WASHINGTON -- A U.S. report on human rights around the world highlights a deteriorating picture in many countries, including Belarus, where the report outlines the use of “brute force” against peaceful pro-democracy protesters, and Russia, where opposition politician Aleksei Navalny was targeted.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a briefing on March 30 that in those countries and others, “trend lines on human rights continue to move in the wrong direction."

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Blinken spoke as the human rights report outlining the situation last year in nearly 200 countries worldwide was released. The State Department is required to write the report annually and send it to Congress.

"Too many people continued to suffer under brutal conditions in 2020," Blinken said in an introduction to the report. He said some governments had used the coronavirus pandemic as a "pretext to restrict rights and consolidate authoritarian rule."

The report on Russia highlighted the nerve-agent poisoning of Navalny, who was imprisoned earlier this year upon returning to Russia from months of treatment in Germany. The report said "credible reports" indicated officers from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) poisoned Navalny last August.

It also mentions “credible” reports by nongovernmental organizations and independent media outlets of a campaign of violence, including torture and extrajudicial killings, against LGBT people in Russia's Chechnya region, and reports that the government or its proxies committed or attempted to commit extrajudicial killings of its opponents in other countries.

The report defined Belarus as “an authoritarian state” and catalogued a long list of “significant human rights issues,” including arbitrary killings by security forces, torture in detention facilities, arbitrary arrests, serious problems with the independence of the judiciary, and restrictions on free expression and the press.

“Authorities at all levels generally operated with impunity and always failed to take steps to prosecute or punish officials in the government or security forces who committed human rights abuses,” the report on Belarus said.

The report also spotlighted threats to freedom of expression and a free press in Kyrgyzstan, where a joint investigative series in 2019 by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, Kloop, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) exposed hundreds of millions of dollars in corruption in that Central Asian state.

In a section on respect for civil liberties, including freedom of the press, the State Department noted threats to journalists involved in that report, which implicated former deputy customs head Raimbek Matraimov.

It said RFE/RL had relocated some of its journalists "amid serious threats to their lives and families, for fear of political reprisal," and it cited a video purporting to show text messages from Matraimov offering a "dead-or-alive" bounty on the return of one of the journalists behind that story.

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A Bishkek court in February ordered pretrial custody for Matraimov in connection with corruption charges after hundreds of Kyrgyz protested a previous ruling mitigating a sentence after a guilty plea to no jail time and fines of just a few thousand dollars.

The report is especially critical of China, using assertive language to describe the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang Province as "genocide and crimes against humanity."

The report described a litany of crimes committed by the state against those groups in Xinjiang, including arbitrary imprisonment, forced sterilizations and other coerced birth-control measures, torture, forced labor, and "draconian" restrictions on basic freedoms.

It said in addition to the estimated 1 million Uyghurs and other minority groups in extrajudicial internment camps, there were an additional 2 million subjected to daytime-only “'reeducation' training.”

Blinken also said that the State Department plans to bring back topics of reproductive health in the country reports. An addendum will be released later this year that will cover the issues, including information about maternal mortality and discrimination against women in accessing sexual and reproductive health.

The topics were removed from the report by the Trump administration.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

The United States has announced nearly $600 million in new humanitarian assistance in response to the war in Syria, noting that it is aimed at helping people who have faced “innumerable atrocities,” including air strikes carried out by the regime and its ally, Russia.

U.S. assistance will benefit many of the estimated 13.4 million Syrians inside Syria, as well as 5.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

"We offer support to alleviate the suffering of the world's most vulnerable people because it aligns with our values as a nation and with our national interests," Blinken said, urging other donors to support the Syrian people.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his backers, including Russia, have been blamed for much of the violence, which started in March 2011 as part of a wave of protests calling for political reforms in several countries in the Middle East.

Blinken said in his statement that the Syrian people "have faced atrocities, including Assad regime and Russian air strikes, forced disappearances, [Islamic State] brutality, and chemical-weapons attacks."

Corruption and economic mismanagement by the Assad regime have exacerbated the dire humanitarian crisis, which has been further compounded by COVID-19, Blinken said.

The aid was announced during the fifth Brussels Conference on supporting Syria and the region, which brings together more than 50 countries and 30 international organizations in the biggest annual drive for pledges to assist people affected by the war.

The United Nations has set a goal of $10 billion in 2021 for Syria and refugees in neighboring countries. The UN says about $4 billion of the total is needed for humanitarian relief inside Syria. The rest is for refugees and the nations in the region hosting them.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said more than 13 million people need humanitarian assistance to survive this year.

"That's over 20 percent more than last year, and the majority of the population is now facing hunger," Guterres said in a video message.

The $596 million pledged by the United States brings the total U.S. humanitarian assistance to Syria and the region to nearly $13 billion since 2011.

Germany has pledged the most during the donor conference -- 1.74 billion euros ($2 billion).

"The Syrian tragedy must not last another 10 years. Ending it begins by restoring hope. It begins with our commitments -- here, today," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

NATO says it scrambled fighter jets 10 times amid what it called an unusual level of Russian air activity over Europe.

Alliance warplanes were scrambled on March 29 "to shadow Russian bombers and fighters during an unusual peak of flights over the North Atlantic, North Sea, Black Sea and Baltic Sea," NATO said in a statement on March 30.

"In all, NATO aircraft intercepted six different groups of Russian military aircraft near Alliance airspace in less than six hours," the statement said.

Norwegian F-16 jets intercepted two Tu-95 Bear bombers, which continued to fly south over the North Sea, prompting Britain and Belgium to scramble Typhoon and F-16 fighters.

The same day, the Norwegian warplanes intercepted two Russian Tu-160 bombers over international waters.

Above the Black Sea, Turkish, Romanian, and Bulgarian fighter jets were scrambled after alliance radars detected three Russian military aircraft near NATO airspace, tracking them until they left the area.

