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Category: kazakhstan

  • Another Kazakh Activist Goes On Trial Over Links With Banned Political Group

    NUR-SULTAN — Kazakh activist Erbol Eskhozhin has gone on trial over his alleged links with the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement as authorities continue to roundup supporters of the group that is led from abroad by former banker Mukhtar Ablyazov.

    The Saryarqa district court in the Kazakh capital began the hearing on April 14 as about a dozen of activists rallied in the city, demanding Eskhozhin’s release and expressing support for dozens of other activists sentenced for backing the DVK in recent years.

    The trial is being held online due to coronavirus precautions.

    Eskhozhin, 44, was arrested in December 2020 and charged with taking part in the activities of the DVK, which was labelled as extremist and banned in the country in 2018.

    Last December, the charge was changed to organizing activities for the DVK, which is an offense punishable by up to six years in prison. Eskhozhin has rejected the charge as politically motivated.

    In recent years, many activists across the Central Asian nation have been convicted for their involvement in the activities of the DVK and its associated grouping, the Koshe (Street) Party.

    Last week, human rights activists in Kazakhstan’s second-largest city, Almaty, expressed concerns over the situation faced by another jailed DVK supporter, Aset Abishev, who, the activists said, was placed in solitary confinement after he cut his wrists to protest his treatment by guards and overall prison conditions.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Jailed Kazakh Activist Starts Hunger Strike After Early Release Cancelled

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Kenzhebek Abishev, who was jailed for being linked to a political movement founded by a fugitive tycoon, has launched a hunger strike after his early release on parole was cancelled at the last moment.

    Kazakhstan’s International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law said on April 12 that Abishev started the hunger strike the previous day. It published a letter from the activist addressed to President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, urging him to intervene on his behalf.

    In his letter, Abishev calls the cancellation of the court’s decision to release him on parole in February and the case against him “illegal,” adding that his medical conditions — heart and respiratory problems — had worsened due to the lack of proper medical treatment in prison.

    “There is no sense for me to continue living, consuming food, and treat my illnesses. Do you want to kill me? Then kill me. I am tired of life,” Abishev said in his letter to the president.

    There have been no official statements regarding Abishev’s hunger strike either by the Penitentiary Service or the Prosecutor-General’s Office.

    On February 1, a court in the southern city of Qapshaghai ruled that Abishev could be released on February 16, more than three years early, for good behavior while in prison, a procedure allowed by Kazakh law.

    However, the Almaty regional prosecutor’s office appealed the ruling at the very last moment, arguing that the 53-year-old activist’s good behavior in custody was not enough for his release since he still had more than three years to serve.

    The court then scrapped the move, leaving Abishev in prison.

    Abishev was sentenced to seven years in prison in December 2018 after he and two other activists were found guilty of planning a “holy war” because they were spreading the ideas of the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement. His prison term was later cut by eight months.

    Abishev, whom Kazakh rights groups have recognized as a political prisoner, pleaded not guilty, calling the case against him politically motivated.

    The DVK was founded by Mukhtar Ablyazov, an outspoken critic of the government who has been living in France for several years.

    Ablyazov has organized unsanctioned anti-government rallies in Kazakhstan via the Internet in recent years.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • A ‘Brief Trip’ That Lasted 17 Years: Kazakh Reunites With Family After Finally Being Freed In Xinjiang

    A 58-year-old ethnic Kazakh man has emerged from a 17-year nightmare of Chinese imprisonment and “reeducation” to be reunited with his family in Kazakhstan.

    Raqyzhan Zeinolla was welcomed at Almaty’s international airport on April 9 by family members, including his wife and grandchildren he’d never met.

    It was a precious moment of happiness for one of the many families caught up in Beijing’s massive campaign of internment and forced assimilation targeting more than a million Muslims in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Province.

    As a reminder of the ongoing repression, a group of fellow Xinjiang natives stood alongside Zeinolla’s family at the airport, holding up photos of their relatives jailed or trapped in China. They see Zeinolla’s case as a glimmer of hope.

    Caught Up In A Crackdown

    Zeinolla, a naturalized Kazakh citizen, traveled from Almaty to Xinjiang in 2004 for what was supposed to be a brief visit to see relatives and friends. The trip soon turned into a yearslong ordeal for him and his family.

    “Chinese authorities accused him of being a spy and sentenced him to 13 years in prison,” his wife, Farida Qabylbek, told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service.

    Farida Qabylbek (right) fought to get her husband back for years.


    Farida Qabylbek (right) fought to get her husband back for years.

    She said her husband was an ordinary merchant who had never worked at any government agency nor been interested in political activism. She said the spying charge against Zeinolla stemmed from the fact that he helped to prepare documents for a group of around 20 young people in Xinjiang who were hoping to study abroad in Kazakhstan.

    He spent the full 13 years in prison, then upon his release from prison in 2018 was sent for another year and a half to a “political reeducation camp” as Beijing was increasingly cracking down on the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority. After that, he spent most of his time under house arrest before returning to Kazakhstan this month.

    Wife’s Campaign

    Back in Almaty, Qabylbek had spent the years since his prison release pleading with Kazakh officials for help to secure her husband’s release and return. The authorities said formal requests were sent to the Chinese authorities but there was never a positive response.

    In 2020, increasingly desperate, Qabylbek began regular protests in front of the Chinese Consulate in Almaty and the embassy in Nur-Sultan, demanding the repatriation of her husband. Qabylbek staged several solo pickets. She also joined protests by other natives of Xinjiang who say their relatives are being kept in Chinese detention centers.

    Amid the brutal crackdown on its Muslim population since 2017, China has built hundreds of detention facilities in Xinjiang. They are said to range from reeducation camps to high-security prisons. Rights activists say at least 1 million Muslims, most of them ethnic Uyghurs, have been placed in internment camps, where detainees are subjected to torture, rape, and forced labor, according to survivors. Some women have reported being forcibly sterilized.

    Locked Up In China: The Plight Of Xinjiang’s Muslims


    Radio Free Radio/Radio Liberty is partnering with its sister organization, Radio Free Asia, to highlight the plight of Muslims living in China’s western province of Xinjiang.

    China’s actions in Xinjiang are thought to represent the largest internment of any religious or ethnic minority in the world since the Nazi targeting of Jewish and Romany populations during World War II. The United States has labeled it a “genocide.” Beijing rejects that and other accusations of systematic rights abuses in Xinjiang and says the camps are vocational training centers aimed at preventing religious extremism.

    But even those Muslims who are free in Xinjiang have seen their rights and liberties severely curtailed. Many mosques have been razed, and community leaders arrested. The government has embedded more than 1 million civil servants from the country’s majority Han Chinese population to live with Muslim families in Xinjiang as part of the assimilation effort.

    Silence In Nur-Sultan

    Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s most ethnically diverse post-Soviet republic, offers citizenship for ethnic Kazakhs who return to their ancestral home.

    Zeinolla, his wife, and their two children were among thousands of ethnic Kazakhs who relocated from China to Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They settled in Almaty in 2000. The family was granted Kazakh citizenship in 2003, shortly before Zeinolla’s fateful decision to visit Xinjiang.

    Zeinolla’s eldest child was 14 and his youngest just 5 years old when he last saw them. Both have since finished school, married, and had children of their own. Zeinolla met his daughter-in-law, son-in-law, and grandchildren for the first time at the Almaty airport after his flight this month from Chengdu.

    After the emotional reunion, Zeinolla greeted other ethnic Kazakhs from Xinjiang who had come to the airport to support the family. He suggested that their relatives “will be released soon” too but declined to explain.

    “I’m happy to have returned to my homeland,” he said. “Long live friendship between the two countries.” Asked if he had been warned by Chinese officials against speaking to reporters, Zeinolla responded, “No.”

    Qabylbek said her protests are over now. But other Kazakh families continue to campaign for their own missing loved ones.

    Zeinolla’s return provides new hope for them, according to Bekzat Maqsutkhan, the head of Real Atazhurt, a volunteer group that collects information on the Xinjiang internment camps and alleged rights abuses through testimony from survivors and other sources.

    Other Kazakhs hold photos of their relatives trapped in China's Xinjiang region.


    Other Kazakhs hold photos of their relatives trapped in China’s Xinjiang region.

    “We believe that Zeinolla was released because of the pressure on China by the international human rights groups and other institutions,” Maqsutkhan said. “It proves that sanctions against China indeed give results,” he added.

    Last month, the United States, Britain, Canada, and the European Union imposed sanctions on several Chinese officials over the reported rights abuses in Xinjiang. The coordinated move followed Washington’s declaration in January that China had committed genocide in its repression of the Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities.

    But the Kazakh government has refrained from criticizing China, a key investor in Kazakhstan’s economy. The Kazakh authorities have said that they don’t interfere in China’s treatment of its own citizens, including more than 1.5 million ethnic Kazakhs living in Xinjiang.

    Written by Farangis Najibullah with reports by RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan Break Ground On Trade Hub

    Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have broken ground for a giant trade and economic-cooperation hub, the largest of its kind in Central Asia, along the border of the two neighbors.

    The Uzbek government’s press service said a groundbreaking ceremony with the prime ministers of the two countries was held on April 10 at the Gishtkoprik-Zhibek Zholy border checkpoint.

