Go to the media bankPassers-by on a street in Bishkek. File photoBISHKEK, Oct 24 A rally against the transfer of the Kempir-Abad reservoir to Uzbekistan is being held in Bishkek on Monday, a RIA Novosti correspondent reports. Several hundred people gathered near the railway station building in the center of the capital, then they marched to the central square of Ala-Too, on which the building of the parliament of the republic is located. Initially, the action was planned solely as a protest against the transfer of the Kempir-Abad reservoir to Uzbekistan. However, after a number of activists were detained at the rally on Sunday, there are also calls to stop political persecution of opponents of the authorities. The day before, politicians and activists opposed to the transfer of the Kempir-Abad reservoir were detained in Bishkek. Among those detained are former presidential candidates Klara Sooronkulova and Ravshan Dzheenbekov, as well as a number of former deputies and members of the government. All of them, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, are suspected of preparing mass riots. The Kempir-Abad reservoir (in Uzbekistan it is called Andijan) is located in Kyrgyzstan near the border with Uzbekistan. According to the draft agreement on the delimitation of the border between the two countries, it was planned to transfer the reservoir to Uzbekistan in exchange for 19,000 hectares of disputed territories, subject to the preservation of the rules for sharing water resources. A number of actions and rallies have already been held in Kyrgyzstan demanding not to give up the Kempir-Abad reservoir.
