Kazakh Government Sentences Local Protest Leaders and Political Activists

People have protested in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan—pictured above—against the country’s increasing business ties with China. (Wikimedia Commons)

The government of Kazakhstan has been imprisoning leaders of protest groups and handing down “freedom limitation” sentences to activists during the past few weeks. These actions follow a wave of anti-China protests as well as protests demanding better employment opportunities. The police in Nur-Sultan, the capital, also began detaining people who protested against the expansion of business ties between Kazakhstan and China.

Erzhan Elshibaev led several protests in February and March in Zhanaozen. One protest pushed for more job opportunities for the youth. He was sentenced on October 18 to five years in jail for brawling, which was unrelated to his protests. Activists in Zhanaozen said that the government has been trying to prevent people from participating in future rallies by detaining them at work, forcing them to attend workshops at neighboring towns, and asking them to sign papers of promise that they would not participate in a planned rally.  

Furthermore, two activists of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DCK), one 60 year old and one 53 year old, were sentenced for ‘freedom limitation’ on October 15. DCK, a central-right political party in Kazakhstan known for its opposition to the previous Kazakh President Nazarbayev, advocates for transforming the country into a parliamentary republic. The DCK is considered by the Kazakh government to be an extremist group and has been banned since March 2018. A ‘freedom limitation’ sentence prescribes 100 hours of community service and prohibits participation on social media and participation in public gatherings for the next two years. These two activists, along with five other women, were arrested in the summer of 2019 for participating in a rally organized by the DCK. The two men being sentenced have denied this charge and the accusation of being extremists. The leader of the DCK movement, Mukhtar Ablyazov, currently in exile in France, is accused by several countries of defrauding $5 billion. He has also been sentenced by a Kazakh court to 20 years in prison for organizing illegal activities. Last year, he was also charged with murder, which he denied.