By empty (9/22/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The latest report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) monitoring committee for Azerbaijan calls for the immediate release of seven Azerbaijani opposition leaders currently on trial for their alleged participation in clashes in Baku on 15-16 October between police and opposition supporters in the wake of the disputed presidential election. The report, which is to be formally debated on 5 October during the PACE autumn session in Strasbourg, also calls for the release of several lower-level opposition supporters who were arrested and jailed for protesting election irregularities and falsifications. It also expresses concern over incidences of oppression and intimidation, citing the country\'s failure to release political prisoners, the eviction of opposition parties from their offices, and the dismissal of the popular and influential leader of Baku\'s Djuma Mosque.

By empty (9/22/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Vladimir Sotirov, head of the United Nations\' Tajikistan Office of Peace-Building, announced on 21 September in Dushanbe that Tajik authorities have released 10 former fighters of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO). The 10 were part of a group of 103 former UTO fighters who Democratic Party leader Mahmadruz Iskandarov said should have been freed in the post-civil-war amnesty. Sotirov said that the 10 were released after the Prosecutor-General\'s Office determined that they had been arrested illegally.

By empty (9/21/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The U.S. has proposed that the mechanisms of the OSCE and the NATO-Russia Council should be employed to fight terrorism in Eurasia by developing new methods for coordinating efforts to maintain security and stability in that region, U.