Watchdog

A well-known Russian human rights defender, Vitaly Ponomaryov, has been detained upon his arrival at the main airport in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. The chairwoman of the One World Kyrgyzstan human rights group, Tolekan Ismailova, told RFE/RL that the director of the Memorial Human Rights Center's Central Asian program was detained on November 14 due to a 2017 decision by the Kyrgyz government to bar him from entering the country. The ban was extended in 2020. Kyrgyz officials have yet to comment on the situation. To read the original story from RFE/RL's Kyrgyz service, click here.

Moscow police have detained two freelance correspondents working for RFE/RL's Russian Service on November 13 while they were interviewing people on the streets of the country's capital. Law enforcement officers took Yury Lebedev and Yelizaveta Movchan to a police station for "an identity check." A lawyer is en route to visit Lebedev and Movchan. Since Moscow launched its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, police in Russia have repeatedly detained journalists, including those from RFE/RL, to prevent them from carrying out their work as reporters. To read the original story from RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.