"Separately, Italian fighter aircraft intercepted a Russian Il 38 maritime patrol aircraft which was escorted by fighter jets over the Baltic Sea flying into and out of [the Russian exclave of] Kaliningrad," the statement said.

“Intercepting multiple groups of Russian aircraft demonstrates NATO forces' readiness and capability to guard Allied skies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year," Brigadier General Andrew Hansen, Deputy Chief of Staff Operations at Allied Air Command, Ramstein, Germany, was quoted as saying.

The Russian aircraft intercepted on March 29 "never entered Alliance airspace, and the interceptions were conducted in a safe and routine manner," NATO said.

NABEREZHNYE CHELNY, Russia -- Police have searched the home of well-known Tatar writer and activist Fauzia Bairamova in Naberezhnye Chelny, the second-largest city in Russia's Republic of Tatarstan.

Bairamova told RFE/RL that the search conducted on March 30 was linked to her participation in the 2019 annual commemoration of Tatars fallen during the 1552 siege of the city by Russian troops.

Earlier in March, police in Tatarstan’s capital, Kazan, searched the home of Farit Zakiyev, who is the chairman of the All-Tatar Public Center (TIU) and interrogated him over the annual event known as the Commemoration Day.

Several participants in the event in October 2019 were sentenced at the time to community work or fined for praying and reading the Koran and speaking about "Tatarstan's statehood."

Last month, Bairamova was fined 30,000 rubles ($395) after a court in Naberzhnye Chelny found her guilty of calling for the violation of the Russian Federation's territorial integrity in a speech at the TIU event last year.

Bairamova pleaded not guilty, insisting that the translation of her speech at the event from Tatar into Russian contained errors, which distorted the essence of what she said.

In 2010, Bairamova was handed a one-year suspended prison term on a charge of inciting ethnic hatred with her words. Four years later, she received another one-year suspended sentence for public statements condemning Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.

NGOs and activists in Russia's national republics and regions that are involved in promoting ethnic cultures, languages, and equal rights for indigenous groups have been under pressure in recent years.

Zakiyev held a hunger strike in February to protest a motion by prosecutors to label his organization extremist and to shut it down. A court decision on the prosecutors' motion is pending.

The situation mirrors similar developments in the neighboring Republic of Bashkortostan, where last year a court banned a prominent Bashqort group that had long promoted the Bashkir language and culture, after labeling it extremist.

Both TIU and Bashqort activists have been under pressure over the past few years after staging several rallies and other events challenging the policies of local and federal authorities, including Moscow's move to abolish mandatory indigenous-language classes in regions with large populations of native ethnic groups.

An armed suspect has died outside the Russian capital after a fire engulfed his home amid a nine-hour standoff with police and security troops.

Media on March 31 quoted law enforcement sources as saying the man died after setting fire to ammunition located on the second floor of his house in the village of Novye Veshk, near the city of Mytishchi.

Fear of explosions from ammunition reportedly prevented firefighters from extinguishing the blaze, the sources said.

One police officer was reportedly wounded after responding to the crisis.

A police cordon that was imposed on the village after the standoff began in the afternoon of March 30 has been partially lifted.

Investigators will start working at the site when it is safe to access what is left of the building, the reports said.

Earlier reports said that the man, identified as Vladimir Bardanov, born in 1960, had barricaded himself inside his home after he opened fire on police who entered his yard.

The reports said the man used automatic firearms, which are banned to private individuals by law in Russia, and threw several grenades from his house.

According to some local news agencies, the man opened fire at police and Federal Security Service (FSB) officers when they came to search his house on suspicion of illegal weapons possession.

Other reports said that law enforcement officers visited the man for an issue related to overdue taxes.

The Investigative Committee said after the crisis began that it had launched a probe into "attempted murder of law enforcement officers."

Based on reporting by RIA Novosti, TASS, and Interfax

TASHKENT -- Uzbekistan's Interior Ministry has blamed Miraziz Bazarov, a well-known rights activist and blogger, for "provoking" an attack that left him in the hospital with severe head and leg injuries.

In a video statement placed on YouTube on March 29, the ministry claimed that Bazarov was attacked after he called on "individuals with nontraditional sexual orientation" to hold mass demonstrations near the Hazrati Imam mosque and Amir Timur avenue in downtown Tashkent.

Bazarov, who was attacked by three masked men near his apartment block in Tashkent late on March 28, remains in the hospital in very serious condition.

According to the latest statement by physicians at the Tashkent Traumatology Hospital, Bazarov sustained open and closed traumas to his skull, an open fracture of the right leg, and numerous bruises to his body.

The ministry said in its video that Bazarov "had deliberately ignored" social-behavior rules by distributing videos with contents "not typical for the Uzbek nation," and "demonstrating his perverted behavior to the society."

"[Bazarov], acting with the assistance and support of destructive external forces and ill-intentioned international nongovernmental organizations, attempted to propagate homosexualism and similar evils, despite the fact that it is banned by Uzbek law, and created the atmosphere of protest and intolerance," the ministry’s statement said.

Bazarov is known for his criticism of the Uzbek government on his Telegram channel.

Among other issues, Bazarov has publicly urged the government to decriminalize same-sex sexual conduct, which is considered a crime in Uzbekistan.

Bazarov has said several times that he is not an LGBT activist, but believes that being gay is a personal issue and that laws should not be created to regulate it.

Pop Music Event

His mother, Miraziza Bazarova, who was allowed to see her son on March 29, told RFE/RL that she was shocked to see the severity of injuries her son sustained.

"There must be no place for such brutality and violence in our society. I met with law enforcement officers. They promised to find and punish the attackers. I hope very much that they will," Bazarova said.

WATCH: Uzbek Rights Campaigner And Government Critic Severely Beaten

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Uzbek photographer Timur Karpov told RFE/RL that Bazarov was attacked when he was approaching his home with his girlfriend, Nelya. According to him, the couple had noted that they had been followed by a vehicle for several days before the attack.

