By empty (5/27/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Alvaro Gil-Robles, said on Friday he was shocked by a recent not guilty verdict on Eduard Ulman and other Russian army officers accused of killing six civilians in Chechnya. Gil-Robles, who was speaking to reporters in Moscow, expressed hope the verdict, issued by a jury at a military court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, would be reversed. (Interfax).

By empty (5/27/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko lauded on 26 May Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili\'s statement during his address earlier that day to mark the anniversary in 1918 of Georgia\'s independence that Georgia will not host any foreign military bases after the closure of the two remaining Russian bases on its territory, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry website (http://www.ln.mid.

By empty (5/27/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

International rights groups voiced fears of a crackdown in Uzbekistan as rights defenders in Uzbekistan cited increasing harassment in the wake of violence in Andijon on 13 May, RFE/RL\'s Uzbek Service and the United Nations\' Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reported on 26 May. Bakhtiyor Hamroev, a Jizzakh-based human rights activist, said that a crowd of 70 people came to his house, calling him a \"mercenary\" and \"terrorist\" for providing casualty figures from Andijon that differed from official information, the BBC\'s Uzbek Service reported. Meanwhile, representatives of international rights groups told IRIN that the Uzbek government is tightening controls in the wake of the unrest in Andijon.