A rights activist and RFE/RL correspondent in Kazakhstan is being sued for libel after she alleged children at a special needs school were being abused. In an article published in a local newspaper in May, Alima Abdirova said children at the boarding school in the western city of Aqtobe were subject to beatings and neglect. Abdirova is due to appear in court in the city on 27 August after the former director of the school took legal action. She is being sued as a member of the independent Kazakh Bureau for Human Rights group, and not as a journalist.