Hours before the attack, a weekly public event for fans of Japanese anime and Korean pop music, which Bazarov organizes each Sunday, was disrupted by dozens of aggressive men who chanted Allah Akbar! (God is great!).

The Interior Ministry’s video statement said that incident was the result of Bazarov's "provocative" statements.

"As a result, on March 28, a group of our citizens who considered [Bazarov's] calls as an insult, gathered on Amir Timur avenue," and "created a situation compromising public safety by staging mass disorders," the ministry said, adding that "individuals responsible for the disorder have been apprehended."

The ministry did not say whether any of those apprehended were also involved in the attack on Bazarov.

Bazarov has been critical of President Shavkat Mirziyoev for failing to rein in corruption and has questioned the efficiency of ongoing restrictions to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Last summer, Bazarov was questioned by State Security Service investigators after he called on the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank not to provide loans to Uzbekistan without strict control over how the funds are used.

Bazarov had told RFE/RL that in recent weeks he had received many online threats. Despite informing police of the threats, no action was taken by law enforcement, he said.

Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and the U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan Daniel Rosenblum have condemned the attack against Bazarov and urged Uzbek authorities to thoroughly investigate it.

CHISINAU -- Moldovan President Maia Sandu says she has appealed to the Constitutional Court for its opinion regarding her intention to dissolve parliament and call early parliamentary elections.

“I, like experts on constitutional law, believe that the legal circumstances for the dissolution of parliament have been met,” Sandu told reporters on March 30, five days after the Socialist-dominated parliament failed for a second time to approve the candidate nominated by the pro-Western president to serve as prime minister.

Lawmakers on February 11 rejected Sandu's first choice for the post, former Finance Minister Natalia Gavrilita.

Under the constitution, the president has the right to ask for the dissolution of the legislature and organize snap elections after a second failure to approve a new prime minister within 45 days, or if the formation of a new government is blocked for three months.

In her press conference, Sandu reiterated her criticism of the current parliament, saying it includes corrupt deputies who "impoverish the country."

The president has refused to nominate two candidates for prime minister proposed by the parliamentary majority led by the Moscow-leaning Socialist Party.

After Sandu’s announcement, the Socialist Party head and former Moldovan President Igor Dodon said his party would use "all legal means" to prevent general elections from being held during the coronavirus pandemic.

A U.S.-educated former adviser with the World Bank, Sandu defeated Dodon in November 2020 on a pledge to fight entrenched corruption and improve relations with the European Union.

She has repeatedly said she wants to push for snap elections in order to acquire a working majority in the 101-seat legislature.

Moldova, with a population of about 3.5 million, is one of Europe’s poorest countries and is sharply divided between those who support closer ties with Russia and those who advocate stronger links to Brussels and neighboring EU member Romania.

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Well-known Uzbek singer and opposition activist Jahongir Otajonov says he has been threatened with bodily harm after he announced his intention to run for Uzbekistan's October presidential election.

Otajonov provided RFE/RL with what he said was a video taken by a security camera in his office in the Turkish city of Istanbul that showed three unknown men making thinly veiled threats against him on March 27.

The men in the video, who refused to identify themselves, told Otajonov that they came "just to tell" him that up to $15,000 had been offered to potential attackers in recent weeks to "seriously beat" him.

The three men speak broken Russian mixed with Uzbek in the video, using phrases that are common among criminal groups in the former Soviet Union, as well as continuously calling Otajonov "brother."

"If you think this is just a joke, well, it's not. Time will prove it and place everything in its proper perspective, right? That is why we came, to discuss the situation with you. We know those people [who ordered the beating] through connections and we can ask them, at this point, to calm down," one of the visitors says.

Otajonov told RFE/RL that he considers the visit to be an obvious attempt of "blackmail and a threat to frighten" him because of his intention to take part in the October presidential election.

He said, however, he had no plans to change his mind on running for the presidency or curbing his political activities.

The incident comes days after Uzbek rights activist and government critic Miraziz Bazarov was hospitalized after he was attacked by unknown men hours after a public event he held was disrupted by dozens of aggressive men in Tashkent.

The men informed Otajonov that they knew his plans for the near future, namely his intention to visit Uzbekistan in the coming days.

"Brother, you are going to return to Tashkent in four days, aren't you? They will be waiting for you there as well," another man says in Uzbek on the video.

The visitors said they know Otajonov to be "a good person" and therefore "just wanted to let him know" about the possible danger he faces.

Otajonov said that a day after the visit he turned to Istanbul police, asking for help.

Otajonov announced his plans to run for the presidency in January. The founding congress of his Interests Of The People party was disrupted by a group of unknown women.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev took over the most-populous nation of the Central Asian region of 32 million people after his authoritarian predecessor Islam Karimov's death was announced on September 1, 2016.

Since then, Mirziyoev has positioned himself as a reformer, releasing political prisoners and opening the country to its neighbors and the outside world, though many activists have cautioned that the reforms have not gone far enough.

Though Mirziyoev has said he is not against having opposition political groups in Uzbekistan, it has been nearly impossible for any genuine opposition party to be registered in Uzbekistan since the country gained independence in late 1991.

The presidential election will be held on October 24.

MOSCOW -- Hundreds of Russian physicians have demanded authorities provide immediate medical assistance to jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny amid growing concerns over the state of his health.

Some 500 doctors and medical experts signed the online petition that was launched on March 28, one of the initiators of the petition, a journalist from the Insider website, Oleg Pshenichny, told RFE/RL.

The petition says that at a bare minimum, an independent physician whom Navalny trusts should have the opportunity to examine him. Better yet, it suggests Navalny be examined by experts from the Charite clinic in Berlin, Germany, where he was treated after he was poisoned in Siberia last year as the current deterioration of his condition may be related to the attack.

"We demand the Federal Penitentiary Service, all related entities, and the political leadership of our country immediately intervene in the situation and, without delay, secure medical assistance to create all necessary conditions for the normalization of Aleksei Navalny's state of health," the petition states.

