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Open Dialog: Update human rights situation in Kazakhstan

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1546163_649370845104982_2017215828_n23 January 2014 marked the second anniversary of the arrest of Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the now banned opposition party Alga! Arrested days after having returned from a series of meetings at the European Parliament and the European Commission. Tried on 16 August 2012, he was found guilty and sentenced on 8 October 2012 to 7.5 years in prison and confiscation of assets.

He is still serving his term in a detention facility in Petropavlovsk, more than 2,000 km from his family, while his wife have recently given birth to their first child. On a number of occasions, the authorities have either ignored the requests for a transfer to a closer facility or given evasive and illogical explanations to their negative decision. A number of international observers have requested to visit Kozlov in prison, amid reports of his poor health condition and the provocation he suffers. The authorities have yet to give a permission for any such visit. On this occasion, the Open Dialog Foundation organized an awareness action in Warsaw, Poland in order to draw attention to Kozlov’s situation.

Furthermore, in order to present a broader overview of the developments in Kazakhstan with regard to civil liberties and human rights, the Open Dialog Foundation recommends the following articles:

Concerning the suppression of freedom of the press: Any newspapers that dare to criticize the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, or his government are being fined and suspended or banned entirely, such as the independent newspapers, Pravdivaya Gazeta, Ashyk Alang/Tribuna, and the Communist Party paper, Pravda Kazakhstana. The Ashyk Alang/Tribuna’s ‘crime’ was not informing the authorities that they were taking a holiday from publishing in August 2013.

In what was a landmark ruling by the Kazakh Courts, following a seven-year legal battle, an individual was successful in his claim for damages after being tortured by Kazakh police. The Appeal court upheld an earlier ruling and awarded the individual pecuniary damages for his ordeal while being held in detention in attempts to extract a confession. Such torture is worryingly commonplace in detention and includes such actions as crucifixion, leading to deaths. Many other cases of torture are still unpunished,  including those of the people arrested after the tragic suppression of the Zhanaozen protests in December 2011.

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