Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

On 12 January 2013, human rights defender Mr Vitaly Ponomarev received several anonymous death threats through electronic mail. Vitaly Ponomarev is the head of the Central Asia programme of Human Rights Centre (HRC) Memorial, which was founded in 1999 and has a major focus on documenting human rights violations in Central Asian states, particularly Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, in close cooperation with local human right defenders.

The messages received on 12 January, in Russian and Uzbek languages and originating from an IP address in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, threatened Vitaly Ponomarev with death if he moved to the south of Kyrgyzstan, and also issued death threats against his family members living in Moscow. HRC Memorial has lodged a complaint to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and requested an investigation to be launched into the threats. The messages follow

the publication on web site of Memorial on 27 December 2012, of a report containing information about reported torture by Uzbekistan’s security services against Uzbek citizens on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Front Line Defenders believes that the death threats issued against Vitaly Ponomarev are directly linked to his work.

This entry was posted on January 21, 2013 at 11:56 and is filed under Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders.

Tags: Central Asia, death threats, Front Line Defenders, Frontline, human rights, Human rights defender, Russia, Uzbekistan, Vitaly Ponomarev