Jailed Kyrgyz activists go on hunger strike

Six Kyrgyz opposition activists accused of "organising riots" by protesting against a border demarcation deal have begun a hunger strike in jail, the Central Asian country's prison service said.

"Six prisoners sent a letter on August 22 to inform of their refusal to eat and start a hunger strike because of their trial," the Kyrgyz prison service told AFP Thursday.

The detainees are part of a group that opposed a draft government deal with neighbouring Uzbekistan, which they argue would see Kyrgyzstan cede control of the Kempir-Abad dam.

"They are protesting the fact that they are still being held in pre-trial detention" around ten months after their arrest, a representative for the Kyrgyz human rights group Kylym Chamy told AFP.

"They are asking for a public hearing... and (they feel) that the court, the prosecutors and investigators are violating their rights," the spokesperson added.

Little information has been published on the case, which has been classified secret, according to Kyrgyz media.

Lawyers cited by local media said that some of the accused have been charged with an "attempted coup".

Kyrgyz authorities accuse the protest leaders of using the issue of water -- crucial in a region on the front line of global warming -- to weaken the government.

Attempts to oppose the agreement have been denounced as "sabotage" and "provocations" by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov.

Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked republic of 6.5 million people, has been dogged by political volatility for much of the three decades since it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991.