In the present document Human Rights Watch urges the Kyrgyz authorities to immediately open a criminal investigation into a series of violent assaults on a lawyer defending an ethnic Uzbek on trial in relation to the 2010 ethnic violence. Human Rights Watch further states that the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, the Kyrgyz government has a duty to ensure that lawyers can carry out their work without intimidation, hindrance, or harassment and take immediate action to provide protection if a lawyer’s security is threatened as a result of professional activities.