    “This unique project in the Central Asian region will be profitable for the two nations and contribute to the development of trade and economic ties in the region as a whole,” the Uzbek government said.

    Kazakh Prime Minister Asqar Mamin told the ceremony that Kazakh and Uzbek officials have a goal of tripling trade between the two biggest economies in the region to $10 billion.

    The Kazakh prime minister’s press service said the new hub will cover a territory of 400 hectares and allow some 35,000 people and up to 5,000 trucks to cross the border from both sides each day after it becomes fully operational.

    Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has taken steps to improve Uzbekistan’s ties with its neighbors since he took office after the death of autocrat Islam Karimov in 2016.

    During Karimov’s 27-year rule in Central Asia’s most-populous nation, its relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan were strained by disputes over transit routes, border security, water resources, and other issues.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ethnic Kazakh ‘Happy To Be Home’ After 17 Years Captivity In China

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Jailed Kazakh Political Prisoner In Solitary After Slitting Wrists, Rights Group Says

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — The Almaty-based human rights group Dignity, Spirit, Truth says a well-known Kazakh political prisoner Aset Abishev, who is serving a four-year prison term for his links with a banned political group, was placed in solitary confinement after he slit his wrists in protest at his treatment by guards.

    A leading member of the rights group, Bakhytzhan Toreghozhina, told RFE/RL on April 8 that inmates in the LA-155/14 correctional colony near Almaty had informed her the previous day that Abishev’s condition is very serious.

    According to Toreghozhina, Abishev, who has been placed in the colony’s medical unit for an unspecified illness, cut his wrists on April 7 protesting poor medical assistance and lack of medicine.

    “What triggered Aset’s move to maim himself was the rude response to his demands by guards who intimidated him, searching his personal belongings on that day. After he cut his wrists, instead of providing him with necessary medical assistance, they locked him in solitary confinement. His life is in danger,” Toreghozhina said, adding that her group had called on Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry, the Prosecutor-General’s Office, and the Penitentiary Service to immediately intervene in the situation.

    Abishev’s relatives told RFE/RL that in recent days he was severely beaten by Interior Ministry troops after his belongings were searched during prison-riot drills.

    An officer on duty at the LA-155/14 penitentiary, who introduced herself as Alia Kakenova, told RFE/RL that she was not aware of the situation, adding that “all bosses are out of the office.”

    Abishev was sentenced to four years in prison in November 2018 after a court in Almaty found him guilty of participating in the activities of the banned opposition Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement and financially supporting it.

    Abishev has rejected the charges, denying the DVK movement or its founder — fugitive former banker and a vocal critic of Kazakhstan’s government, Mukhtar Ablyazov — were extremist.

    In recent years, many activists across the Central Asian nation have been convicted for their involvement in the activities of DVK and its associate, the Street Party.

    Inmates in Kazakh prisons very often maim themselves to protest conditions in penitentiary facilities or violations of their rights.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Deputies Approve First Reading Of Law Banning Sales, Rental Of Farmland By Foreigners

    NUR-SULTAN — The Kazakh parliament’s lower chamber has approved the first reading of a bill banning the purchase and rental of farmland in the Central Asian nation ahead of the expiration of a moratorium on land sales this summer.

    Agriculture Minister Saparkhan Omarov said at a session of the , the Mazhilis on April 7 that current agreements on farmlands rented by some foreign companies or joint ventures with foreign capital will expire in the 2022-2025 period and will not be extended.

    The move comes after President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev proposed the ban in late-February.

    The five-year moratorium on selling and leasing Kazakh agricultural land to foreigners was introduced in 2016 after thousands demonstrated in unprecedented rallies across the tightly-controlled nation, protesting the government’s plan to attract foreign investment into the agriculture sector by opening up the market.

    The protests stopped after the government withdrew the plan, but two men who organized the largest rally in the western city of Atyrau, Talghat Ayan and Maks Boqaev, were sentenced to five years in prison each after being found guilty of inciting social discord, knowingly spreading false information, and violating the law on public assembly.

    Ayan was released on parole in April, 2018, and Boqaev was released in February this year,

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Another Kazakh Activist Sentenced For Links To Banned Political Group

    TALGHAR, Kazakhstan — A court in southern Kazakhstan has handed a parole-like sentence to an activist for his links with the banned Koshe (Street) Party, one of several supporters of the opposition movement to be sentenced in recent months.

    The Talghar district court in the southern Almaty region sentenced 36-year-old Erkin Sabanshiev on April 7 to one year of “freedom limitation” after finding him guilty of participating in the activities of the opposition Koshe Party, which has links with another outlawed party, the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement.

    Sabanshiev was banned from using the media or the Internet to conduct political and social activities for three years.

    Sabanshiev, who was arrested and charged six months ago, told RFE/RL after his sentence was pronounced that he will appeal the ruling.

    Several of Sabanshiev’s supporters were not allowed to attend the hearing on April 7. One of them, Aidyn Nusipaliev, was detained by police and later in the day sentenced to 15 days in jail for “organizing an unsanctioned rally.”

    Several activists across the Central Asian nation have been handed “freedom limitation” sentences in recent months for their involvement in the activities of the Koshe Party and DVK, as well as for taking part in rallies organized by the two groups.

    DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

    Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings contradicts international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Governments In Europe, Central Asia Used Pandemic To Clamp Down On Human Rights, Amnesty International Report Says

    Amnesty International says some measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic have aggravated existing patterns of abuses and inequalities in Europe and Central Asia, where a number of governments used the crisis “as a smokescreen for power grabs, clampdowns on freedoms, and a pretext to ignore human rights obligations.”

    Government responses to COVID-19 “exposed the human cost of social exclusion, inequality, and state overreach,” the London-based watchdog said in its annual report released on April 7.

    According to the report, The State of the World’s Human Rights, close to half of all countries in the region have imposed states of emergency related to COVID-19, with governments restricting rights such as freedom of movement, expression, and peaceful assembly.

    The enforcement of lockdowns and other public health measures “disproportionately” hit marginalized individuals and groups who were targeted with violence, identity checks, quarantines, and fines.

    Roma and people on the move, including refugees and asylum seekers, were placed under discriminatory “forced quarantines” in Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Russia, Serbia, and Slovakia.

    Law enforcement officials unlawfully used force along with other violations in Belgium, France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Romania, and Spain.

    In Azerbaijan, arrests on politically motivated charges intensified “under the pretext” of containing the pandemic.

    In countries where freedoms were already severely circumscribed, last year saw further restrictions.

    Russian authorities “moved beyond organizations, stigmatizing individuals also as ‘foreign agents’ and clamped down further on single person pickets.”

    Meanwhile, authorities in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan adopted or proposed new restrictive laws on assembly.

    Belarusian police responded to mass protests triggered by allegations of election fraud with “massive and unprecedented violence, torture and other ill-treatment.”

    “Independent voices were brutally suppressed as arbitrary arrests, politically motivated prosecutions and other reprisals escalated against opposition candidates and their supporters, political and civil society activists and independent media,” the report said.

    Across the region, governments in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan “misused existing and new legislation to curtail freedom of expression.”

    Governments also took insufficient measures to protect journalists and whistle-blowers, including health workers, and sometimes targeted those who criticized government responses to the pandemic. This was the case in Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

    In Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, medical workers “did not dare speak out against already egregious freedom of expression restrictions.”

    Erosion Of Judicial Independence

    Amnesty International said that governments in Poland, Hungary, Turkey, and elsewhere continued to take steps in 2020 that eroded the independence of the judiciary. This included disciplining judges or interfering with their appointment for demonstrating independence, criticizing the authorities, or passing judgments that went against the wishes of the government.

    In Russia and in “much” of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, violations of the right to a fair trial remained “widespread” and the authorities cited the pandemic to deny detainees meetings with lawyers and prohibit public observation of trials.

    In Belarus, “all semblance of adherence to the right to a fair trial and accountability was eroded.”

    “Not only were killings and torture of peaceful protesters not investigated, but authorities made every effort to halt or obstruct attempts by victims of violations to file complaints against perpetrators,” the report said.

    Human Rights In Conflict Zones

    According to Amnesty International, conflicts in countries that made up the former Soviet Union continued to “hold back” human development and regional cooperation.

    In Georgia, Russia and the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia continued to restrict freedom of movement with the rest of the county, including through the further installation of physical barriers.

    The de facto authorities in Moldova’s breakaway Transdniester region introduced restrictions on travel from government-controlled territory, which affected medical provisions to the local population.

    And in eastern Ukraine, both Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists also imposed restrictions on travel across the contact line, with scores of people suffering lack of access to health care, pensions, and workplaces.

    Last fall’s armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan resulted in more than 5,000 deaths and saw all sides using cluster munitions banned under international humanitarian law, as well as heavy explosive weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated civilian areas.

    Both Azerbaijani and Armenian forces also “committed war crimes including extrajudicial execution, torture of captives and desecration of corpses of opposing forces.”

    Shrinking of Human Rights Defenders’ Space

    Amnesty International’s report said some governments in Europe and Central Asia further limited the space for human rights defenders and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) through “restrictive laws and policies, and stigmatizing rhetoric.”

    This “thinned the ranks of civil society through financial attrition, as funding streams from individuals, foundations, businesses and governments dried up as a consequence of COVID-19-related economic hardship.”

