Human Rights Watch is urging the government of Kyrgyzstan to release two human rights activists investigating rights abuses in the south of the country.
Human Rights Watch says security officials detained Bakhrom Hamroev and Izzatilla Rakhmatillaev Wednesday night in Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan.
The New York-based rights group says Hamroev, a Russian citizen, works for the Russian rights group Memorial Human Rights Center and Rakhmatillaev heads Law and Order investigating human rights abuses in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Andrea Berg, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, says "it is crystal clear that the two men were detained in retaliation for their work."
It's not the first time Kyrgyz authorities have detained activists investigating human rights violations in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Hamroev's colleague at Memorial and director of its Central Asia program, Vitaly Ponomarev, was deported from Kyrgyzstan on February 26 and declared persona non grata.
Ponomarev was deported a month after he published a 24-page report about religious persecution and torture in Kyrgyzstan.
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