matraimov and his wife, Uulkan Turgunova, had changed their surnames.

Azimbaeva did not give the new surnames due to confidentiality laws regarding personal data, adding that every person in Kyrgyzstan has the right to change his or her name legally.

However, on January 15 a Bishkek court judge delayed a hearing into a libel lawsuit filed by Matraimov's family against RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, its correspondent Ali Toktakunov, and the news site Kloop.

Judge Jyldyz Ibraimova said that Matraimov had changed his last name to Ismailov, and his wife had changed her surname to Sulaimanova.

The judge added that the hearing will proceed after lawyers for Matraimov and his wife submit official documents proving that their last names had been legally changed.

In early December, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had slapped sanctions on Matraimov for his role in a vast corruption and money-laundering scheme in the Central Asian country.

The $700 million scheme involved a company controlled by Matraimov bribing officials to skirt customs fees and regulations, as well as engaging in money laundering, "allowing for maximum profits," the U.S. Treasury Department said.

The sanctions fell under the Magnitsky Act, a piece of legislation passed by the United States in 2012 that penalizes individuals responsible for committing human rights violations or acts of significant corruption.

In June 2019, an investigation by RFE/RL, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and Kloop implicated Matraimov in a corruption scheme involving the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars out of Kyrgyzstan by Chinese-born Uyghur businessman Aierken Saimaiti, who was assassinated in Istanbul in November 2019.

SEE ALSO:

How A Kyrgyz Customs Chief Enabled A Secretive Smuggling Empire

In October, Matraimov was detained on corruption charges and placed under house arrest.

Kyrgyz authorities said at the time that Matraimov had agreed to pay about 2 billion soms ($23.5 million) in damages to the state, and that 80 million soms (almost $1 million) had been transferred to its account.

A former judge on the Constitutional Court, Klara Sooronkulova, told RFE/RL on January 20 that she believes Matraimov and his wife are trying to evade the U.S.-imposed sanctions by changing their names.

"I think after being placed under the Magnitsky Act, many doors around the world will be closed for them. Many problems may now arise for them to keep their property under their ownership," Sooronkulova said.

There have been no official statements from the lawyers of Matraimov's family to explain the decision to change their names.

JIZZAX, Uzbekistan -- The deputy governor of the eastern Uzbek region of Jizzax, Akram Rahmonqulov, who was detained last week on suspicion of neglecting his duties after being criticized by President Shavkat Mirziyoev, faces new charges.

An official at the regional prosecutor's office told RFE/RL on January 19 that in all, Rahmonqulov now faced four charges, including embezzlement and the violation of construction regulations.

"If convicted, he may face up to 20 years in prison. I cannot say anything else, as the case materials are classified," the official said, adding that about 10 other people had been charged with various misdeeds in the case.

Rahmonqulov was arrested on January 15, four days after Mirziyoev harshly criticized him and publicly accused him of "betraying presidential politics" over the collapse of a high-rise residential building under construction in the regional capital, Jizzax, and allegations that Rahmonqulov-affililated companies had been involved in public procurement projects in the region.

Some members of the regional council and other officials told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that Rahmonqulov was being made "a scapegoat" by local authorities who are trying to avoid responsibility for the collapsed building.

Rahmonqulov, who has served as the Jizzax region's deputy governor responsible for industrial development, construction, and communications since 2018, is believed to be the highest-ranking official facing criminal charges since Mirziyoev came to power in 2016 following the death of his predecessor, Islam Karimov.

Ramzan Kadyrov, Kremlin-backed leader of Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, says regional security forces and police have killed six armed militants led by Aslan Byutukayev in a special operation.

Kadyrov said on January 20 that the "successfully executed operation finished all underground factions in the Chechen Republic."

Aslan Byutukayev was a close associate of the late leader of the so-called Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz), Doku Umarov. Russian authorities have said that Umarov was killed in a special operation in September 2013.

Umarov and Byutukayev took responsibility for the bombing attack in Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in January 2011 that claimed 37 lives. In March 2011, Russian officials said Byutukayev was liquidated in a special operation, but that statement was never confirmed.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on January 20 that Russian President Vladimir Putin "congratulated him [Kadyrov] on the liquidation of Byutukayev's gang," adding that all of the officers who took part in the operation will receive state awards.