    The Kazakh and Russian governments continued moves to silence NGOs through smear campaigns.

    Authorities in Kazakhstan threatened over a dozen human rights NGOs with suspension based on alleged reporting violations around foreign income.

    Peaceful protesters, human rights defenders, and civic and political activists in Russia faced arrests and prosecution.

    In Kyrgyzstan, proposed amendments to NGO legislation created “onerous” financial reporting requirements, while “restrictive new NGO legislation was mooted” in Bulgaria, Greece, Poland, and Serbia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Activism Against China’s Internment Camps Is Broken, But Not Dead

    When 67-year-old pensioner Qalida Akytkhan decided to join a small protest outside the Chinese Consulate in Almaty, it was three years after three of her sons were detained at a so-called “reeducation camp” in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.

    Akytkhan has since become a mainstay at the pickets that, despite police intimidation, have endured outside the consulate since early February. She has joined dozens of other protesters who say their relatives are missing, jailed, or trapped in China’s ongoing crackdown.

    United Nations human rights officials estimate that a million or more Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities are detained at camps in a vast Chinese internment system.

    Sometimes Akytkhan travels by bus to make the 50-kilometer journey from her home to Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. Other times she commutes in a shared taxi to the Chinese Consulate, where a loudspeaker at the compound warns protesters they could face prosecution for violating COVID restrictions.

    Despite the long journey, constant surveillance by consulate guards, and a steady police presence, Akytkhan says she has no plans to stop joining the group of mostly women protesters. They gather there to demand safe passage home for their relatives — many of whom are Chinese-born ethnic Kazakhs who’ve become naturalized Kazakh citizens or permanent residents of the Central Asian country.

    “I will keep going until I get even a tiny piece of information about my children,” Akytkhan tells RFE/RL. “I told these guards, ‘When it is warmer, I will come here with a blanket and will lie down.’”

    Qalida Akytkhan says she will keep up her protests until she gets an answerabout her three sons.


    Qalida Akytkhan says she will keep up her protests until she gets an answerabout her three sons.

    The plight of ethnic Kazakhs and other groups interned in Xinjiang has been a source of uproar within Kazakhstan. The testimonies of former detainees, and family members like Akytkhan, fueled a guerrilla advocacy campaign that focused international attention on the issue — turning Kazakhstan into an unlikely window to document rights abuses in Xinjiang.

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    Akytkhan’s perseverance and the ongoing protests outside China’s consulate showcase that activism continues in Kazakhstan over the Chinese camps. But the situation today is a far cry from the groundswell of activity around the issue in 2018 and 2019 that forced the Kazakh government to walk a tightrope between appeasing Beijing and quelling an exasperated segment of its own population.

    Since then, the government has led a swift crackdown against activists working on Xinjiang issues in the country. It has shut down organizations, arrested activists, and intimidated high-profile figures into exile, leaving only a small but devoted segment for public protests.

    “The Kazakh government has long been trying to balance between these two problems,” says Temur Umarov, an expert on China in Central Asia at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “Xinjiang is an incredibly sensitive issue for Beijing and [the Kazakh government] knows it needs to keep ties with such an important economic, and increasingly political, partner strong,” Umarov tells RFE/RL.

    Shining A Spotlight

    Akytkhan, an ethnic Uyghur who married an ethnic Kazakh man, moved from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan and became a Kazakh citizen. One of her sons also moved across the border to Kazakhstan. But her other three sons, daughters-in-law, and 14 grandchildren stayed in China. All were eventually taken to the detention camps.

    Now a widow, Akytkhan continues to campaign for her family. She received word from a local official in Xinjiang that her sons were transferred from the camps and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for crimes that she is not aware of.

    Her daughters-in-law have since been released from the camps to take care of the children. But they remain under house arrest.

    Complicated family connections across the border, like Akytkhan’s, are part of what made Kazakhstan a home for swelling activism about Xinjiang. It has been Kazakhs with relatives among Xinjiang’s ethnic Kazakh minority that have taken up the mantle.

    Serikzhan Bilash


    Serikzhan Bilash

    Perhaps the loudest critic on the issue was Serikzhan Bilash. His Almaty-based Atajurt Eriktileri group was on the front lines of documenting and raising awareness about the mass detentions.

    The group’s volunteers, with relatives detained or missing in Xinjiang, proved to be unusually effective in spreading information about China’s rights abuses. They worked with international media and rights groups by hosting regular press conferences and posting video testimony of recently released detainees.

    “Only a small percentage of the Kazakhs that have been in camps have actually shared their stories publicly,” Bilash told RFE/RL. “It’s important to keep collecting more and more firsthand facts about what is happening in Xinjiang.”

    But it didn’t take long for Kazakh authorities to become nervous about Bilash and Atajurt’s activities. The group’s attempts to be officially registered with the government were repeatedly denied. That was followed by a series of fines that ultimately culminated in the dramatic March 2019 arrest of Bilash on extremism charges, a common allegation in Kazakhstan for jailing government critics.

    Bilash and Atajurt helped attract international attention to the case of Sairagul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh Chinese citizen who crossed illegally from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan in 2018 after working at a camp. She was fleeing detention herself.

    Sauytbay’s legal status in Kazakhstan was drawn out, as the government appeared to use her unresolved asylum request as a means to prevent her from speaking about her experiences as a camp worker in Xinjiang. She eventually left Kazakhstan in 2019 for Sweden, where she was granted asylum.

    “The Kazakh government is more and more tied to Beijing and now the Kazakh government has lost its independence,” Bilash said. “They sold their independence to China.”

    Locked Up In China: The Plight Of Xinjiang’s Muslims


    Radio Free Radio/Radio Liberty is partnering with its sister organization, Radio Free Asia, to highlight the plight of Muslims living in China’s western province of Xinjiang.

    Bilash eventually accepted a plea bargain that required him to end his activism and keep a distance from Atajurt.

    Shortly after, a splinter group made up of some of Bliash’s disaffected former associates was officially registered as Atajurt Eriktileri. But it has not continued the tactics of the previous group to raise awareness of Chinese rights abuses — choosing instead a far less vocal approach.

    Yerbol Dauletbek, head of the officially registered group, told RFE/RL the organization will continue to help those affected by the crackdown in Xinjiang. But he said many people affected are now too scared to come forward and share their ordeal.

    Dauletbek said he believes ethnic Kazakhs in the camps and those calling for their release have been “quietly abandoned” by Kazakhstan’s government. The episode highlights the government’s evolving strategy to impede Xinjiang activism in the country.

    “Now the government is succeeding in intimidating and scaring people from coming forward,” Bilash says. “It is a signal and a warning to scare people from their activism and make them stay silent.”

    Bilash eventually left Kazakhstan for Turkey before moving on to the United States. He says he plans to continue his activism there and register a U.S.-based organization focused on Xinjiang.

    The Global Stage

    China’s internment-camp system has received increased scrutiny and political pressure in recent years. The U.S. State Department recently accused China of committing “genocide and crimes against humanity” against Uyghurs. The Canadian and Dutch parliaments have both declared that the situation in Xinjiang is genocide.

    The Chinese state has also been accused of an array of abuses in the region under the guise of the internment system, including forced labor, sterilization, torture, and rape.

    A perimeter fence is constructed around what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Dabancheng in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in September 2018.


    A perimeter fence is constructed around what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Dabancheng in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in September 2018.

    But Beijing has also become more forceful in its pushback. Not only does China deny the genocide allegations. It says the camps are “reeducation” facilities for combating terrorism. And it has gone about intimidating and targeting those who speak out publicly about what they’ve witnessed in the camps.

    Women who made allegations of rape and sexual abuse in February to the BBC were singled out by Beijing. In a series of press conference in March, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin and Xinjiang regional official Xu Guixiang held up photographs of women who gave firsthand testimony of sexual assault in camps. They insulted the women, calling them liars of “inferior character” and accusing them of adultery.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin holds up pictures of the two women during a news conference in Beijing on February 23.


    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin holds up pictures of the two women during a news conference in Beijing on February 23.

    The Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan, Zhang Xiao, has been outspoken in pushing back against accusations that Beijing is mistreating Kazakhs. The embassy’s Instagram page has taken to posting content meant to discredit Sauytbay, accusing her of fabricating the stories about her experiences in Xinjiang.

    “[China] is trying its best to change this narrative about what is going on in Xinjiang,” the Carnegie Center’s Umarov says. “But it hasn’t changed much in Central Asia. I don’t think that Beijing has a well-thought-out strategy of how to cope with this problem.”

    Kazakhstan’s Tightrope

    The Kazakh government has avoided criticizing China and has publicly toed Beijing’s line about the camps — eager not to anger its main investor and strategic partner in the Belt and Road Initiative.

    The authorities have elected a new approach to keep Xinjiang activism at bay. Following the high-profile case of Sauytbay, the government elected to avoid drawing international attention to another case. Instead, in October 2020, it granted temporary asylum to four ethnic Kazakhs who’d illegally crossed the border from Xinjiang into Kazakhstan.

    Two of those Xinjiang-born asylum seekers who received temporary asylum, Qaisha Aqan and Murager Alimuly, were attacked the same day in January. Aqan was returning home from grocery shopping near Almaty when she was attacked. Alimuly was stabbed in the capital, Nur-Sultan.

