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Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia started with the departure of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)'s Ambassador to Turkmenistan, Paraschiva Badescu. The OSCE's Romanian envoy left the country on Saturday after the Turkmen government refused to extend her accreditation for another six months, the NewsCentralAsia web site reported. Ashgabat has yet to issue an official explanation, but some reports speculate the move was in direct response to the OSCE's critical report on the human rights situation inside the country. There have been claims that Ashgabat would insist on having an OSCE ambassador from a friendly former Soviet republic or Turkey. Another anti-personnel mine went off along the Tajik-Uzbek border, injuring a local resident, the Tajik Asia-Plus news agency reported. Ismat Abdulloyev, 30, was seriously injured after stepping on a mine near the Farob community of Panjakent district in northern Soghd province on Tuesday. The explosion torn off his left leg, which was amputated the same day in a district hospital, Jonmahmad Rajabov, director of the Tajik Mine Action Centre, said. Seven people had been hospitalised in southern Tajikistan with confirmed anthrax, the Tajik Avesta news agency reported on Thursday, citing health officials. "I can officially confirm a report that seven people have contracted anthrax following the eating of contaminated beef in Kulob District [of the southern Khatlon province]," Mullojon Amirbekov, the Tajik chief public health official, said, noting that the cause of the disease was the non-vaccinated cattle of one farmer. In Uzbekistan, the trial of people reportedly involved in a string of deadly blasts and shootouts earlier this year began on Monday. The charges, to which all the defendants pleaded guilty, range from organising an extremist religious organisation to attempting to overthrow the constitutional regime of Uzbekistan. The accused, aged between 22 and 40, could receive the death penalty or up to 20 years in prison, with court proceedings expected to last for a month. But human rights activists charged torture was used to wring the guilty pleas from the accused. "Based on our monitors and interviews of relatives of the defendants, we believe that confessions from these people were extracted by torture," Surat Ikramov, head of the Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders (GIHRD) in Uzbekistan, said. At least 47 people were killed in late March and early April in the incidents mostly in the capital Tashkent and the ancient city of Bukhara. According to some estimates, there are as many as 6,500 religious and political prisoners in Uzbekistan, many of whom are members of the Hizbut Tahrir party, banned in Central Asia. Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan the local Ekspress-K newspaper reported on Saturday that a Kazakh prison was to be closed due to inadequate conditions for inmates. The Prosecutor-General's Office said that the living conditions in the facility in Zhanaozen, holding 203 convicts, could only be described as extreme. An inspection of the high-security penitentiary facility began after the scandalous beating up of convicts in the Arkalyk prison in north-central Kazakhstan (the beatings were filmed by a hidden camera and shown on a local television channel in February). Staying in Kazakhstan, authorities said on Thursday they were tightening border controls to prevent the influx of bird flu which struck Southeast Asia for the second time this month, the AP reported. Chief veterinary inspector Asylbek Kozhmuratov said disinfecting barriers would be set up at five border checkpoints in south-eastern Kazakhstan, bordering China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Also on Thursday, the Kazakh health ministry noted an increase in the number of brucellosis (an infectious bacterial disease contracted by contact with infected animals) cases among the population in southern Kazakh provinces, reportedly related to the smuggling of infected animals from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. "We are alarmed by the high brucellosis rate among the population in areas adjacent to the border with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan," the Kazakh Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency quoted the deputy health minister, Anatoliy Belonog, as saying. According to the Kazakh health ministry, the brucellosis rate in Kyrgyzstan was 140 percent higher than in Kazakhstan. Consequently, Belonog maintained, the disease rate in Kazakh districts bordering Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, was on average 100 percent higher than in other regions. A Kazakh TV channel and newspaper could be shut down due to defamation suits aimed at silencing them ahead of parliamentary elections, a journalists' organisation claimed on Thursday. The Rika TV channel in western Kazakhstan faced six suits from various people seeking some US $5 million in damages, the AP reported. Kazakhstan's Congress of Journalists said the legal action against Rika TV - known for its critical reporting - was an attempt `to financially ruin the television station and force its closure ahead of campaigning for the 19 September polls. The Evrika newspaper, which belongs to the same media group as Rika, faced similar charges.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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