Kyrgyzstan denies entry to human rights activist

Kyrgyzstan's government barred a human rights activist from entering the country in a sign of its growing wariness about international advocacy groups, a rights organization said Thursday.

Border officials informed Nigina Bakhriyeva, a prominent activist from neighboring Tajikistan, that she could not enter Kyrgyzstan after she flew into the capital this week, said Sardar Bagishbekov, head of the Voice of Freedom rights foundation. Bakhriyeva has been barred from entering Kyrgyzstan until 2019, Bagishbekov said. She is the fourth foreign activist to be denied entry or deported from the Central Asian nation since late last year.

Government opponents says political freedoms have steadily declined since President Kurmanbek Bakiyev came to power in 2005 after longtime president Askar Askayev was ousted in a wave of street protests. Border officials told Bakhriyeva she was blacklisted over problems she had with law enforcement authorities during a visit to Kyrgyzstan in September, but that they gave few specifics, Bagishbekov said. Border service officials could not be reached for comment.

Bakhriyeva was due to conduct a training session for staff at Kyrgyzstan's human rights ombudsman's office and lawmakers. Bagishbekov suggested authorities may have objected to a seminar she gave in Kyrgyzstan this year in which she instructed lawyers on how to file abuse reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Last month, Russia-based Memorial Human Rights Center researcher Bakhrom Khamroyev was arrested in Kyrgyzstan and deported while researching claims of abuse against alleged religious extremists. Prominent Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov was denied entry in February.

In October 2008, Norwegian Helsinki Committee representative Ivar Dale was stopped at passport control at Kyrgyzstan's main airport. Border service officials later confirmed Dale had been forbidden to enter the country for a 10-year period. Kyrgyzstan hosts a U.S. air base serving as a supply and transit point for operations in Afghanistan.