Charles Michel will visit the Central Asian countries

The President of the European Council has been urged to raise the issue of human rights during meetings with leaders of Central Asian countries.

Photo: Internet

As reported by the human rights organization International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), this week the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, will visit Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for meetings with leaders of Central Asian countries.

According to the source, several human rights organizations have sent a letter to the President of the European Council, urging him to raise issues related to human rights violations during his meetings with leaders of Central Asian countries, including repression, killings, torture, and the mistreatment of protesters in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

“Peaceful mass protests against government policies have escalated into violence and clashes between security forces and protesters in Kazakhstan, the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) in Tajikistan, and the Republic of Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan earlier this year, resulting in many deaths and injuries,” the letter states.

The letter was signed by the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), the Kazakhstan Bureau for Human Rights, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA), and the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights.

The authors of the letter urged Charles Michel to emphasize the need for prompt, impartial, and effective measures to investigate serious human rights violations in Central Asia. They also called for an emphasis on the need for authorities to end the persecution of those who lawfully exercise their freedom of expression, association, and assembly in Central Asian countries.

“We are seriously concerned about the situation of activists, journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders, and ordinary citizens who have expressed their opinions in Central Asian countries and have been arrested, convicted, and imprisoned in retaliation for their peaceful exercise of fundamental freedoms,” the letter says.