UN rights warning on Central Asia

Plans to open an office in Central Asia were welcomed: Louise Arbour

The United Nations' human rights chief has ended a two-week visit to Central Asia by saying serious obstacles remain to democracy in the region.

Louise Arbour said that while some progress had been made, excessive power of governments and the weakness of the judiciary remained a concern.

She said her department planned to open an office in the region.

Ms Arbour was unable to visit Uzbekistan because the government said the dates were not convenient.

Her trip took in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

Activist arrests

She told a news conference in Geneva that, while each country was different, they shared some common obstacles to achieving real democracy and full enjoyment of human rights.

"There's a fascination with the mechanics of electoral democracy that is, as long as you hold elections and somebody can count ballot boxes and so on, you've got democracy... but these are just the mechanics," she said.

"The real democracy needs a free press, freedom of expression for everybody, freedom of assembly, access to information and that is very, very weak."

But she welcomed the fact that some nations had ratified major human rights treaties.

And she said she received an "extremely favourable response" to her office's plans to formalise a regional presence in Central Asia, most probably in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.

Ms Arbour said she regretted not being able to visit Uzbekistan, where there continue to be widespread allegations of serious human rights violations.

She said the ongoing arrests of human rights activists in the country was "very troublesome".