    In both instances, nothing was stolen. The perpetrators have never been apprehended.

    Aqan says she believes the attacks were a politically motivated warning against becoming outspoken about Xinjiang, although she is not sure who was behind the attacks. “It was not random. In one day, [Alimuly] was stabbed and I was attacked,” she told RFE/RL. “The light [on the street] was switched off for two hours. All the [security] cameras stopped working [during my attack]. What a coincidence, right?”

    Bekzat Maksutkhan, an associate of Bilash’s, runs a successor group to their original organization called Naghyz Atajurt, or “Real” Atajurt. But it remains unregistered and currently does not have an office.

    Maksutkhan has followed the attacks on Alimuly and Aqan, as well as the protests outside the consulate. But he says it’s difficult to keep the organization going given financial pressure and growing intimidation from Kazakh authorities.

    “We’ve never interfered with the government. We don’t have any economic interests, nor do we have any political interests. We just deal with human rights issues,” Maksutkhan told RFE/RL. “But we still face a lot of pressure and police often question us.”

    With few grassroots organizations left to advocate and increased scrutiny from the authorities, protesters like Akytkhan feel that demonstrating outside the Chinese Consulate in Almaty is their last resort. Despite her age and health concerns that caused her to faint outside the consulate during one protest, Akytkhan says she won’t stop until she gets answers about her sons.

    “At night, I take a photo of my three sons and hold it to my chest,” she says. “I can’t sleep without it. I put it next to my head on my pillow. Sometimes I can’t fall asleep until 5 a.m.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russia Optimistic About Rising Demand As OPEC+ Agrees To Increase Oil Output

    The OPEC+ group of oil producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, has agreed to increase oil output gradually over the next months.

    Signaling expectations of rising post-pandemic demand for oil, ministers noted in an April 1 statement “improvements in the market supported by global vaccination programs and stimulus packages in key economies.”

    The OPEC+ group — made up of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia — has been coordinating about 7 million barrels per day (bpd) in production cuts to maintain prices in response to lower demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Under the latest agreement, OPEC+ countries agreed to increase production by 350,000 bpd in May, 350,000 bpd in June, and 450,000 bpd in July, Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry said.

    Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, confirmed the group would boost output by a total of 1.1 million bpd by July.

    Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak told the Rossia-24 TV channel that his country would increase oil production by 114,000 bpd in the May-to-July period within the OPEC+ framework.

    However, with coronavirus case surges in Europe and elsewhere potentially impacting energy demand, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman cautioned that any decision could be “tweaked” in the alliance’s monthly meetings.

    Before the meeting, Abdulaziz said that “the reality remains that the global picture is far from even, and the recovery is far from complete.”

    Saudi Arabia, which in previous OPEC+ talks had agreed to make steep cuts to maintain oil prices, will phase out its additional voluntary cut by 250,000 bpd in May, 350,000 bpd in June, and 400,000 bpd in July.

    Oil prices have been on a run in the past six months, with benchmark WTI and Brent crude jumping from around $40 per barrel in November to above $60 today.

    Novak was more optimistic about rising demand.

    “Today, there are figures that are much more positive concerning the market, including the level of stocks, which have considerably fallen as demand increases,” Novak said.

    “Vaccination is already yielding positive results so that demand is recovering,” he added.

    With reporting by AFP, Bloomberg, Reuters, and TASS

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakhstan Urged To Stop Targeting Journalists For Independent Reporting

    The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is calling on Kazakhstan to drop the criminal case against a blogger and journalist who went on trial earlier this month on charges of participating in the activities of a banned organization.

    In a statement on March 31, the New York-based media freedom watchdog urged the Kazakh authorities to immediately release Aigul Otepova from house arrest, drop the charges against her, and “allow her to work safely and freely.”

    Journalists in Kazakhstan “should not be persecuted for their independent reporting, and it is authorities’ responsibility to ensure journalists’ safety, not to intimidate and pressure them,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna.

    Otepova’s trial started in the capital, Nur-Sultan, on March 15, with the journalist attending the hearings remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Authorities accused her of supporting the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) opposition movement, which has been labeled as an extremist group and banned in the country.

    Otepova denies participating in any political movements and says the case against her is retaliation for her political coverage.

    If convicted, the journalist could face up to two years of imprisonment.

    Amnesty International has said that Otepova was “a prisoner of conscience who is being prosecuted solely for the peaceful expression of her views.”

    Otepova was detained in mid-September and put under house arrest after she placed a post on Facebook criticizing official efforts to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

    In November, she was placed in a psychiatric clinic for 18 days for a mandatory mental health evaluation. The journalist was released on December 11 and remained under house arrest.

    Human rights groups have criticized the Kazakh government for years for persecuting independent and opposition journalists.

    Rights activists in Kazakhstan have criticized authorities for using Soviet-era method of stifling dissent by placing opponents in psychiatric clinics.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Amid COVID-19 Surge, Kazakhstan Admits First Patients To Sports Arena Converted Into Hospital

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Health authorities in Kazakhstan’s largest city have admitted the first patients into a sports stadium that has been converted into a COVID-19 hospital as infection cases have multiplied, officials in Almaty said on March 31.

    The transformed Halyq Arena has 1,000 beds. It is hoped it can alleviate overcrowding spurred by the recent surge in cases.

    It opened as a 3,000-seat, double-domed arena for ice hockey and other events in 2016.

    More than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases have been registered in the past two days in the city, which fell into “red zone” status of the national coronavirus task force.

    Kazakhstan embarked last month on its vaccine campaign, using Russia’s Sputnik V injection, with plans to introduce a nationally produced vaccine later.

    By March 31, the number of registered coronavirus cases in Kazakhstan had reached 244,981, including 3,046 deaths, making it the worst-hit country in Central Asia, according to official figures.

    But the statistics among some of its neighbors strain credulity, including Turkmenistan’s claim that it has had zero COVID-19 cases even as suspicious deaths mount and local health facilities show signs of overcrowding in the tightly controlled country.

    National vaccination programs have begun in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in the past week, both with Chinese vaccines.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China Ships More Goods Via Russian, Central Asian Land Routes As Sea Costs Rise

    Chinese companies have been sending more goods by rail through Russia and Central Asia in recent months as the cost of shipping by sea increases.

    China sent more than 2,000 freight trains to Europe during the first two months of 2021, double the rate a year earlier when the coronavirus first hit, the Financial Times reported.

    An equipment manufacturer in the Yiwu in eastern China told the paper that prices for sea transport have “skyrocketed” since last year as the coronavirus spurred demand in Europe for electronics and other home appliances.

    Meanwhile, sea transportation times have doubled, the manufacturer said.

    An agent providing export services in Shenzhen said that between 20 and 30 percent of her clients had switched from sea to rail.

    Sea transport has become the focus of international attention after a ship became stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking all traffic. The Suez Canal offers the shortest route by sea from Asia to Europe.

    Despite the jump in the use of rail transport, it still accounts for a small fraction of total goods exported from China to Europe. And it may not last.

    The Shenzhen agent said she expected clients to return to shipping routes when the pandemic eased.

    With reporting by the Financial Times

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Majlis Podcast: New Rules In Kazakhstan, Death Threats In Kyrgyzstan — The Problems Facing Central Asian Journalists

    The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released separate reports on Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on March 23.

    Relative to Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have the most media-friendly environments but the CPJ reports highlight various problems. In Kazakhstan, for example, the government has been limiting the ability of journalists to do their job. Meanwhile, troll factories have been operating in Kyrgyzstan to discredit the work of some reporters, and at least one journalist says death threats are being posted on his social network accounts.

    The situation is still grim for independent media in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan remain grim, although some outlets in Uzbekistan have been testing the limits of what can and cannot be reported.

    On this week’s Majlis Podcast, RFE/RL media-relations manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on the problems media outlets and journalists face in Central Asia.

    This week’s guests are: from Kazakhstan, Diana Okremova, the director of the Legal Media Center in Nur-Sultan; from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Timur Toktonaliev, the Central Asia editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting; from New York, Gulnoza Said, the Central Asia coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists; and Bruce Pannier, the author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.

    Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Majlis Podcast: New Rules In Kazakhstan, Death Threats In Kyrgyzstan — The Problems Facing Central Asian Journalists

    The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released separate reports on Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on March 23.

    Relative to Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have the most media-friendly environments but the CPJ reports highlight various problems. In Kazakhstan, for example, the government has been limiting the ability of journalists to do their job. Meanwhile, troll factories have been operating in Kyrgyzstan to discredit the work of some reporters, and at least one journalist says death threats are being posted on his social network accounts.

    The situation is still grim for independent media in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan remain grim, although some outlets in Uzbekistan have been testing the limits of what can and cannot be reported.

    On this week’s Majlis Podcast, RFE/RL media-relations manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on the problems media outlets and journalists face in Central Asia.

    This week’s guests are: from Kazakhstan, Diana Okremova, the director of the Legal Media Center in Nur-Sultan; from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Timur Toktonaliev, the Central Asia editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting; from New York, Gulnoza Said, the Central Asia coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists; and Bruce Pannier, the author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.

    Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Anti-China Protests Staged Across Kazakhstan; At Least 20 Detained

    Kazakh authorities detained at least 20 people as demonstrators staged anti-China protests in towns and cities across the Central Asian nation on March 27.

