Kazakhstan’s Protest Problem

On November 9, a few dozen Kazakhs took to the streets of Almaty and the capital, Nur-Sultan, demandinging democratic reforms. The protest in Almaty, unsanctioned and organized by the Oyan, Qazaqstan (Wake Up, Kazakhstan) movement, was watched closely by police, but there were no new dramatic scenes of protestors being arrested. In Nur-Sultan, a sanctioned protest took place in a central park, organized by the Respublika movement.

Two weeks earlier, on October 26, police arrested more than three dozen people attempting to gather for protests called for by the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement near the Astana Concert Hall in Nur-Sultan. Other arrests took place at similar rallies in Almaty, Aqtobe, and Shymkent.

Over the course of a few days in early September, small protests over Chinese influence in Kazakhstan spread to a few cities after a 100 people staged a rally in the oil town of Zhanaozen. Later that month, DVK called for protests against China on September 21, sparking a wave of arrests before and during the marches held in Nur-Sultan and Almaty.

In August, small protests orchestrated by Oyan, Qazaqstan demanding constitutional reforms were allowed to proceeded unmolested. In July, protests that coincided with former President Nursultant Nazarbayev’s 79th birthday resulted in arrests and the month before, around the June 9 presidential election, authorities detained an estimated 4,000 people.

When it comes to protests in Kazakhstan, some are disrupted dramatically – police picking up old women and carrying them to buses to be taken away – and others are merely watched by the police, arms crossed on the edges of public squares. Is there a pattern to what is allowed and what is not?

Protests associated with DVK, a movement led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, are harshly repressed. Ablyazov is Nazarbayev’s nemesis, a looming figure in exile and a constant irritant for the powers-that-be in Nur-Sultan. Ablyazov is a multi-layered issue: a former government official who spent a year in jail on abuse of office charges; a former banker accused of massive corruption in Kazakhstan; a wanted man in several countries, including the UK for contempt of court. He narrowly escaped extradition from France back into the grips of Kazakhstan in 2016 and has used his freedom and base in Europe to reconstitute the political movement that triggered his falling out with Nazarbayev in the early 2000s.

How much influence Ablyazov actually has is a matter for debate. Last year DVK was declared by a Kazakh court to be an extremist organization. This is the beginning and end of any official conversation regarding DVK. Because it is labeled an extremist organization, membership is criminalized and subject to potentially long prison terms. Possession or distribution of any DVK materials, such as pamphlets or videos, or activities that the state can argue are at the behest of the group are also prohibited.

Ablyazov, meanwhile, fancies himself the leader of Kazakhstan’s opposition. He jumps into any convenient bandwagon. Ironically, his involvement is a fast-track to a crackdown.

The best example of this reality is differing state responses to the anti-China protests in September.

On September 2, in his first address to the nation, President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev laid out several measures to achieve a “modern effective state.” Among them was a pledge to improve legislation on rallies. Kazakhstan has been heavily criticized for the fact that when activists file paperwork to hold rallies, following the established legal procedure, they are more often than not denied permission. Then, when rallies go ahead without official approval, activists are arrested and reprimanded for not following the legal procedures.

“If peaceful protests do not pursue the goal of violating the law and the peace of citizens, then they should be embraced and given approval for them to be carried out in the manner prescribed by law, to allocate special places for this. And not in the outskirts of cities,” Tokayev said. He then warned: “But any calls for unconstitutional and hooligan actions will be dealt with within the framework of the law.”

On September 1, the first anti-China protest took place in Zhanaozen, a town made infamous by the Kazakh government’s deadly response to protests by striking oil workers in December 2011. This time around, however, a reported 100 people gathered, per Reuters, “to demand a ban on what they described as plans to move outdated and polluting Chinese plants to Kazakhstan.”

The next day, the crowd had tripled and the regional governor showed up to de-escalate the situation. The initial protest was a local concern and handled locally. But by September 4, small rallies – a few dozen people – popped up in Almaty and Nur-Sultan. None of the protests were disrupted by mass arrests at the time.

Later in the month, however, Ablyazov issued a call for anti-China protests. Ahead of the planned September 21 rallies, Kazkah authorities preemptively arrested people for their participation in the September 4 rallies. As RFE/RL reported on September 18, “The activists were handed jail terms of between seven and 15 days” in Nur-Sultan and Almaty, time enough to keep them away from the streets on the planned protest day. Oyan, Qazaqstan said at least 24 people had been arrested and given short sentences.

Oyan, Qazaqstan is a deliberately leaderless movement; its genesis was in a viral Instagram campaign. Prominent members have been detained for brief stints and harassed by the authorities; meanwhile, some of its protests are allowed to proceed.

Kazakh authorities remain deeply uncomfortable with protests in general. Ablyazov is a red line but the line blurs easily: If a few self-identified members of the Oyan, Qazaqstan movement show up at a protest also publicized by Ablyazov, to observe, should we view them as Ablyazov supporters?

The Kazakh government appears to, ignoring the reality that opposition to Nur-Sultan is not monolithic. A great challenge for Tokayev, if he indeed seeks (and has the power to achieve) improvement in how the country’s authorities handle and manage protests will be accepting the inherent complexity of “opposition.”