Annual Report 2025

In 2025, we saw widespread arbitrary arrests and detentions, shrinking civic space, and new repressive laws in Central Asia. The NHC’s Regional Office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, remained a lifeline for the beleaguered human rights movement in the five countries.

Although the human rights landscape varied across the five Central Asian countries and there were notable differences in the scale and severity of violations, the region experienced a general human rights backsliding in 2025. The year saw widespread arbitrary arrests and detentions aimed at silencing critics, along with a shrinking civic space. At the same time, governments adopted new repressive laws and enforced those already in place, further constricting independent voices and civil society.

Compared to its Central Asian neighbours, Kazakhstan remained the least repressive state in the region, a modest distinction amid widespread authoritarian control. Despite escalating repression, including detentions of activists after peaceful protests and other worrying trends, the country’s strong and diverse civil society continued to operate with a meaningful degree of freedom. In Kyrgyzstan, once an outlier in terms of positive civic freedom, the human rights situation continued to deteriorate while authorities continued clampdowns and prosecutions of independent journalists and others.

In Tajikistan, the rights situation remained abysmal, with continued imprisonment of large numbers of political prisoners and reports of deaths in prison due to denied medical care. In Turkmenistan, civic space remained effectively closed, with no tolerance for dissent, free expression, or independent civil society, while large numbers of wrongfully imprisoned people continued to languish behind bars. In Uzbekistan, the human rights situation deteriorated further in 2025, marked by the arrest of bloggers and government critics on vague charges such as insulting the president, alongside persistent reports of torture in detention and other issues.

Authorities also adopted and enforced increasingly restrictive laws that further curtailed civic space across the region. For instance, in late 2025, Kazakhstan enacted amendments banning so-called “LGBT propaganda,” which opens the door to greater stigmatisation and discrimination, repression of expression, and shrinks space for LGBTIQ+ rights advocacy. In summer 2025, Kyrgyzstan adopted a repressive mass media law that undermines media freedom and cripples the independence of journalists and media outlets. At the same time, Kyrgyzstan’s 2024 law on “foreign representatives” continued to hinder civil society throughout 2025, while Kazakhstan’s 2024 media law maintained tightened controls over accreditation, registration and content.

Against this backdrop of ongoing human rights deterioration, the Trump administration's sweeping reductions in U.S. foreign assistance at the start of 2025 worsened an already precarious situation for civil society in Central Asia. The Trump administration’s cuts abruptly slashed or eliminated long-standing support for democracy promotion, human rights initiatives, media freedom projects, and direct assistance to civil society organisations across the region. Just when local activists, journalists, and defenders needed resources most urgently to push back against a worsening human rights situation, a very large share of their funding vanished overnight. Many organisations now struggle to survive, with some facing closure or severe downsizing amid heightened repression.

In this critical situation, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s Regional Office in Central Asia remained a lifeline for the beleaguered human rights movement. During the year, we continued to deliver flexible and timely project funding and advocacy support that enabled civil society and independent voices in the region to stay operational and to respond to increasing repression, and that helped prevent the collapse of large parts of civic space.

From our office in the region, we followed and monitored developments closely and kept our finger on the pulse of the human rights movement. In 2025, our Central Asia partners included a wide range of local human rights defenders, independent journalists, and civil society activists working to push back against the worsening human rights situation, raise awareness of human rights, and protect vulnerable groups.

In 2025, our partners and we campaigned for the release of political prisoners across Central Asia and documented numerous cases of politically motivated imprisonment. Our partners monitored prisons and holding facilities, and we aided political prisoners and victims of rights violations in prisons. Activists who were prosecuted in retribution for peacefully exercising their fundamental freedoms received legal aid from our partners and us, while others who were fleeing politically motivated persecution and imprisonment received urgent relocation assistance.

Throughout the year, we supported independent journalists who reported on human rights and democracy and who worked to counteract propaganda and disinformation. Our partners and we campaigned to protect media freedom and freedom of expression, and we provided direct assistance to persecuted journalists.

While the Trump administration’s funding reductions required us to focus on the survival of established civil society organisations, we also worked to widen and strengthen civil society across the region and to foster a more diverse and vibrant civil society. In 2025, we supported several new partners in rural areas and remote regions, as well as in traditionally underserved communities. In rural areas and elsewhere, we also supported partners who aided victims of domestic and gender-based violence. Other of our partners defended women’s rights in criminal proceedings, promoted gender equality, and protected vulnerable groups, including LGBTIQ+ communities.

Last spring, one of our civil society partners – Freedom for Eurasia – submitted a communication to the International Criminal Court on gross and large-scale human rights violations in Tajikistan.