The director of the Central Asian branch of Russia's leading rights organization, Memorial, said its human rights activist Bakhrom Hamroev was deported from Kyrgyzstan on Thursday.

"Bakhrom Hamroev called me from Domodedovo Airport [in Moscow] and said he had been deported from Kyrgyzstan to Russia," Vitaly Ponomaryov said.

Hamroev, who is a key activist in the Uzbek community in Russia, and another human rights activist Izzatilla Rakhmatillaev were detained by Kyrgyz National Security Service officials in the country's southern city of Osh on Wednesday.

"The Kyrgyz government is out to stop research into abuses committed against so-called extremists in the region," said Andrea Berg, a Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "It is crystal clear that the two men were detained in retaliation for their work," according to the Human Rights Watch website.

Hamroev's camera and mobile phone were "left in the office of the National Security Service in Kyrgyzstan," Ponomaryov said.

Hamroev, who had received Russian citizenship in 1992, reportedly arrived in Kyrgyzstan on November 10 "in order to collect information on victims of religious persecution in the country."

The Kyrgyz National Security Service has refused to provide comments.

On October 20, Hamroyev organized a protest at the Kyrgyz Embassy in Russia's capital, Moscow, demanding the resignation of the Kyrgyz National Security Service's head.

Vitaly Ponomaryov had published a 24-page report in January about religious persecution and torture in Kyrgyzstan and was deported from the country in February. He has been banned from entering Kyrgyzstan until 2014.

BISHKEK, November 19 (RIA Novosti)