Millions have tuned in to watch live broadcasts of the trial of a former minister who is charged with murdering his wife. Lawyers and activists hope the mass viewership will prevent the authorities from backtracking in the fight against domestic violence.
The president of Iran's Al-Zahra University has threatened legal action against a group of female students after video of them celebrating their graduation by dancing to music surfaced on social media.
The Chui regional court in northern Kyrgyzstan on April 8 rejected an appeal by a man who was handed a 20-year prison sentence in January for severely beating his ex-wife and cutting off her nose and ears.
A court in Azerbaijan has handed a lengthy prison term to another activist from the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AXCP) amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent that has raised concerns in the West.
Representatives of the Kyrgyz Ombudsman's Institute have confirmed that guards physically attacked journalist Makhabat Tajibek-kyzy and two of her cellmates in a detention center in the capital.
Ignotas Sungaila, the lawyer of self-exiled Tajik opposition activist Sulaimon Davlatov, told RFE/RL on April 8 that a court in Lithuania had sent his client into pretrial arrest for two months on a charge related to an alleged violation of the Baltic nation's national security.
Unidentified people threw bottles containing a flammable liquid at the Russian Embassy building in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, for two nights in a row, Lithuanian police said.
Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said on April 8 that it extradited to Azerbaijan five alleged members of "an organized criminal group" linked to the former deputy chief of the Central Asian nation's customs service, Raimbek Matraimov, at Baku's request.
Thousands of residents have been evacuated in southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan as melting snow and a burst dam continue to raise water levels that aren't expected to crest for another day.
Floodwaters continue to rise in the aftermath of a burst dam in the Russian city of Orsk in the Ural Mountains. Investigators have launched a criminal investigation into the dam's construction.