After two separatist wars in Chechnya in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, Islamic militancy spilled over into Russia's other North Caucasus regions such as Daghestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria.

In 2007, as leader of Chechen separatist forces, Umarov proclaimed himself the leader of what he called the independent Islamic state of Imarat Kavkaz in Russia's North Caucasus.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax

China has dismissed a declaration by the United States that Beijing is guilty of genocide against ethnic Uyghurs and other minorities saying the designation "is a piece of wastepaper."

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters at a daily briefing in Beijing on January 21 that allegations of abuse against Muslim minority groups in China's Xinjiang region had "never happened in the past, [are] not happening now, and will never happen in China."

Her comments came after U.S. outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that China is committing "genocide and crimes against humanity" against ethnic Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim indigenous people in the Xinjiang region.

"I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs” under the “direction and control” of the Chinese Communist Party, Pompeo said in the statement issued on January 19, a day before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

The UN has estimated that at least 1 million ethnic Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim indigenous people in Xinjiang have been detained in what it described as "counterextremism centers" in the region.

The UN has also said that millions more have been forced into internment camps, though Beijing insists that the facilities are "vocational education centers" aimed at helping people steer clear of terrorism and allowing them to be reintegrated into society.

Rights defenders also have accused China of forcing hundreds of thousands of people into labor camps under a “coercive” scheme targeting ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang -- a claim rejected by Beijing.

In an indication that U.S. policy toward Beijing's human rights record is unlikely to change with a new administration in the White House, Biden's secretary of state nominee, Antony Blinken, on January 19 said he supported Pompeo’s decision.

“Forcing men, women, and children into concentration camps, trying to in effect reeducate them to be adherents to the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. All of that speaks to an effort to commit genocide,” Blinken said during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Since last year, the United States has ramped up pressure on Beijing, imposing sanctions on officials and companies for their activities in Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea.

With reporting by AP and AFP

The Kremlin has reiterated its commitment to extending the New START nuclear arms-control treaty with the United States, saying it would welcome efforts promised by the administration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to reach an agreement on the last remaining major nuclear arms pact between the two countries.

The New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) accord, which was signed in 2010 and expires next month, limits the numbers of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles, and bombers that Russia and the United States can deploy. It replaced the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) that went into effect in 1994.

"Russia and its president are in favor of preserving this agreement," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on January 20. "If our American colleagues will in fact demonstrate a political will to preserve this pact by extending it, this can only be welcomed."

Biden's nominee for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on January 19 during a Senate confirmation hearing that Washington would seek to prolong the agreement and decide how long an extension to pursue.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last year called on Washington to extend the deal for one year without any conditions.

Analysts have said a failure to extend New START could trigger a new arms race and raise tensions between Moscow and Washington.

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and TASS

Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya will address the United Nations' Security Council this week over an ongoing crackdown on protesters and independent media in her country.

Tsikhanouskaya's press team said on Telegram that she will raise the issue of jailed activists and reporters at an online session of the UN Security Council on January 22.

"Svyatlana will talk about the case against [jailed blogger] Ihar Losik, who has been on hunger strike for more than a month, journalists Katsyaryna Barysevich, Katsyaryna Andreyeva, Daryya Chultsova, [and] media manager Andrey Alyaksadrau," the press service said, adding that Tsikhanouskaya will also talk about "other prisoners of conscience" in Belarus, including Dzmitry Furmanau, Uladzimer Kniha, and Yauhen Raznichenka, who went on trial in Belarus over collecting signatures of Tsikhanouskaya's supporters to nominate her as presidential candidate last year.

Tsikhanouskaya will also raise the issue of launching "an international investigation into the crimes of the [President Alyaksandr] Lukashenka regime and will call for holding a formal session of the UN Security Council to address the crisis in Belarus," the post added.

The address with be Tsikhanouskaya's second to the UN since the beginning of a violent crackdown by Lukashenka's government on protesters who charge he rigged his reelection victory on August 9, 2020.

In her previous online address to the UN in September 2020, Tsikhanouskaya called for sanctions against Belarusian officials involved in human rights violations in Belarus and urged the UN to send an international mission to her country to monitor ongoing mass violations of human rights there.

Thousands -- including media members -- have been detained by law enforcement during the crackdown, with scores injured.

The European Union and the United States have declined to recognize Lukashenka’s reelection and have imposed sanctions in connection with the crackdown on protesters.