Rights defender Urlaeva reportedly detained, beaten in Uzbekistan
TASHKENT - The website Fergana.ru has reported that Elena Urlaeva, a rights activist in Uzbekistan, has been detained today in the eastern city of Namangan and told a colleague she is being beaten, Radio Liberty reported.
Fellow rights defender Bahadur Namazov told Fergana.ru that Urlaeva called him "and with her voice trembling said they were beating her in the Namangan city police station."
Namazov also told Radio Liberty's Uzbek Service that Urlaeva she was in detention.
Urlaeva is a leader of the Alliance of Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan. She has previously been jailed, forcibly admitted to a psychiatric hospital and beaten by men with knives in front of her child on the street in Tashkent.
Urlaeva was in Namangan to protest a decision by local authorities to charge three local television journalists with extortion.
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