Back Pain

Navalny's health condition became an issue last week after his allies said they were concerned over his deteriorating health and called on prison authorities to clarify his condition.

Navalny said he was suffering from severe back pain and that “nothing” was being done by prison authorities to solve the problem other than being given some ibuprofen.

Members of the Public Monitoring Commission in the Vladimir Region visited the prison over the weekend and met with Navalny “in order to learn about problems with his health and the provision of medical treatment,” according to the commission.

The commission's deputy chairman Vladimir Grigoryan told Dozhd television channel on March 29 that Navalny was faking his illness.

Grigoryan was unable to explain why he thinks that Navalny is simulating the illness and stopped the interview when he was asked to explain his comments, abruptly telling the Dozhd correspondent: "Goodbye, my dear."

Navalny’s lawyers, meanwhile, have said that their client has not yet received official results of his MRI examination he had in a hospital outside the prison last week.

Vadim Kobzev, one of Navalny's lawyer, quoted his client as saying that the Public Monitoring Commission in the Vladimir region is "a bunch of swindlers and liars, who serve the administrations of concentration camps and make the situation for inmates even worse."

Navalny was detained at a Moscow airport in January immediately upon returning from Berlin, where he was recovering from what several Western laboratories determined was a poisoning attempt using a Novichok-type nerve agent that saw him fall seriously ill on a flight in Siberia in August 2020.

Navalny has said the assassination attempt was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin -- an allegation rejected by the Kremlin.

A Moscow court in February ruled that while being treated in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case that is widely considered to be politically motivated.

His suspended 3 1/2-year sentence was converted into jail time, though the court reduced that amount to 2 1/2 years for time already served in detention.

The petition signed by Russian physicians reminded Russian authorities that the European Court of Human Rights in 2017 ruled that the case which is the basis for Navalny's current incarceration was "unfair," and therefore Putin's most-vocal critic should not even be in jail.

Navalny’s imprisonment set off a wave of national protests and, in turn, a violent police crackdown against his supporters.

The European Union, the United States, and Canada imposed a series of sanctions against Russia over the Navalny poisoning, his jailing, and the treatment of protesters by security forces.

With reporting by Dozhd

Tehran won’t agree to stop its 20 percent uranium-enrichment work before the United States lifts all sanctions, state television quoted an unnamed official as saying, after a U.S. media report said Washington would offer a new proposal for talks to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.

"A senior Iranian official tells Press TV that Tehran will stop its 20 percent uranium enrichment only if the U.S. lifts ALL its sanctions on Iran first," the state-run TV channel reported on its website on March 30.

The report quoted the official as saying that Tehran will further reduce its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers if the United States does not lift the sanctions.

“Washington is rapidly running out of time" as Iran holds a presidential election in June, with campaign season kicking off in May, it added.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been seeking to engage Iran in talks about both sides resuming compliance with the international nuclear agreement.

The accord provided relief for Iran from international sanctions in exchange for limitations on its nuclear program, which Iran says is strictly for civilian energy purposes.

But Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew the United States from the pact in 2018 and reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran.

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Will Iranian Moderates' Attempt To Deal With Biden On Nuclear Agreement Be Sabotaged?

Tehran responded by violating some of the accord’s nuclear restrictions, including a 3.67 percent limit on the purity to which it can enrich uranium.

Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran was enriching uranium up to 20 percent purity, and that its enriched-uranium stockpile had reached 14 times the limit established by the 2015 nuclear deal.

The media outlet Politico on March 29 quoted “two people familiar with the situation” as saying that U.S. administration officials “plan to put forth a new proposal to jump-start the talks as soon as this week.”

The proposal would ask Iran to halt some of its nuclear activities such as work on advanced centrifuges and the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, in exchange for some relief from U.S. sanctions, according to one of the people, who said the details were “still being worked out.”

Iran's mission at the United Nations tweeted that "no proposal is needed for the U.S. to rejoin” the nuclear agreement.

“It only requires a political decision by the U.S. to fully and immediately implement all of its obligations under the accord," it added.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 21 reiterated Iran's "definite policy" that the United States must lift all sanctions if Washington wants to see Iran return to its commitments under the 2015 agreement.

With reporting by Reuters and RFE/RL’s Radio Farda

Russian authorities have opened a criminal case against four Jehovah's Witnesses in Siberia, in the latest persecution against the religious group.

The Investigative Committee in the Tomsk region charged the four believers for participating in an extremist group, the human rights monitoring group OVD-Info and Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia said on March 29.

The four were identified as Sergei Belousov, Andrei Kolesnichenko, Aleksei Ershov, and Andrei Ledyaykin.

The case was opened in Seversk, a closed city due to its nuclear and chemical facilities.

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Russia labeled the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist group and banned it in 2017, leading to a wave of court cases and prison sentences against its members.

For decades, the Jehovah's Witnesses have been viewed with suspicion in Russia, where the dominant Orthodox Church is championed by President Vladimir Putin.

The Christian group is known for door-to-door preaching, close Bible study, rejection of military service, and not celebrating national and religious holidays or birthdays.

Armenia has received its first batch of 24,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine under the UN-backed COVAX facility as the country braces for a third wave of infections from the virus.

The AstraZeneca shot, which has been authorized in more than 70 countries, is a pillar of the COVAX scheme, backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) with the aim of providing 2 billion vaccine doses for low-income countries by the end of this year.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage

Features and analysis, videos, and infographics explore how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the countries in our region.

The Armenian Health Ministry said it will use the first tranche of doses, which arrived by plane on March 28, to inoculate medical workers, nursing home employees, persons aged 65 and older, as well as the chronically ill.

The vaccine is used widely in Britain, Europe, and in other countries, but its rollout was marred by initial questions about its effectiveness.

