Watchdog

A prominent Kazakh journalist says he could not attend a high-profile trial in Kazakhstan because authorities summoned him regarding an old court ruling.

Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a reporter for the Uralskaya nedelya newspaper told RFE/RL that he had been summoned to a court in the western city of Oral on October 12.

Akhmedyarov said the summons related to a 2012 fine he was ordered to pay to a former regional official in a libel case.

He claimed the authorities raised the issue now as he planned to travel to the western city of Atyrau, where two activists who protested in April against government plans to privatize agricultural lands went on trial on October 12.

Akhmedyarov survived an assassination attempt in April 2012, when he was stabbed and shot with an air pistol. Five men have been jailed for organizing and carrying out the attack.

An independent Kazakh journalist says she has been attacked and robbed by an unknown assailant in the country's largest city, Almaty.

Irina Mednikova wrote on Facebook on October 13 that a man had attacked her near her apartment block in the evening of October 12.

The assailant dragged her for several meters to a parked car, hit her against the vehicle, and grabbed her bag before running away, Mednikova said.

Mednikova, who is also the director of the independent Youth Information Service of Kazakhstan, says documents related to the organization of a media conference in the western city of Atyrau were taken away with her bag.

Almaty city police spokeswoman Saltanat Azirbek told RFE/RL that investigations into "robbery" had been launched.

Mednikova insists the attack was linked to her professional activities.