    The protesters rallied against China’s increasing influence and economic power in the former Soviet republic.

    Activists also denounced the mass incarceration of members of indigenous Turkic-speaking communities in China’s Xinjiang region, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs.

    Protests were held in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, and in the capital, Nur-Sultan, as well as Oral, Shymkent, and Aqtobe.

    In Almaty, several hundred people gathered in a square to denounce what they said was “Chinese expansion” in Kazakhstan. At least seven protesters were detained on their way to the rally.

    In Nur-Sultan, several people were detained on their way to a rally. Police cordoned off a square where protesters were expected to gather.

    The protests were called by two unregistered opposition parties: the Democratic Party of Kazakhstan (DPK) and Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK).

    In recent months, many activists across Kazakhstan have been handed parole-like sentences for their involvement in the activities of the DVK, as well as for taking part in rallies organized by the group.

    The DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government.

    Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings violates international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies, even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

    Kazakh authorities have insisted that there are no political prisoners in the country.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Hundreds Rally In Kazakhstan To Protest Growing Chinese Influence

    More than 300 people gathered in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, on March 27 to protest China’s growing economic influence. The event was organized by two unregistered opposition parties — the Democratic Party of Kazakhstan (DPK) and Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DCK). At least 20 people were arrested ahead of the rally and the Internet was blocked in the neighborhood where the gathering took place. Protesters spoke against joint ventures with Beijing, Chinese investment in Kazakhstan’s economy, as well as the persecution of ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs in China’s autonomous region of Xinjiang. Similar protests took place in the capital, Nur-Sultan, as well as Oral, Shymkent, and Aqtobe.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Norouz Bash’s Bloated $1.3 Million Price Tag Enrages Kazakh City’s Residents

    SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan — Turn out the lights, the party’s over.

    But for officials in the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent, the trouble may have just begun.

    Some residents are demanding an investigation after the local government said it spent around $1.3 million on Norouz celebrations this month.

    The statement on the public procurement agency’s website sparked angry public criticism from people who want to know where the money went. They say the mostly online events were far more modest than previous years and didn’t look like a million-dollar party.

    The average monthly salary in Kazakhstan is a little over $500, according to CEIC Data, an economics website.

    After the burst of public criticism, Shymkent city authorities belatedly said that the amounts represented all the funds set aside by the city for all of the year’s celebrations. But an itemized list of the spending suggested otherwise, and the damage to public trust appears to have been done.

    Shymkent’s celebrations to mark the Persian New Year included music and poetry competitions, an event to mark the anniversary of a local magazine, and advertisements of local cultural sites, among other things.


    Norouz events throughout the Central Asian state of around 19 million people on March 21-23 were heavily scaled down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Norouz celebrations were not as big as previous years. It invites the question: Where have all those funds gone?” one Shymkent resident asked.

    She added that throwing parties during the pandemic wasn’t necessary in the first place, and the “money should have been spent for more important purposes.”

    One Shymkent man told RFE/RL that he hadn’t noticed a single major Norouz event in Shymkent this year.

    Another resident agreed. “They installed several traditional yurts in the old town. Did that cost that much money?” he said. “It boggles the mind to waste [that much] public money. It’s very irresponsible, it’s recklessness with public funds.”

    Changing Sums

    According to the public procurement agency’s website, the Norouz expenditure included the equivalent of $188,000 for a music contest, $117,600 for an anniversary event of a popular magazine called Haikap, and about $54,000 for the promotion of cultural spots.

    Another $94,000 was said to have been spent to organize the “aitys,” a traditional song-and-poetry competition held between poets, known locally as “aqyns.”

    Local journalist Miyat Kashibai said he compared the Norouz events in Shymkent and the city of Taraz and found that Shymkent’s authorities claimed to have spent a lot more money for a similar scale of events. “According to my calculations, Taraz spent about $35,000 for its aitys, which took place shortly before the event in Shymkent. The aitys competitions in both cities were exactly on the same level,” Kashibai said.

    City officials later said there had been a mistake and that the reported $1.3 million was the amount set aside for all of this year’s celebrations.

    Deputy Governor Shyngys Mukan did not respond to journalists’ questions about the statement on the official website. But he said the city’s Norouz budget was about $494,000 this year.

    Meanwhile, the anti-corruption agency announced that it will probe the allegations of corruption.

    Written by Farangis Najibullah based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Rights Defenders Add Five Men To Growing List Of Political Prisoners

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Kazakh human rights organizations have added five people to a list of political prisoners, bringing the total number to 29 in the oil-rich Central Asian nation.

    The five individuals from different parts of the country added to the list on March 17 are Maqsut Appasov, Medet Eseneev, Abzal Qanaliev, Merei Qurbaqov, and Aidar Syzdyqov.

    According to the human rights organizations’ group of experts, they either were convicted or are currently under investigation on politically motivated charges, namely for supporting or taking part in the activities of opposition groups — the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) and Koshe (Street) Party. Both parties have been labeled as extremist organizations and banned in Kazakhstan.

    Bakhytzhan Toreghozhina of the Almaty-based Ar, Rukh, Khaq (Dignity, Spirit, Truth) rights group, told RFE/RL on March 18 that the group of experts representing human rights organizations was established in 2013. Since then, the number of political prisoners in the country has risen dramatically.

    In recent months, many activists across Kazakhstan have been handed parole-like sentences for their involvement in the activities of the DVK and the Koshe Party, as well as for taking part in rallies organized by the two groups.

    DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

    Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings violates international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies, even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

    Kazakh authorities have insisted that there are no political prisoners in the country.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Your Heart Might Stop’: Kazakh From Xinjiang Threatened After Pressing Chinese Diplomats About Missing Brother

    Baibolat Kunbolatuly is one of the millions of Muslims from China’s western Xinjiang region who has a family member imprisoned or in an internment camp amid Beijing’s oppressive campaign against Muslims.

    The 40-year-old Kunbolatuly has been staging protests in front of the Chinese Embassy in Nur-Sultan and the consulate in Almaty since early 2020, always holding a portrait of his younger brother, Baimurat.

    A naturalized Kazakh citizen, Kunbolatuly has been seeking information about his brother, who vanished in Xinjiang three years ago.

    Locked Up In China: The Plight Of Xinjiang’s Muslims


    Radio Free Radio/Radio Liberty is partnering with its sister organization, Radio Free Asia, to highlight the plight of Muslims living in China’s western province of Xinjiang.

    But Kunbolatuly’s protests came to an abrupt end when he was detained and sent to 10 days of “administrative arrest” on February 10 for breaching laws on protests.

    Unsanctioned rallies — including solo protests — are banned in Kazakhstan.

    Kunbolatuly says that, while in custody, he came under pressure from officials who demanded that he end his campaign.

    He adds that officials threatened that he might “end up like Dulat Aghadil,” a prominent Kazakh activist who died in custody from an alleged heart attack last year in a death that raised suspicions of foul play.

    “An official told me: ‘Your heart might stop, too,’” Kunbolatuly told RFE/RL after his release.

    He says officials told him that his actions could harm his children’s future.

    “They told me: ‘When your children grow up, they might want to work in government agencies, but they won’t be able to do so [because of your actions]. Then your children would hate you. You’re causing them to suffer,’” Kunbolatuly said.

    Officials at the detention facility in Almaty refused to comment on Kunbolatuly’s charges when contacted by RFE/RL.

    Kunbolatuly admits that he is worried about the potential impact his actions could have on his family if he continues his campaign and is rearrested.

    “I think about what would happen to my children if I were to die [in prison],” he says. “What happens to my elderly parents who are already suffering because of my [brother’s disappearance]?”

    ‘We Don’t Know If He’s Still Alive’

    Kunbolatuly lives in a modest apartment in Almaty with his wife and their three children. He arrived in Kazakhstan in 2002 and received a passport six years later.

    Kazakhstan offers citizenship to ethnic Kazakhs who return to their ancestral country. Thousands of ethnic Kazakhs moved from China to Kazakhstan after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    In 2005, Kunbolatuly’s parents left China to join him in Kazakhstan. Close family members and other relatives followed them.

    People protest on February 9 outside the Chinese Consulate in Almaty to demand the release of their loved ones who they believe are being held against their will in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang.


    People protest on February 9 outside the Chinese Consulate in Almaty to demand the release of their loved ones who they believe are being held against their will in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

    His brother, Baimurat, decided to return to Xinjiang in 2012 to look after an elderly aunt. Initially, Baimurat would frequently call or exchange texts with his family in Kazakhstan.

    But the family soon lost contact with him. The aunt and other relatives also didn’t respond to Kunbolatuly’s calls and letters.

    Many people in Xinjiang are afraid to keep in touch with their relatives abroad because even answering a foreign phone call could land them in jail.

    The only information Kunbolatuly was able to get about his brother over many years were from other ethnic Kazakhs who would manage to call someone in Xinjiang who knew something about him.

    Kunbolatuly said he heard from someone that Baimurat was sent to one of China’s notorious internment camps. Another rumor had it that Baimurat was forced to teach Mandarin to ethnic Kazakhs being held at a camp. Baimurat was fluent in Mandarin, which many ethnic minorities in Xinjiang don’t speak, his brother recalls.