Several European countries this month suspended using the vaccine over concerns it could cause blood clots, but they since resumed administering it after the EU’s drug regulator and the WHO confirmed the vaccine was safe.

The British-Swedish company has said its vaccine is “highly effective in adults," with 76 percent efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 in a U.S. trial. More importantly, the vaccine was 100 percent effective against severe or critical disease and hospitalization.

"The vaccine is quite effective in preventing serious cases, almost 100 percent of hospitalizations and deaths," said Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of Armenia’s National Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Armenia already started a vaccination drive with a limited supply of the Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine.

The number of COVID-19 infections recorded by Armenian health authorities has surged over the past month after falling significantly since November 2020. The resurgence of the virus has forced the authorities to set up hundreds of new hospital beds for COVID-19 patients.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 190,000 recorded coronavirus infections in Armenia and more than 3,400 related deaths, according to a tally run by Johns Hopkins University.

Belarusian prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation against opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the latest move from authorities trying to quash opposition groups after months of anti-government protests.

Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus in the aftermath of last August's disputed presidential election, had no immediate reaction to the move, which was announced on March 29 by Prosecutor-General Andrey Shved.

In a statement, Shved alleged that Tsikhanouskaya and several other people plotted to plant explosives and arson attacks in Minsk and other cities several days ago.

Crisis In Belarus

Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.

There were no other details in the statement, although its announcement came days after officials said they arrested a person accused of attempting to stage explosions in Minsk and the nearby city of Barysau.

Belarus has been engulfed by protests ever since the August 9 vote, when Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed a sixth term as president.

Opposition groups and some poll workers have said the election was rigged; the European Union, the United States, and other nations have refused to recognize the declared results.

In the wake of the vote, thousands of Belarusians took to the streets, in what became the largest and most persistent show of opposition in Lukashenka's nearly three decades in power.

More than 33,000 people were arrested over weeks of demonstrations. Many of them were beaten by police and some have alleged being tortured while in custody.

In response to the repression, the West has slapped sanctions on top officials.

Last week, Tsikhanouskaya called for a new wave of anti-Lukashenka rallies. Police flooded Minsk and cracked down on opposition supporters who tried to launch rallies last week, arresting hundreds.

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine -- A Moscow-imposed court in the Russian-annexed Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea has sentenced a Jehovah's Witness to a lengthy prison term amid an ongoing crackdown against the religious group.

The Gagarin district court in the city of Sevastopol said on March 29 that it had sentenced a local resident to 6 1/2 years in prison after finding him guilty of organizing activities of the group that was labeled as extremist and banned in Russia in 2017, but is legal in Ukraine.

The court did not mention the man's name, but the Crimean Human Rights Group identified him as Viktor Stashevsky. Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Stashevsky to seven years in prison.

Last week, Russia's Investigative Committee said that a 30-year-old resident of another Crimean city, Kerch, was detained on suspicion of being a member of the group.

Since the faith was outlawed in Russia, many Jehovah's Witnesses have been imprisoned in Russia and Russian-annexed Crimea.

The United States has condemned Russia's ongoing crackdown on Jehovah's Witnesses and other peaceful religious minorities.

For decades, the Jehovah's Witnesses have been viewed with suspicion in Russia, where the dominant Orthodox Church is championed by President Vladimir Putin.

The Christian group is known for door-to-door preaching, close Bible study, rejecting military service, and not celebrating national and religious holidays or birthdays.

According to the group, dozens of Jehovah's Witnesses were either convicted of extremism or are being held in pretrial detention.

The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center has recognized dozens of Jehovah’s Witnesses who've been charged with or convicted of extremism as political prisoners.

Turkmenistan’s authoritarian leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has been elected as a member of a newly established senate, in a vote in which there was no opposition and only indirect suffrage.

State media in the tightly controlled and isolated Central Asian state reported Berdymukhammedov received "100 percent" of the vote in the March 29 election, giving him a new position as a lawmaker in the upper chamber.

The 63-year-old is already president and head of government of a state built around his cult of personality.

State media said the election was “clear evidence of Turkmenistan's democratic progress and the triumph of decisive reforms carried out by our national leader.”

The election was the first for the upper chamber, or People's Council, since constitutional amendments in September 2020 made parliament bicameral.

State media reported 112 registered candidates vied for the 48 seats available in the upper chamber, stressing the elections were "fair" and monitored by "independent" domestic observers. Eight members of the upper house will also be appointed by Berdymukhamedov.

The elections were held by secret ballot through indirect suffrage, with 231 electors from the provinces and capital, Ashgabat, able to vote.

“The elections were held on a competitive basis -- each of the 48 candidates was nominated by 2-3 people who deserved the special respect of our compatriots,” state media reported.

Foreign observers were not allowed to monitor the vote and no opposition candidates were on the ballot in the former Soviet republic, which is considered one of the most repressive countries in the world.

With the exception of turning the parliament into a two-chamber institution, other details of the constitutional changes that Berdymukhammedov signed into the law in September remain largely unknown.

Critics have said that Berdymukhammedov plans to use the constitutional amendments to secure his lifetime presidency and for the eventual succession of his son and grandchildren.

Berdymukhammedov has suppressed dissent and made few changes in the restrictive country since he came to power after the death of autocrat Saparmurat Niyazov in 2006.

Like his late predecessor, Berdymukhammedov has relied on subsidized prices for basic goods and utilities to help maintain his grip on power.

Despite being rich in natural gas resources, the country has faced shortages of everything from cash and food to basic necessities in recent years.

The father of Ivan Zhdanov, the director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, has been detained on a charge of abuse of office.

Zhdanov wrote on social media on March 29 that his 66-year-old father Yury Zhdanov was sent to pretrial detention over the weekend after police searched his home in the city of Rostov-on-Don on March 26.

"I have no doubts that the criminal case was launched because of me and my activities," Zhdanov wrote, adding that his father's arrest was "absolutely a new level of villainy and turpitude from the presidential administration."

