Protesters still blocking Kyrgyzstan north-south highway - law enforcement
OSH/BISHKEK. June 3 (Interfax) - The highway linking Kyrgyzstan's north and south remained paralyzed on Monday as protesters who seized control of it on Sunday evening were still blocking it, Interfax was told in southern region of Jalal-Abad's law enforcement service.
Deputy Interior Minister Kursan Asanov held fruitless talks with the protesters, who were demanding that Prime Minister Zhantoro Satybaldiyev come over from Bishkek to hear their demands.
A team of medics was posted on the protest site on the highway, a law enforcement source said.
The protesters, who seized the regional administration headquarters late last week and appointed a "people's governor," Meder Usenov, were demanding the release of lawmakers Kamchybek Tashiyev, Talant Mamytov and Sadyr Zhaparov, members of the Ata-Zhurt (Fatherland) party who were convicted on March 28 of a coup attempt.
The rest of southern Kyrgyzstan allegedly remained stable. "There have been individual attempts to destabilize the situation in Osh, be we're cutting them short decisively," the head of the Osh regional police authority, Suyun Omurzakov, told Interfax.
He said local police were on high alert, and that "all human resources have been pulled into the maintenance of stability."
The police authority of the Batken region told Interfax that the situation in the region was "stable" and that "there are no rallies or protest actions, and all the state institutions are operating as normal."
The State Committee for National Security told Interfax on Monday that Tashiyev, one of the jailed parliament deputies, who is at the Committee's pretrial jail, declared a dry hunger strike on Sunday.