    Kunbolatuly says he doesn’t know if what he heard about his brother’s fate is true. “I don’t even know if my brother is still alive or not,” he adds.

    Baibolat Kunbolatuly protests in front of the Chinese Consulate in Almaty in January 2020.


    Baibolat Kunbolatuly protests in front of the Chinese Consulate in Almaty in January 2020.

    Right groups say about 1 million people — almost all of them from Muslim minority groups, primarily Uyghurs — have been detained in internment camps in Xinjiang.

    There are widespread reports of systematic torture, starvation, rape, and even forced sterilization of the people being held in the vast camps, which are located behind barbed wire and watchtowers.

    In January, the United States declared that China has committed genocide in its repression of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities.

    Beijing rejects the claims and says the camps are “vocational training centers” where people voluntarily attend classes.

    Message From Embassy

    After years of waiting for a message from his brother and looking for information about him, Kunbolatuly had had enough.

    He began a protest in front of the Chinese Consulate in Almaty as well as at the embassy in the capital, Nur-Sultan, in 2020, asking that Chinese officials provide information about his missing brother.

    He eventually got a text message from the embassy that read: “On March 20, 2012, your brother shared content on the Chinese social [media] site Baidu Tieba that incited ethnic strife. Therefore, on April 11, 2018, a city court…in Xinjiang sentenced him to 10 years in prison. He is currently serving his sentence.”

    Kunbolatuly says he thoroughly studied all social-media posts shared by his brother and didn’t find a single message that could even remotely be linked to “inciting ethnic strife.”

    He also doesn’t know why it took six years for Chinese authorities to target his brother over the alleged post. Kunbolatuly didn’t receive any further comment from Chinese diplomats.

    There are many other ethnic Kazakh natives from Xinjiang who protest in front of China’s embassy and consulate in Kazakhstan.

    Their stories are similar to Kunbolatuly’s: They, too, are desperate to discover the fate of their loved ones who disappeared in Xinjiang. They, too, don’t know if their relatives are dead or alive, if they are in prison or being held in the internment camps.

    Kazakhstan is reluctant to condemn the widely documented human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The Kazakh government says it doesn’t interfere in China’s treatment of its own citizens, calling it an internal matter.

    The largest country in Central Asia is also wary of harming its relations with Beijing, a major investor in Kazakhstan’s vast natural resources and other sectors of the economy.

    Kazakh authorities have been criticized for putting pressure on activists who call on the government in Nur-Sultan to speak up about the plight of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

    Like Kunbolatuly, several others have been detained by police for protesting in front of Chinese diplomatic offices. The Internet signal often disappears or weakens in certain areas when protesters gather so they cannot organize or post photos or reports online.

    Kunbolatuly says his Facebook account was first hacked into and then deleted while he was livestreaming a demonstration by ethnic Kazakhs near the Chinese Consulate in Almaty on March 16.

    An RFE/RL correspondent who was friends with him on Facebook confirms that he can no longer find Kunbolatuly’s account. Kunbolatuly says he has also lost access to his e-mail account.

    Almaty police, meanwhile, are always pushing the protesters away from the consulate, demanding they keep at least 50 meters from the building.

    Despite the pressures, the Kunbolatuly family is determined not to stay silent. When Kunbolatuly was in detention, his mother, Zauatkhan Tursyn, joined with the other protesters in Almaty.

    The family also says it has not lost hope that one day Baimurat will be freed and join his family in Kazakhstan.

    Until then, the Kunbolatulys say they will continue to demand answers from Beijing.

    Written by Farangis Najibullah based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China Prepares New Era Of ‘Belt And Road’ Amid Pandemic Pressures

    After declaring victories over extreme poverty and the coronavirus, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has laid out a new path for China’s economic rise at home and abroad that could force Beijing to adapt to new difficulties caused by the pandemic.

    The future direction came as the Chinese Communist Party’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, convened in Beijing on March 5 for a more-than-week-long gathering to unveil a new economic blueprint — known as the country’s 14th five-year plan — and chart a broad course for China to claim its place as a modern nation and true global power.

    The annual summit of Chinese lawmakers laid out broad guidelines that would shape the country’s growth model over the next 15 years.

    Preoccupied with growing China’s tech industry amid a deepening rivalry with the United States, it also provided a platform for Xi to tout the merits of his autocratic style and tightening grip on power at home.

    While the stagecraft of the conclave focused on China’s domestic goals, they remain deeply intertwined with Beijing’s global ambitions, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — a blanket term for the multibillion-dollar centerpiece of Xi’s foreign policy that builds influence through infrastructure, investment, and closer political ties.

    “The message is a continuation and doubling-down of what we’ve been seeing for years, which is that China is growing stronger and it feels confident to elbow its way in even more around the world,” Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute, told RFE/RL.

    A giant screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping attending the closing session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11.

    A giant screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping attending the closing session of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi echoed this during an expansive March 8 press conference on the sidelines of the congress in Beijing, where he said there would be no pause for BRI and that it had and would continue to evolve amid the constraints and opportunities caused by the pandemic.

    “[BRI] isn’t so much a specific project as it is a broad vision,” Pantucci said, “and visions can be reshaped as needed, which is what we’re seeing now.”

    An Evolving Vision

    Despite the display of strength and unity coming out of Beijing over the country’s success in curbing the spread of COVID-19 and keeping its economy growing amid the pressures of the pandemic, Beijing finds itself facing new global pressure.

    The BRI has suffered setbacks recently due to concerns in host countries over mounting debts, with many governments — from Africa to Central Asia — asking China for debt forgiveness and restructuring. Beijing is also looking to rebuild its credibility, which was hurt over its early handling of COVID-19 in the central city of Wuhan, and navigate growing pressure from Western countries that have begun to push back against Chinese tech and political policies.

    In the face of this, Beijing has looked for new opportunities to demonstrate global leadership, providing vaccines and medical equipment to countries across the globe and raising climate-change concerns.

    This has also applied to the BRI.

    During his press conference, Wang focused on the initiative’s traditional infrastructure emphasis, but also pointed towards new horizons for the policy, such as medical diplomacy as well as a shifting focus on tech and foreign aid. China is the world’s largest emerging donor and a new white paper released in January by the Chinese government outlined its plans to play an ambitious leading role in the international aid system.

    Many experts also say Beijing will look to build off its growing “vaccine diplomacy” campaign and use China’s recent success in fighting poverty to find new ways to build ties and deepen cooperation around the world.

    “Fighting poverty and medical coordination linked to the pandemic and its aftermath will be a major focus of Chinese diplomacy moving forward,” Zhang Xin, a research fellow at Shanghai’s East China Normal University, told RFE/RL. “[BRI] is an umbrella initiative that can include everything and this will be one of the new fronts under that umbrella.”

    Realities On The Ground

    Despite the growing opportunities, China’s flagship project is also facing plenty of challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic on the ground.

    In addition to debt concerns, closed or partially open borders with China’s neighbors in South and Central Asia due to China’s strict COVID restrictions remain a point of tension, and have led to massive lines, trade bottlenecks, and ballooning transportation costs.

    China’s overseas energy lending has likewise dropped to its lowest level since 2008, after the pandemic severely hampered deal-making in developing states, according to Boston University’s Global Energy Finance Database, which saw financing for foreign energy projects fall by 43 percent to $4.6 billion in 2020.

    And while the pandemic provided an all-time high for freight-train traffic to Europe from China, it has slowed trade from Central Asia to China. Only limited traffic is allowed to pass through China’s border post with Kyrgyzstan, something the new government in Bishkek is trying to change as it deals with the economic blows of the pandemic.

    Kyrgyz Prime Minister Ulukbek Maripov met with Du Dewen, China’s ambassador to Bishkek, on March 3 to discuss speeding up border crossings and increasing trade, but progress remains uncertain as long as China stays wary of the spread of COVID-19 in Central Asia.

    Similarly, traders in Tajikistan are still grappling with border closures as they remain cut off from their main export destination. Many of the merchants complain they are being squeezed out by Chinese competitors.

    Preliminary Chinese trade data for 2020 shows that imports to China from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan fell by more than 45 percent compared to 2019.

    Tensions also continue to flare in Pakistan, where the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), China’s flagship BRI project, is progressing slowly amid multiple setbacks and delays. While problems with the initiative are not new, Beijing has aired its frustrations and supported the Pakistani military taking greater control over CPEC, which it views as a more reliable partner than the country’s political class.

    Global Headwinds

    Trade and relations with neighboring Russia, however, appear to still be a bright spot for Beijing. Russian customs figures show that China continues to make up a growing share of its trade as Moscow increasingly finds itself sanctioned and cut off from the West.

    Political ties between Beijing and Moscow are also deepening. Wang spoke at length at his press conference about how the two governments were working closer together in a variety of fields, from plans to build a lunar space station to joint efforts in vaccine production.

    Wang also said that the two countries were working to combat “color revolutions” and to fight against a “political virus,” hinting at their shared animosity towards the United States.

    “The overall tone is quite clear, the partnership between China and Russia is being heavily valued,” Zhang said. “The Chinese state is emphasizing this relationship and how they can act together [with Russia] to face shared challenges around the world.”

