The Belarusian Justice Ministry has refused to legally register a homosexual rights organization in Minsk.

The organization's website -- gaybelarus.by -- published part of a letter from the ministry explaining the decision.

It stated "the organization does not have in its charter any clauses on supporting social maturity and comprehensive development of the Belarusian youth."

The organization's charter states its major activities will be linked to defending the rights of homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals.

Organizations cannot legally operate unless they are registered with the Justice Ministry.

The group plans to appeal the Justice Ministry's decision to the country's Supreme Court.

Although homosexuality was decriminalized in Belarus after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarusian homosexuals often face threats and attacks.

With reporting by Interfax

The United Nations has made public its first report on the human rights situation in Moldova's breakaway Transdniester region.

In the document published on February 14, independent expert Thomas Hammarberg calls for a reform of Transdniester’s penitentiary system and urges the authorities to give high priority to measures against human trafficking.

The report follows three visits to the region by Hammarberg between May and November 2012.

In a statement, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay welcomed the full cooperation of the authorities and the access given to Hammarberg in Transdniester.

She also called on the authorities “to address the deeply rooted problems identified in the report” and to develop “a plan of action for human rights.”

Moscow-backed Transdniester declared its independence from Moldova in 1990 but was never recognized internationally.

ASTANA -- Two Polish politicians have been denied permission to visit jailed Kazakhstani opposition leader Vladimir Kozlov at a labor camp in northern city of Petropavlovsk.

Polish members of parliament Tomasz Makowski and Malgorzata Marcinkiewicz tried to visit the leader of the unregistered Algha (Forward) party on February 13.

Kozlov was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in October for his role in the mass strike by oil workers in western Kazakhstan.

The strike ended in violence in December 2011.

Police shot dead 17 people in the towns of Zhanaozen and Shetpe.

Kozlov insists the case against him is politically motivated.

Marcinkiewicz told RFE/RL that the prison warden refused to allow a meeting with Kozlov because permission was first required from the Interior Ministry and the prosecutor-general.

MINSK -- The wife of former Belarusian presidential candidate Andrey Sannikau has been allowed to temporarily leave Belarus.

A parole board in Minsk informed Iryna Khalip that she can visit her husband in Britain before April 3.

Sannikau received political asylum there last year.

Khalip will also be allowed to travel to Moscow to visit her employer, the "Novaya gazeta" weekly.

Khalip was banned from traveling abroad in May 2011 after receiving a two-year suspended prison sentence for involvement in protests following Belarus's disputed 2010 presidential election.

Sannikau officially came a distant second behind authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Authorities said Lukashenka won almost 80 percent of the vote.

Sannikau was arrested after the election and sentenced to five years in prison on charges of organizing mass disturbances.

He was pardoned and released in April.

A 13-year-old boy has been jailed for having sex in a park with two adult men, the latest case of a victim of a sexual crime being punished in Afghanistan.

In October 2012, the boy was convicted of having sex with the men in a park in the western province of Herat and sentenced to a year in juvenile detention.

As Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports, Afghan law prohibits "pederasty," commonly understood to mean sex between a man and a boy, and makes it a crime punishable by five to 15 years in prison. "Moral crimes" include not only pederasty but any sexual relations between people who are not married to each other, and have been used to punish the victim of a crime.

"When a man has sex with a 13-year-old child, the child is a victim of rape, not a criminal offender," says Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director. "The Afghan government should never have victimized this boy a second time, but instead should have released him immediately with urgent protection and assistance."

HRW quoted a prosecutor involved in the case as saying that the boy was prosecuted because he said he had consented to sex with several men. The men were also arrested and charged with moral crimes, but the outcomes of their cases are not known.

As the number of street children in Afghanistan has grown, more and more children are exposed to the risk of sexual abuse. HRW has urged the Afghan government to raise the legal age of consent to protect children and to expand the law passed in 2009 on violence against women -- which defined rape as a crime for the first time -- to include men and boys.

"Afghan lawmakers should move forward promptly in revising the penal code to provide better protection for both victims and criminal suspects," Adams says. "The revision should ensure that rape is seen as a serious crime, whether committed against men and boys or women and girls, and that victims are not treated as criminals."

HRW also called attention to the practice of "bacha bazi," where young boys work as dancers to entertain groups of men. As women and girls are not permitted to entertain men, the boys are often dressed in women's clothing and subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation.
 
"The Afghan government needs to take urgent steps to protect children from sexual assault, including boys who are abused through the practice of bacha bazi," Adams says. "Treating boys who have been raped as criminals undermines all government efforts to protect children from abuse."

The previously taboo subject of rape and sexual abuse has slowly emerged as a topic of public debate in the deeply conservative country. Media coverage of two rape cases in the northern Takhar and Sari Pol provinces in 2010, where girls as young as 11 were gang raped, prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to meet with the victims and their families. He promised to crack down on rape and bring the attackers to justice.

-- Dan Wisniewski

BAKU -- Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has stripped a prominent novelist of the title of "People's Writer," as well as his presidentially awarded pension.

Azerbaijani media reported on February 7 that the actions were taken against Akram Aylisli because of his novel "Stone Dreams," which was printed in a popular Russian magazine last year.

The novel describes sensitive issues in relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

It focuses on Nagorno-Karabakh, the mostly Armenian-populated region that broke away from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s.

Azerbaijani media quoted Aliyev's decree, which said Aylisli was punished "for distorting facts in Azerbaijani history and insulting the feelings of Azerbaijani people."

Aylisli told RFE/RL the presidential decision was "unexpected" because his title and pension were awarded to him for his other works in the past.