According to Zhdanov, before retirement last summer his father worked as an official in a remote town for several years.

Investigators now accuse Yury Zhdanov of recommending the town’s administration provide a local woman with a subsidized apartment though it later turned out that the woman's family had previously received housing allocations.

The apartment was later returned to municipal ownership in accordance with a court decision and no one among those who made the decision were held responsible.

"I do not know if the situation was intentionally organized to frame him. The events took place in July 2019, during the peak of the campaign in the Moscow municipal elections," Zhdanov wrote.

In late-July 2019, the younger Zhdanov was serving a 15-day jail term for taking part in an unsanctioned rally to protest against a decision by election officials to refuse to register him and several other opposition figures as candidates to the Moscow City Council.

Navalny's FBK is known for publishing investigative reports about corruption among Russia's top officials, including President Vladimir Putin.

The latest report focused on a lavish Black Sea mansion which Navalny's team called "a palace for Putin," capturing worldwide attention with more than 115 million views on YouTube.

The report showcases the luxurious, 100 billion-ruble ($1.32 billion) estate near the popular holiday town of Gelendzhik. It said Putin effectively owns this palace via a complex trail of companies.

The Kremlin has denied the report saying "one or several [businessmen] directly or indirectly own" the property, adding that it "has no right to reveal the names of these owners."

MOSCOW -- Jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny says he fears the possibility of solitary confinement in a punishment cell after being accused of minor infractions.

Navalny said in an Instagram post on March 29 that he had been given six reprimands within two weeks at the correctional colony where he is being held.

"You get two reprimands and you go to punitive isolation, which is an unpleasant place, conditions there are close to torture," he said.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic, is currently incarcerated in Correctional Colony No. 2, about 100 kilometers from Moscow, which is known as one of the toughest penitentiaries in Russia.

Navalny said his infractions include "getting out of bed 10 minutes before the 'wake up' command" and wearing a T-shirt during a meeting with his lawyers.

"I'm waiting for a reprimand with the wording 'grinning though the routine of the day said it was time to suffer,'" Navalny said in the post, adding that the situation reminded him of grade school, when students were told not to argue with the teacher because they knew "everything better."

Navalny's health condition became an issue last week after allies said they were concerned over his deteriorating health and called on prison authorities to clarify his condition.

Navalny said he was suffering from severe back pain and that "nothing" was being done by prison authorities to solve the problem.

He said in a message on Instagram on March 26 that "getting out of bed is hard and very painful" and that the prison doctor prescribed two tablets of ibuprofen a day.

Members of the Public Oversight Commission in the Vladimir region visited the colony and met with Navalny "in order to learn about problems with his health and the provision of medical treatment," according to the commission.

Commission Chairman Vyacheslav Kulikov said on March 28 that Navalny "complained about pain in his leg and asked for assistance in getting injections to treat this pain."

"We asked doctors to pay attention to this and, in case it is necessary, to carry out an additional medical checkup," Kulikov said.

Navalny was detained at a Moscow airport in January immediately upon returning from Berlin, where he had been recovering from what several Western laboratories determined was a poisoning attempt using a Novichok-type nerve agent that saw him fall seriously ill on a flight in Siberia in August 2020.

Navalny has said it was an assassination attempt ordered by Putin -- an allegation rejected by the Kremlin.

A Moscow court in February ruled that while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an older embezzlement case that is widely considered to be politically motivated.

His suspended 3 1/2-year sentence was converted into jail time, though the court reduced that amount to 2 1/2 years for time already served in detention.

Navalny's incarceration set off a wave of national protests and a crackdown on his supporters.

The European Union, the United States, and Canada have imposed a series of sanctions against Russia over the Navalny case.

With reporting by Reuters

The Czech Republic's richest man, Petr Kellner, whose financial group has deep roots across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, has died in a helicopter crash in Alaska.

"With great sadness, PPF announces that on March 27, 2021, majority shareholder of PPF Mr. Petr Kellner tragically passed away in a helicopter accident in the Alaskan mountains," the group said in a short statement on March 29.

It said that the crash, which claimed five lives, was under investigation. Alaska State Troopers said one survivor was listed in serious but stable condition.

U.S. media has reported that the accident occurred when the helicopter, which was taking the group on a heli-skiing excursion, crashed near the Knik Glacier in Alaska.

The 56-year-old Kellner, the world's 68th-wealthiest person according to Forbes, died along with another guest of the Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, Benjamin Larochaix, also of the Czech Republic, two of the lodge's guides, and the pilot of the helicopter, the reports said, citing officials.

Kellner, whose wealth was estimated by Forbes magazine at $17.5 billion, started his business selling copy machines and founded the PPF Group investment company with partners in 1991, two years after the fall of communism in the former Czechoslovakia, to take part in the country's scheme to privatize state-owned firms.

PPF Group went on to grow in finance, telecommunications, manufacturing, media, and engineering in businesses spanning mainly Europe, Asia, and the United States. Its assets amounted to nearly $52 billion by mid-2020.

The group includes Home Credit International, the world's largest nonbanking consumer lender with extensive activities on the Russian and Chinese markets.

PPF last year acquired the CME media group operating TV companies in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2018, it became the sole owner of Telenor's telecommunications assets in Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Serbia.

The group has donated millions of respirators and masks and thousands of coronavirus testing kits to help countries in the coronavirus pandemic, according to Czech media reports.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis offered his condolences to Kellner's family, saying on Twitter: "Unbelievable tragedy. I am very sorry."

Kellner's daughter Anna Kellnerova, a two-time Czech junior equestrian show-jumping champion, said his funeral will be held "with only close family members."

With reporting by The New York Times, AP, Reuters, and AFP

TASHKENT -- Uzbek rights activist Miraziz Bazarov has been hospitalized after he was attacked by unknown men hours after his public event was disrupted by dozens of aggressive men in Tashkent.