    Chief among those challenges for Beijing is continuing to grow its economy at home and navigate its rivalry with the United States.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national-security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Alaska on March 18 for the first meeting between Beijing and the administration of President Joe Biden.

    China is also looking to take successful policies at home and build upon them abroad under the banner of the BRI. China was the only major world economy to expand last year and many of its neighbors across Eurasia are hoping Chinese economic growth can help them with a post-pandemic recovery.

    But China’s own recovery remains fragile in some areas, including in consumer spending, and regulators are growing more worried about real-estate prices rising to unsustainable levels. The Chinese stock market began to recover on March 11 after a large rout that saw officials censor the word “stock market” from social media searches in the country, showcasing the sensitivity to anything that can derail Beijing’s ambitions at home or abroad.

    “There are many challenges ahead for the Chinese leadership to navigate and maintaining economic growth is the biggest one,” Ho-Fung Hung, a professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins University, told RFE/RL. “Xi cares about political power and boosting economic growth is the best way to hold on to political power.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Military Plane Crashes On Approach To Kazakh Airport, Killing At Least Four

    A military transport aircraft with six people aboard has crashed on approach to the airport in Kazakhstan’s biggest city, Almaty, while en route from the capital on March 13.

    Airport authorities announced via Facebook that emergency rescue services sped to the scene after the AN-26 aircraft disappeared from radar screens around 5:20 p.m. local time (11:20 a.m. UTC).

    Early reports suggested the plane belonged to the Central Asian state’s border-guard service under the auspices of the country’s National Security Committee.

    Some reports suggested four people were dead and two survivors had been found amid the wreckage.

    But that was still unconfirmed.

    The plane struck the ground near the village of Kyzyltu, near Almaty.

    Videos of rescue teams at the crash site have been circulating online.

    With reporting by Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Angry Kazakh Mothers Demand More Government Support, Response

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Dozens of mothers, some of whom have children with medical conditions, have gathered at Almaty’s city hall days before International Women’s Day to demand city officials increase support to families.

    The women entered the building of the city administration on March 5, demanding that Mayor Baqytzhan Saghyntaev meet with them and chanting, “Saghyntaev, come out!”

    The women complained that they had been added to the city administration’s list for distribution of free apartments to families in need, but had failed to move up despite being on it for years.

    The women also demanded more financial and social support for handicapped children.

    Saghyntaev did not meet with the women, sending the chairwoman of the city administration’s directorate on social issues, Nazira Toghyzbaeva, and the deputy chief of the housing directorate, Ermek Amirov, to talk to the women.

    The two officials explained that the state program on the distribution of free apartments to families with lower incomes is being implemented and that all families included on the list can follow the process online. They added, however, that special programs for supporting families with several children, as well as those with handicapped children, have yet to be worked out.

    In the capital, Nur-Sultan, dozens of mothers have been demanding increased social allowances since late February. Many have spent several nights camped inside the building of the city administration.

    Earlier this week, 32 mothers in Nur-Sultan officially filed their demands with the Ministry of Social Support, which informed them that they will receive an official response in mid-April.

    The women answered that they will not leave the city administration building until they receive the responses.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Activist Sentenced For Links With Banned Political Group

    TARAZ, Kazakhstan — A court in southern Kazakhstan has handed a parole-like sentence to an activist for her links with the banned Koshe (Street) Party, the second supporter of the opposition movement to be sentenced in less than a week.

    The Taraz City Court No. 2 late on March 2 sentenced Zhazira Qambarova to two years of “freedom limitation” after finding her guilty of organizing and participating in the activities of the opposition Koshe Party, which has links with another outlawed party, the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement.

    Qambarova was banned from using the media or the Internet to conduct political and social activities for five years. She also is not allowed to get involved in any political activities for two years.

    The activist, who was charged in September 2020, acknowledged she was taking part in the Koshe Party’s activities but denied she had organized any of them.

    She said she would appeal the ruling, claiming she was being persecuted for her public activities.

    Several activists across the Central Asian nation have been handed “freedom limitation” sentences for their involvement in the activities of the Koshe Party and DVK, as well as for taking part in the rallies organized by the two groups.

    On January 26, a Kazakh court sentenced a Koshe Party supporter, Qairat Sultanbek, to one year of “freedom limitation” after he was detained and charged in September.

    DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

    Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings contradicts international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Police Crack Down On Protests

    Anti-government protesters were detained on February 28 in Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan, and the country’s largest city, Almaty. Security forces tried to surround smaller groups of protesters and push them into police buses. Rallies were called across Kazakhstan by two opposition groups — the Democratic Party and Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan. Protesters demanded the release of political prisoners and decried the continuing authoritarian influence of former President Nursultan Nazarbaev.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Dozens Detained By Police At Opposition Rallies In Kazakhstan

    People have taken to the streets in cities and town across Kazakhstan to press for democratic reforms.

    Police were reported to have detained dozens of people at the rallies on February 28, nearly all of which were not officially sanctioned by authorities.

    The ruling Nur Otan party has dominated the political scene in Kazakhstan for almost three decades while opposition movements, sidelined and with no seats in parliament, mostly make themselves heard through public protests.

    Rallies were held in several cities including the capital, Nur-Sultan; Almaty, the country’s biggest city; as well as Atyrau, Aqtobe, Semey, Oral, and Shymkent.

    Several hundred people gathered in Oral, which was the only demonstration permitted by authorities.

    Elsewhere, police detained many who turned out. A Reuters correspondent reported seeing police detain at least 50 people near a park in central Almaty.

    Dozens of people who rallied in another location in Almaty could be seen completely surrounded by police in black balaclavas and riot gear.

    “Nazarbaev, go away,” chanted some protesters, referring to influential ex-President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who has retained sweeping powers after resigning almost two years ago and helped to ensure the election of a hand-picked successor.

    The rallies were organized by two opposition groups, the Democratic Party and Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, who said among their demands would be land reforms.

    President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev on February 25 proposed a ban on the purchase and renting of farmland by foreigners ahead of the expiration of a moratorium on land sales.

    Toqaev said that “in order to stop rumors” he had ordered the drawing up of an outline of a law “banning the buying and renting of Kazakhstan’s farmlands by foreign persons and companies.”

    “The land issue has always been very important for our nation. It is a fundamental and sacred symbol of our statehood…. I also ordered to form a commission on land reform by March 25,” Toqaev said.

    The government’s moratorium on farmland sales to foreigners is set to expire later this year.

    The five-year moratorium was introduced in 2016 after thousands demonstrated in unprecedented rallies across the tightly controlled Central Asian state, protesting the government’s plan to attract foreign investment into agriculture by opening up the farmland market.

    The protests stopped after the government withdrew the plan, but two men who organized the largest rally in the western city of Atyrau, Talghat Ayan and Maks Boqaev, were sentenced to five years in prison each after being found guilty of inciting social discord, knowingly spreading false information, and violating the law on public assembly.

    Ayan was released on parole in April 2018, and Boqaev was released earlier this month.

    With reporting by Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Opposition Protesters Detained

    Anti-government protests took place across Kazakhstan on February 28. Police detained protesters in Aqtobe, while a rally in Oral that had been sanctioned by local authorities took place without detentions. Protesters demanded political freedoms and slammed the enduring power grab by former President Nursultan Nazarbaev. The rallies were organized by two opposition groups — the Democratic Party and the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Writers Urge President To Release Dissident Poet Atabek

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — A group of well-known writers and poets in Kazakhstan has called on President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev to release dissident poet Aron Atabek, who has been behind bars since 2007 and is said to be in failing health.

    In a letter to the president, published on the Abai.kz website on February 24, the group said the 68-year-old poet, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of helping organize protests that resulted in the death of a police officer, is suffering from heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.

    “If he dies in custody, that will be a shame on all of us!” the letter says, urging the president to release Atabek as soon as possible.

    Atabek has maintained his innocence. He rejected a 2012 government pardon offer that would have required him to admit guilt.

    In December 2012, after his critical article about then-President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his government was smuggled out of prison and published online, Atabek was transferred to solitary confinement, where he spent two years.

    Atabek and his relatives said in 2014 that prison guards had broken his leg, which the authorities denied.

    Human rights groups in Kazakhstan say that Atabek has been constantly tortured in prison, with guards intentionally splashing water with high concentrations of chlorine on the floor of his cell to damage his health.

    Domestic and international rights organizations have demanded the Kazakh government release Atabek for years.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Prisoners Of Conscience’: A Look At Some Of The Biggest Names On The List

    Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s time as an Amnesty International “prisoner of conscience” was short-lived — but not because he was released from detention.

    Navalny received the designation on January 17 following his arrest at a Moscow airport by Russian authorities who said he had violated the terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction. Navalny and his supporters say that both the conviction and the alleged violation are unfounded, politically motivated, and absurd.

    The subsequent conversion of the suspended sentence into more than 30 months of real prison time promised to keep the ardent Kremlin critic away from street protests for the near-term, even as he stayed in the focus of anti-government demonstrators and human rights groups such as Amnesty.

    But on February 23, Amnesty withdrew the designation, citing what it said were past comments by the 44-year old anti-corruption activist that “reach the threshold of advocacy of hatred.”

    The term “prisoner of conscience” is widely attributed to the founder of Amnesty International, Peter Benenson, who used it in 1961 to describe two Portuguese students who had each been sentenced to seven years in prison simply for making a toast to freedom under a dictatorial government.

