Watchdog

Uzbek human rights defender and opposition activist Nuriddin Jumaniyazov died in prison last year, a human rights activist says.

The chairwoman of the Paris-based Fiery Hearts Club Human Rights Association, Mutobar Tojiboeva, told RFE/RL on June 16 that Jumaniyazov died at the age of 69 on December 31, 2016. According to official documents, the cause of death was tuberculosis and diabetes, Tojiboeva said.

Tojiboeva said Jumaniyazov was not married and his body was given to relatives in a remote part of the Karakalpakistan region, so the outside world did not find out about his death.

"Our organization is currently looking into the circumstances of his death," Tojiboeva said.

Jumaniyazov and a colleague, Fahriddin Tillyaev, were sentenced to eight years and three months in prison each after a Tashkent court convicted them of human trafficking in March 2014.

Human rights organization condemned the trial and the verdict, saying the case was politically motivated as both Jumaniyazov and Tillyaev were members of the opposition Erk (Freedom) party.

Two activists from Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny's Anticorruption Foundation (FBK) have fled to Ukraine after state media regulator Roskomnadzor launched investigations against them.

Vladislav Zdolnikov, an FBK IT consultant, and activist Aleksandr Brusentsev crossed into Ukraine on June 15.

The activists told the BBC that Roskomnadzor suspected them of illegally blocking access to some websites by using a vulnerability of the government's system for blocking banned websites.

Ukraine's Border Guard Service said on June 15 that two members of Navalny’s foundation had asked for political asylum. However, the activists told the BBC that they had not asked for asylum and were not planning to do so.

They said they planned to stay in Ukraine temporarily until the situation around Roskomnadzor's allegations was cleared up.

Navalny and at least 1,500 of demonstrators were detained on June 12 in Moscow and other cities across Russia for participating in a wave of unauthorized anticorruption protests.

Navalny was jailed for 30 days, which an appeals court reduced to 25 days on June 16.

With reporting by BBC