Kazakhstan deported two Ukrainian nationals Friday who were in the country as rights monitors for a Rome-based group, Ukraine's embassy said. Spokeswoman Valeriya Samoilova told AFP that the embassy considered the deportation a "violation of norms" because the Ukrainian consul in the Central Asian country was denied access to the pair.

The Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU) reported that two of its employees, Valeriy Yavtushenko and Lyudmyla Voloshyna, were detained in Kazakhstan on Thursday. Kazakh migration authorities confirmed that Voloshyna had been detained after she "carried out activities not consistent with the purpose of entry," in a statement that did not mention the second monitor.

The two had conducted a monitoring mission in western Kazakhstan and were set to brief foreign diplomats in Astana, their colleague Maksym Sytnikov said. Dissatisfaction with the regime of 78-year-old leader Nursultan Nazarbayev is building in Kazakhstan amid complaints of economic mismanagement and political repression. Nazarbayev's rule in the vast country pre-dates the collapse of the Soviet Union and he has been criticised by rights groups for repeated crackdowns on opposition and free speech.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019