Swirls of fog hung over the center of Almaty, Kazakhstan, last month as President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev darkly unveiled a memorial to those killed a year ago in the worst unrest of the Central Asian nation’s 3-decade independence.
The words on the concrete memorial “Reverence” speak of the lack of unity and concord in the energy-rich country of 19 million people.
But a year after calm returned and the state of emergency was lifted on January 20, 2022, neither seems elusive. And an official fog still shrouds many occasions around the days known as “Bloody January”.
Despite promises of government accountability as well as economic and political reforms in the former Soviet nation, many Kazakhs say they have not noticed significant adjustments or even clarity about what happened to those killed and detained in the unrest.
“So many questions about what happened,” said Dimash Alzhanov, a Kazakh political analyst and co-founder of the civic movement known as Oyan, Qazaqstan, or “Wake Up, Kazakhstan. “
The government’s video of the monument’s Dec. 23 unveiling at Republic Square, attended by about two dozen officials, showed a low-key ceremony. The scene changed dramatically 11 months earlier, when protesters stormed two luxury public buildings on the fifth of January and were on fire.
The attorney general said another 238 people were killed; Human rights teams say more than 10,000 people have been arrested.
The protests began on January 2 in Kazakhstan’s oil-producing region over a rise in state-controlled fuel costs before 2022. These protests have spread and morphed into widespread complaints of corruption, economic inequality and continued dominance over the country’s strength and wealth of force through its longtime first leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and his family. Protesters referred to him shouting “Old man out!”
Over the course of a week, the first of all nonviolent demonstrations turned violent. Participants in the marches told The Associated Press at the time that gunmen, with their faces covered and driving cars without license plates, gave the impression in Almaty, the former capital, and suggested typhoon government buildings, promising weapons.
The government, headed by Nazarbayev’s chosen successor, Tokayev, responded with “shoot to kill” orders, blaming “terrorists” trained and financed abroad.
At Tokayev’s request, 2,000 peacekeepers, mostly Russians, were sent through the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of six former Soviet states. This raised fears of intervention through Moscow, weeks before the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. it materialized, with the CSTO taking off in late January.
Human rights activists allege that Kazakh security forces have used excessive force, arbitrary detention and widespread torture of thousands of detained protesters. They criticized the government’s victim lists for failing to explain the cases of their deaths.
Tokayev’s management has rejected calls for an investigation.
However, he passed reforms that included strengthening parliament, cutting presidential powers and restricting the presidency to a seven-year single term. Tokayev, who succeeded Nazarbayev in 2019, won a snap presidential election in November with 81 percent of the vote. saying it will remain until 2029.
The reforms stripped Nazarbayev, 82, of his remaining powers over domestic and foreign policy. In September, the country’s capital was renamed Astana, after Nur-Sultan was removed in his honor in 2019.
Despite those reforms, activists and human rights analysts say they see troubling patterns.
“We are still in a Soviet-style authoritarian regime, and that hasn’t replaced much since the events of January,” Yevgeniy Zhovtis, head of Kazakhstan’s International Office for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, told the AP. “Indeed, the January occasions have led to new problems, such as torture and civilian deaths and the closure of similar investigations. “
Kazakh human rights lawyer Tatiana Chernobyl, who works with the non-governmental organization Coalition Against Torture, said that if her organization had won 190 court cases of torture and ill-treatment in 2022, the real number could be much higher.
He stated that 104 of those cases filed through his organization had been dismissed for lack of evidence. Kazakh mediator Elvira Azimova gave a figure in November, with state media citing her as saying that around 80 percent were fired before going to court.
In February, the president’s press said investigations had been opened for fraud in 170 cases of torture and abuse of force as a result of the unrest. Alleged torture of detained protesters.
Chernobyl said the government is not doing enough to determine the allegations, noting that many other people say they can identify their torturers and have medical records of injuries. that’s all,” and then conclude that the account cannot be verified, he said.
According to the United Nations, the burden of proof in cases of torture lies with the State. As long as complainants can provide evidence of physical harm or detention, it is up to the government to prove that there was no torture.
“In Kazakhstan, we see a lack of respect for foreign norms. We are witnessing a kind of guilt of the victims, placing the burden of evidence on those making the accusations,” Chernobyl said.
Rachel Gasowski, a Central Asia researcher at the International Association for Human Rights, said allegations of torture in Kazakhstan predate 2022. The cases cited after protests in the oil-rich city of Zhanaozen in 2011 have not resulted in any investigation or reparations for the victims. , despite the recommendations of the UN. -Related rights bodies. A joint report by Kazakh and foreign teams on torture will be published this month.
Gasowski said his organization was “horrified” that most cases from the 2022 protests were closed.
Chernobyl expressed cautious optimism about the government’s resolve to transfer jurisdiction in torture cases from police and state anti-corruption firm to the attorney general’s office, but is not sure it will bring about any real change. A research body, he said, “because it’s a main query about how independent you can be in Kazakhstan. “
Zhovtis, the activist, said a foreign investigation was needed because investigations by top criminals into civilian deaths have been ruled out because the government concealed key evidence, such as CCTV video, which brought up national security.
The government’s list of the dead omits whether they were accidental deaths, for example due to superior force, or whether they were “genuinely terrorist,” Zhovtis said, referring to the government’s line that foreigners are behind the unrest. It has not yet provided such evidence.
An official from the Prosecutor General’s Office told Kazakhstanskaya Pravda in February that the government was investigating the deaths of at least six other people in custody as a result of “prohibited interrogation methods. “
Some senior officials have been accused of involvement in the unrest. Former counterterrorism leader Karim Masimov, described as Nazarbayev’s best friend, arrested in January 2022, along with other key security figures, and charged with high treason in an ongoing closed-door trial. .
Tokayev speaks of a “new Kazakhstan” that breaks with Nazarbayev’s era of responsibility and democratization. But Zhovtis sees limits to those promises.
Human rights defenders and independent journalists continue to face pressures ranging from harassment to arrests and physical attacks.
On Saturday, journalist Dinara Yegeubayeva, who plans to run in the March 19 parliamentary elections, showed footage of her car set on fire in Almaty.
“Tokayev!Explain!Is this your new Kazakhstan?According to media reports, Yegeubayeva received bomb threats last year, rescuers did not discover any trace of them in her car. An investigation was opened for thief.
Zhovtis connected the attack to what he called an official reluctance to allow genuine political opposition.
Alzhanov, the analyst, said applicants struggled to register and collect signatures from their supporters.
He accuses Tokayev’s administration of “imitation reforms” to gain advantage from the West. He cited the case of opposition figure Zhanbolat Mamai, who was accused of organizing mass riots and spreading false data from the 2022 protests. He faces up to 10 years in prison on charges he says are politically motivated.
Despite the challenges, Zhovtis remained optimistic.
“Society is now different. The events of January and its politics on social networks have played their component and society has opened up more, there is more data and more complaints from the authorities,” he told the AP.
He also hopes that some opposition and independent candidates can be elected. The government agreed to allow 30 percent of parliamentary seats to be allocated from open-air party lists.
“Something is happening. Very slowly, and the regime remains the same, but adjustments are being made,” he said.
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