AKIPRESS.COM - A well-known Uzbek human rights advocate who worked with political prisoners and was a vocal critic of forced labor in the Central Asian nation has died, the RFE/RL reported.

Sources told RFE/RL's Uzbek Service on May 19 that Vasila Inoyatova died earlier that morning in Tashkent during an operation for internal bleeding.

She was 62.

Inoyatova was the longtime chairwoman of the Tashkent-based Ezgulik (Compassion) human rights center.

She campaigned against forced labor in Uzbekistan's cotton industry and torture during the authoritarian rule of longtime leader Islam Karimov, whose death was announced in September 2016.

In recent years, Inoyatova was active in defending the rights of political prisoners, opposition activists, and independent journalists, visiting them in prison and trying to offer legal and financial support.