According to New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) civil liberties worsened in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan last year as an economic crisis battered the region.

“Central Asian governments are becoming increasingly intolerant of dissent, criticism, and human rights scrutiny – an alarming trend,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at HRW.

Specifically, Mr Williamson said that Kazakhstan had used courts to silence opposition figures and that Azerbaijan’s crackdown on journalists and rights advocates was “unprecedented.”

Freedom House, another US- based civil rights lobby group, also criticised governments in Central

Asia and the South Caucasus for their record on freedom of speech.

“The [November parliamentary in Azerbaijan] elections followed another year of intense suppression of civil society and independent media,” Robert Ruby, Freedom House’s director of communication, said.

Corruption watchdog Transparency International projected a slightly more positive outlook for the region but, while Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan all improved their rankings in its global index, absolute scores in the region were mostly unchanged or down from 2014.

Transparency International’s director for Europe and Central Asia, Anne Koch said little had improved.

“While a handful of countries in Europe and Central Asia have improved, the general picture across this vast region is one of stagnation,” she said in the report.