Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has pardoned Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen who was kidnapped by the Belarusian government in 2021. Sapega returned to Russia, where she was greeted by local officials.
Police in Belarus have detained singer Patrytsia Svitsina, who in 2020 refused to accept scholarship from authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, citing her moral principles.
A number of Kazakh activists who planned to hold protest rallies against the government’s plan to introduce visa-free travel for Chinese citizens coming to Kazakhstan have been jailed or fined ahead of the China-Central Asian summit in the ancient city of Xi'an.
Tajik authorities say a 52-year-old woman has been arrested in the northern district of Bobojon Ghafurov on allegations that she deliberately infected nine men with HIV by having sex with them.
A court in Minsk has sentenced Raman Pratasevich, a journalist who was detained in Belarus in 2021 after the commercial flight he was on was forced to land in Minsk, to eight years in prison on charges linked to his reporting.