    The label initially came to apply mainly to dissidents in the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc satellites, but over the years expanded to include hundreds of religious, political opposition, and media figures around the world, including countries of the former Soviet Union and others in RFE/RL’s immediate coverage region.

    According to Amnesty’s current criteria for the designation, prisoners of conscience are people who have “not used or advocated violence but are imprisoned because of who they are (sexual orientation, ethnic, national, or social origin, language, birth, color, sex or economic status) or what they believe (religious, political or other conscientiously held beliefs).”

    Navalny’s delisting has been tied by Amnesty to comments he made in the mid-2000s, as his star as a challenger to President Vladimir Putin and as an anti-corruption crusader in Russia was on the rise, but also as he came under criticism for his association with ethnic Russian nationalists and for statements seen as racist and dangerously inflammatory.

    And while the rights watchdog acknowledged that the flood of requests it received to review Navalny’s past statements appeared to originate from pro-Kremlin critics of Navalny, Amnesty ultimately determined that he no longer fit the bill for the designation, even as the organization continued to call for his immediate release from prison as he was being “persecuted for purely political reasons.”

    The “prisoner of conscience” designation is a powerful tool in advocating for the humane treatment of people who hold different religious, political, and sexual views than the powers that be — in some cases helping to lead to the release of prisoners.

    Here’s a look at some of the biggest names who have been or remain on the list.

    In Russia

    Russia is a virtual cornucopia of prisoners of conscience, with formidable political opposition figures, journalists, LGBT rights activists, and advocates for ethno-national rights gracing the list.

    Political Opposition

    Boris Nemtsov

    Boris Nemtsov

    Boris Nemtsov, the opposition politician who was shot dead in 2015, received the designation in 2011, along with activists Ilya Yashin and Eduard Limonov, after they attended a rally in Moscow in support of free assembly.

    Big Business

    Former Yukos owners Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s and Platon Lebedev’s listing the same year relating to what Amnesty called “deeply flawed and politically motivated” charges that led to their imprisonment years earlier drew sharp condemnation from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

    ‘Terror Network’

    In February 2020, Amnesty applied the designation to seven men standing trial in central Russia on what it called “absurd” charges relating to membership in a “nonexistent ‘terrorist’ organization.”

    Days later, all seven members were convicted and sentenced to prison for belonging to a “terrorist cell” labeled by authorities as “Network” that the authorities claimed planned to carry out a series of explosions in Russia during the 2018 presidential election and World Cup soccer tournament.

    Religious Persecution

    Aleksandr Gabyshev — a shaman in the Siberian region of Yakutia who has made several attempts to march on foot to Moscow “to drive President Vladimir Putin out of the Kremlin” — was briefly placed in a psychiatric hospital in September 2019 after he called Putin “evil” and marched for 2,000 kilometers in an attempt to reach the capital.

    “The Russian authorities’ response to the shaman’s actions is grotesque,” Amnesty said. “Gabyshev should be free to express his political views and exercise his religion and beliefs just like anyone else.”

    In May 2020, riot police raided Gabyshev’s home and took him to a psychiatric hospital because he allegedly refused to be tested for COVID-19. Amnesty called for his immediate release.

    But in January, Gabyshev was again forcibly taken to a psychiatric clinic after announcing he planned to resume his trek to Moscow to oust Putin.

    In Ukraine

    Prominent Ukrainian filmmaker and activist Oleh Sentsov made the list after he was arrested in Crimea in May 2014 after the peninsula was illegally annexed by Russia.

    Oleh Sentsov

    Oleh Sentsov

    Amnesty repeatedly called for the release of Sentsov after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a “terrorism” conviction in what the rights watchdog declared was an “unfair trial on politically motivated charges.”

    After five years in prison in Russia, Sentsov was released in a prisoner swap between Kyiv and pro-Russia separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine.

    Sentsov was far from the only Ukrainian to be taken down for criticizing Russia’s seizure of Crimea, prompting Amnesty to call for the release of all “all Ukrainian political prisoners” being held in Russia.

    Among them is the first Jehovah’s Witness to be sentenced by Russian authorities in the annexed territory, Sergei Filatov. The father of four was handed a sentence of six years in prison last year for being a member of an extremist group in what Amesty called “the latest example of the wholesale export of Russia’s brutally repressive policies.”

    In Belarus

    In Belarus, some of the biggest names to be declared “prisoners of conscience” are in the opposition to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the authoritarian leader whose claim to have won a sixth-straight presidential term in August has led to months of anti-government protests.

    Viktar Babaryka

    Viktar Babaryka

    Viktar Babaryka, a former banker whose bid to challenge Lukashenka was halted by his arrest as part of what Amnesty called a “full-scale attack on human rights” ahead of the vote, went on trial on February 17 on charges of money laundering, bribery, and tax evasion.

    Fellow opposition member Paval Sevyarynets, who has been in custody since June, was charged with taking part in mass disorder related to his participation in rallies during which demonstrators attempted to collect signatures necessary to register presidential candidates other than Lukashenka.

    Syarhey Tsikhanouski

    Syarhey Tsikhanouski

    The popular blogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski was jailed after expressing interest in running against Lukashenka and remains in prison. Three of his associates went on trial in January on charges of organizing mass disorder in relation to the mass protests that broke out after the election.

    Tsikhanouski’s wife, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, took his place as a candidate and considers herself the rightful winner of the election.

    In Kazakhstan

    Aigul Otepova

    Aigul Otepova

    Aigul Otepova, a Kazakh blogger and journalist accused of involvement in a banned organization, was forcibly placed by a court in a psychiatric clinic in November, prompting Amnesty to declare her a “a prisoner of conscience who is being prosecuted solely for the peaceful expression of her views.”

    Otepova has denied any affiliation with the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) opposition movement, which has been labeled an extremist group by the Kazkakh authorities, and Otepova’s daughter told RFE/RL that the authorities were trying to silence her ahead of Kazakhstan’s parliamentary elections in January.

    Otepova was released from the facility in December.

    In Iran

    Nasrin Sotoudeh

    Nasrin Sotoudeh

    Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory head scarves, was arrested in 2018 and charged with spying, spreading propaganda, and insulting Iran’s supreme leader.

    She found herself back in prison in December, less than a month after she was granted a temporary release from her sentence to a total of 38 1/2 years in prison and 148 lashes.

    Amnesty has called Sotoudeh’s case “shocking” and considers her a “prisoner of conscience.” In its most recent action regarding Sotoudeh, the rights watchdog called for her to be released “immediately and unconditionally.”

    In Kyrgyzstan

    Amnesty International in August 2019 called the life sentence handed down to Kyrgyz rights defender Azimjan Askarov a “triumph of injustice.”

    Azimjan Askarov

    Azimjan Askarov

    The ethnic Uzbek Askarov was convicted of creating a mass disturbance and of involvement in the murder of a police officer during deadly interethnic clashes between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in June 2010 when more than 450 people, mainly Uzbeks, were killed and tens of thousands more were displaced.

    Askarov has said the charges against him are politically motivated, and the UN Human Rights Committed has determined that he was not given a fair trial and was tortured in detention.

    In May, after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to not review Askarov’s sentence, Amnesty said the ruling “compounds 10 years of deep injustice inflicted on a brave human rights defender who should never have been jailed.”

    In Pakistan

    Junaid Hafeez

    Junaid Hafeez

    Amnesty has called the case of Junaid Hafeez “a travesty” and in 2019 called on Pakistan’s authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release the university lecturer charged with blasphemy over Facebook uploads.

    Hafeez was charged under the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, which Amnesty has called on the country to repeal, describing them as “overly broad, vague, and coercive” and saying they were “used to target religious minorities, pursue personal vendettas, and carry out vigilante violence.”

    Hafeez has been in solitary confinement since June 2014.

    In Azerbaijan

    Leyla and Arif Yunus

    Leyla and Arif Yunus

    Human rights activists Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus were arrested separately in 2014 and convicted of economic crimes in August 2015 after a trial Amnesty denounced as “shockingly unjust.”

    After Leyla Yunus was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison, and her husband to seven years, Amnesty said that the rulings showed the “continuous criminalization of human rights defenders in Azerbaijan.”

    After the two were released on health grounds in late 2015 and their prison sentences reduced to suspended sentences, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Azerbaijan to pay them approximately $45,660 for violating their basic rights.

    In April 2016, they were allowed to leave the country and settled in the Netherlands.

    In Uzbekistan

    Azam Farmonov

    Azam Farmonov

    In 2009, Amnesty called for the immediate release of rights activists Azam Farmonov and Alisher Karamatov, who were detained in 2006 while defending the rights of farmers in Uzbekistan who had accused local officials of extortion and corruption.

    Amnesty said the two men had allegedly been tortured and declared them “prisoners of conscience.”

    In 2012, Karamatov was released after serving nearly two-thirds of a nine-year prison sentence.

    Farmonov served 10 years before his release in 2017, but reemerged in March when his U.S.-based NGO representing prisoners’ rights in Uzbekistan, Huquiqiy Tayanch, was successfully registered by the country’s Justice Ministry.

    Written by Michael Scollon, with additional reporting by Golnaz Esfandiari

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.