Two employees of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee´s office in Bishkek, Elena Mamadnazarova and Ivar Dale, right, were questioned at the Ministry of Interior (MVD) for six hours yesterday. The two were questioned about the activities of the office, about their legal grounds of residence in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan and the registration of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee´s (NHC) office. By the end of the questioning, NHC reached an agreement with the MVD. (18-JUNE-08)

By the Norwegian Helsinki Committee

According to the agreement, the Helsinki Committee will not bring legal claims against the two officers who led the inspection of our office on June 9th and refrain from activities at the Bishkek office until the formal registration of the representative office is finalised. In return, the MVD has promised that they will inform the Ministry of Justice, responsible for the registration of our office, that they have no objections against our registration. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee has been engaged in Central Asia since 1998, developing contact with both governmental and non-governmental institutions in the region and supporting activities in the defence of human rights.
Since the establishment of the representative office in Bishkek in January 2007, we have operated in full transparency and in understanding with Kyrgyz authorities.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all those individuals and organisations who have supported us the last few days.

For further information on the raid of NHC´s offices see:
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee in Kyrgyzstan raided

To go NHC´s website:
http://www.nhc.no/php/