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Kyrgyzstan: Incident in Batken Highlights Cross-border Ethnic Tensions

Categories: Central Asia & Caucasus, Kyrgyzstan, Citizen Media, Ethnicity & Race, Law

Passions flew high in the southwestern Kyrgyz city of Batken last week after local residents took [1] a group of Tajik citizens hostage in an attempt to force the release of three locals detained in Tajikistan on smuggling charges. As Matthew Kupfer writes [2] on Registan.net, “such events certainly aren’t helping interethnic relations within Kyrgyzstan. And, they can potentially lead to worse incidents.”