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Many governments across Eastern Europe and Central Asia have pursued an "extensive offensive" against human rights, deploying draconian tactics and tools of the state to suppress protests, freedom of expression, and civil society, RFE/RL reports, citing Amnesty International's annual regional review.

But while human rights defenders, journalists, nongovernmental organizations, and protesters faced mounting pressure in 2019, peaceful demonstrators took growing collective action in their fight to hold their governments to account, according to the report released by the London-based human rights group on April 16.

The already dire situation last year across a region spanning from Belarus to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan to Russia comes as governments implement emergency measures and a wide range of restrictions in a bid to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, raising concerns those health measures will be deployed to further squash rights.

Daniel Balson, the advocacy director for Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty, described the states of emergency declared across the region as a “fertilizer” for human rights abuses.

Last year, the right to freedom of assembly "continued to be violently repressed" in many countries, Amnesty said in the report, adding that "street power showed that people knew it mattered and they were brave enough to reclaim it back" by protesting against rigged elections while also demanding good governance, environmental protection, and a better life.

In Russia, where authorities used legal tactics and police force to quell protests, people nonetheless took to the streets across the country in growing numbers to raise their voice against a range of issues including corruption and worsening human rights.

In July and August, Moscow saw some of the largest protests in years after authorities refused to register opposition candidates for the capital’s city election.

"The reprisals against participants of mass protests in Moscow kick-started an unprecedented solidarity campaign that signals the further awakening of human rights awareness and people power in Russia," said Marie Struthers, Amnesty’s regional director, for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Meanwhile, freedom of expression and media remained under assault all across the region in 2019.

Despite media pluralism in Ukraine, regular violent attacks against journalists were rarely properly investigated,

In Tajikistan, "national security" was invoked to clamp down on nongovernmental organizations, as well as defenders of human rights and media freedom, while torture and ill-treatment remained pervasive, according to Amnesty’s report.

It said the grim record of Azerbaijan continued unabated with severe restrictions across the board on any dissent against the government.

Domestic violence against women and children also continued to plague societies.

According to the report, the government of Armenia under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan continued to enjoy relatively high popular support. It embarked on an energetic campaign against systemic corruption while pledging “transitional justice” by addressing abuses of power by the previous government. Its newly published anti-corruption strategy pledged the creation of specialized state bodies to fight corruption. 

In 2019 at least 378 cases of domestic violence were investigated by the authorities, the human rights group said. LGBT people continued to face harassment and discrimination, and people with disabilities continued to face discrimination and other human rights violations in Armenia last year, the report said.