Physicians at the Tashkent Traumatology Hospital told RFE/RL on March 29 that the 29-year-old blogger, known for his criticism of the government and support for decriminalizing same-sex relations, sustained multiple injuries to his internal organs and legs, including an open fracture of the left leg and a concussion, adding that he was brought to the medical institution the previous night.

According to the doctors, Bazarov's situation was very serious and he will be moved to another hospital, where he may need to undergo brain surgery.

One of Bazarov's neighbors, who said he witnessed the assault, told RFE/RL that the blogger was attacked in the evening on March 28 near his apartment block by three masked men, one of whom had a baseball bat.

According to the witness, the attack lasted only about three minutes.

The director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Hugh Williamson, condemned the attack, calling it "totally awful."

"Uzbekistan has committed at UN Human Rights Council this month -- in theory -- to uphold int’l human rights standards. It should do so!" Williamson tweeted on March 28.

WATCH: Uzbek Rights Campaigner And Government Critic Severely Beaten

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Daniel Rosenblum, the U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan, also expressed concern over Bazarov's beating, calling it "disturbing."

"I urge the [government] of Uzbekistan to investigate the beating of blogger Miraziz Bazarov, who exercised his #FreedomofExpression in support of the LGBTI community," Rosenblum tweeted on March 29.

Earlier on March 28, Bazarov told journalists that a weekly public event for fans of Japanese anime and Korean pop music, which he organizes each Sunday, had been disrupted by dozens of aggressive men who chanted "Allah Akbar!" or "God is great."

Bazarov is known for his criticism of the Uzbek government on his Telegram channel.

The Reporters Without Borders journalism watchdog called on the Uzbek government "to assess the threats [Bazarov] received and to shed light on this intolerable attack!"

Among other issues, Bazarov has also publicly urged the government to decriminalize same-sex sexual conduct, which remains to be legally considered as a crime in Uzbekistan.

Bazarov has openly said he is not an LGBT activisor t, but believes that being gay is a personal issue and therefore no laws should consider it a crime.

Last week, HRW said in a statement that gay men in Uzbekistan face arbitrary detention, prosecution, and imprisonment and called on Tashkent to guarantee lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights and decriminalize same-sex sexual conduct.

Bazarov also criticized President Shavkat Mirziyoev for insufficient anti-corruption efforts, and questioned the efficiency of ongoing restrictions to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Last summer, Bazarov was questioned by State Security Service investigators after he called on the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank on Facebook not to provide loans to Uzbekistan without strict control over how the funds are used.

Bazarov earlier told RFE/RL that in recent weeks he had received many online threats, of which he had informed the police, but they had not taken any action.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Belarusian authorities have "escalated" repression against independent media over the past five months, arbitrarily detaining and beating journalists, imposing fines and prison sentences on politically motivated charges, revoking their media credentials, and raiding their homes and offices.

The crackdown "is part of the government's efforts to silence media reporting on human rights violations and peaceful, countrywide protests" that have rocked the country in the wake of an August election, the New York-based human rights watchdog said in a report published on March 29.

The Belarusian opposition and the West say the vote that authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed extended his iron-fisted rule for a sixth term was rigged, and are demanding fair elections and justice for abuses since the vote.

Since protests erupted, more than 30,000 people have been detained, hundreds beaten, several killed, and there have been widespread reports of torture, while most the opposition leadership has been arrested or forced into exile.

"Instead of ensuring justice for sweeping police brutality and other abuses, Belarusian authorities are prosecuting journalists reporting on sensitive issues," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at HRW.

"The authorities should guarantee that all journalists in Belarus are able to carry out their work without fear of reprisals and without abusive restrictions," Williamson added.

Crisis In Belarus

Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.

Between September and March, the authorities opened at least 18 criminal cases against journalists, "apparently in reprisal for their work," HRW said.

Three of them were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to two years, while seven others are awaiting trial behind bars on criminal charges of violating public order, tax evasion, and interfering with police work. One journalist accused of insulting the president is under house arrest.

The authorities "coerced lawyers representing many of these journalists into signing vaguely worded nondisclosure agreements, barring them from sharing any information about their clients' cases," HRW said, adding that several lawyers who refused to sign have faced disbarment.

In some criminal cases involving "bogus" charges, the authorities have designated journalists as witnesses and subjected them to "police and judicial harassment," according to the watchdog.

"The journalists reported being summoned for police questioning, threatened with criminal charges, and subjected to home and office searches and seizure of their equipment," HRW said, adding that at least one newspaper "had to temporarily close due to a threat of criminal prosecution, raids, and confiscated equipment."

Belarusian authorities "wrongly equate reporting on unauthorized demonstrations with participation in them, particularly if the reporter works for an outlet that the authorities refuse to grant accreditation," HRW said.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists said that about 400 journalists had been detained on administrative charges since August.

At least 100 of them were given short administrative jail terms since December, while others were fined on administrative charges of "violating the rules on mass gatherings," "disobeying the police," and "violating the laws on mass media."

HRW quoted several journalists as saying they were brutally beaten during their detention, denied medical assistance, and held in poor conditions. Some had their equipment destroyed.

It said the authorities deported at least two journalists with Russian citizenship in recent months, apparently in retaliation for their work in Belarus, and at least three journalists who were threatened with having custody of their children taken away fled the country with their families.

At least one media outlet was "unjustly" stripped of its media credentials for violating the media law, and state-owned printing houses refused to print at least five independent newspapers according to HRW.

In October, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry adopted new rules on foreign media accreditation in the country, "canceling all existing accreditations and making the accreditation process significantly more complicated," it said.

OMSK, Russia -- The head of the trauma and orthopedics department at the Russian hospital where opposition politician Aleksei Navalny was treated for poisoning last summer has died.

The Omsk emergency hospital No. 1 said in a statement that Rustam Agishev passed away on March 26.

"In December last year, Rustam Agishev suffered a stroke and was unable to get over that illness," according to the statement, which did not mention foul play as a possible cause of death.

Navalny was admitted to the acute-poisoning unit of the hospital on August 20 after he became ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow.

Initially, doctors at the hospital publicly admitted that the cause of Navalny's illness was poisoning, but then denied that it was.

Agishev's death comes two months after the death of the deputy chief physician for anesthesiology and resuscitation at the hospital.

Sergei Maksimishin died in his ward from a heart attack, the press service of the regional Health Ministry said on February 4. He was 55.

In October, another deputy chief physician at the hospital, Anatoly Kalinichenko, quit his job, saying that he moved to a private clinic because of his "love of surgery more than to be an administrator."

When Navalny was rushed to the clinic with poisoning symptoms in August 2020, Kalinichenko, who was initially responsible for his medical care, communicated with the media and doctors in Germany, where Navalny was later transferred.

However, the hospital's chief physician, Aleksandr Murakhovsky, a member of the ruling United Russia party, soon took over communication with media and announced that Navalny's grave health condition was caused by a "metabolic disorder."

Murakhovsky, who also delayed Navalny's transfer to Berlin for two days, was later appointed health minister for the Omsk region.

Navalny was put into a medically induced coma and evacuated to Germany, where he spent five months recovering from the poisoning. Tests in Europe determined that the toxin was from the Novichok family of Soviet-era nerve agents.

Navalny, who returned to Russia from Germany in January, is currently incarcerated in Correctional Colony No. 2, about 100 kilometers from Moscow.

A Moscow court in February ruled that while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an older embezzlement case that is widely considered to be politically motivated.

His suspended 3 1/2-year sentence was converted into jail time, though the court reduced that amount to 2 1/2 years for time already served in detention.

Navalny's allies said on March 24 they were concerned over his deteriorating health and called on prison authorities to clarify his condition.

Members of the Public Oversight Commission in the Vladimir region met with Navalny on March 28, and Vyacheslav Kulikov, the chairman of the commission, said in a statement that Navalny complained about pain in his leg during the meeting and asked for assistance in getting injections to treat it.

Kulikov also said Navalny was able to walk and did not voice any other complaints. He said Navalny's request for injections had been officially registered.

"We asked doctors to pay attention to this and, in case it is necessary, to carry out an additional medical checkup," Kulikov said.

Correctional Colony No. 2 is known as one of the toughest penitentiaries in Russia.

Kosovo became the last European country to kick off a COVID-19 inoculation campaign when Prime Minister Albin Kurti was vaccinated live on television on March 29 after the country received a batch of 24,000 AstraZeneca vaccines through the COVAX sharing scheme.

Kurti said he wanted to set an example that would encourage people to take part in the campaign as health workers lined up after him in a sports hall in the capital Pristina to get the jab.

With the first batch, Kosovo aims to vaccinate around 11,000 doctors and nurses and people aged 80 years and older.

"With my example here I want to say and encourage all the citizens to get vaccinated and get rid of the dilemmas on the benefits of the vaccine," Kurti told reporters. "Vaccines are necessary because we are facing a difficult pandemic.”

WATCH: Kosovo PM Receives COVID-19 Vaccine

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Kosovo, one of Europe’s poorest countries, registered 88,754 cases of coronavirus infection and 1,844 deaths since the start of the pandemic. In the past 24 hours it reported four deaths and 774 new infections.

The Balkan nation of 1.8 million people will receive a total of 100,800 doses of the vaccine through the COVAX scheme.

Washington and Brussels are the main contributors to the COVAX program.

A few hundred Kosovar health workers were vaccinated last week in Albania.

Kosovo is in negotiations with Pfizer to acquire doses of its drug against COVID-19, but no agreement has been reached.

The European Union announced on March 27 that the Western Balkans will receive 650,000 dosages of the Pfizer vaccine from the European Union.

With reporting by Reuters

Chinese companies have been sending more goods by rail through Russia and Central Asia in recent months as the cost of shipping by sea increases.

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China sent more than 2,000 freight trains to Europe during the first two months of 2021, double the rate a year earlier when the coronavirus first hit, the Financial Times reported.

An equipment manufacturer in the Yiwu in eastern China told the paper that prices for sea transport have "skyrocketed" since last year as the coronavirus spurred demand in Europe for electronics and other home appliances.

Meanwhile, sea transportation times have doubled, the manufacturer said.

An agent providing export services in Shenzhen said that between 20 and 30 percent of her clients had switched from sea to rail.

Sea transport has become the focus of international attention after a ship became stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking all traffic. The Suez Canal offers the shortest route by sea from Asia to Europe.

Despite the jump in the use of rail transport, it still accounts for a small fraction of total goods exported from China to Europe. And it may not last.

The Shenzhen agent said she expected clients to return to shipping routes when the pandemic eased.

Based on reporting by the Financial Times

Turkmenistan held its first elections to a newly created senate on March 28 with 112 candidates contesting 48 senate seats.

There were no opposition candidates on the ballot in the Central Asian former Soviet republic, which is considered one of the most repressive countries in the world.

With a cult of personality around the 63-year-old authoritarian ruler, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, dissent is not tolerated in Turkmenistan and all media is under strict state control.

Voters on March 28 had only two hours to cast ballots, between the hours of 10 a.m. and noon local time, at one of six polling stations across the country -- one in the capital Ashgabat and five in other regions.

Turkmen authorities declared within hours of the vote that turnout in the country of 5.8 million people was 98.7 percent of eligible voters.

Foreign observers were not allowed to monitor the polling stations.

Profiles of candidates published by the government newspaper, Netralny Turkmenistan, indicated that most of the candidates in the March 28 vote were civil servants.

Turkmenistan's new two-chamber parliament, known as the Milli Genes, or National Council, will be made up of 56 senators and 125 deputies.

In addition to the 48 candidates to be declared as the winners of senate seats during the next week, Berdymukhammedov also will designate his own choices for eight other senate seats.

With reporting by AFP