On January 7, 2022, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev made a shocking statement on Twitter: he said that in the preceding days, 20,000 foreign-trained terrorists had attacked the country. As a result, he claimed, it was necessary for him to order a “counter-terrorist operation to eliminate the national security threat and protect the lives and property of the citizens of Kazakhstan.” That same day, he announced in a televised address that he had ordered police and the army to “shoot to kill without warning.”
Nineteen people are now on hunger strike in Kyrgyzstan, protesting their arrest in October for challenging a controversial border deal with Uzbekistan.
More than a dozen activists of the opposition movement Oyan, Qazaqstan! (Wake Up, Kazakhstan!) have been detained in the country’s largest city, Almaty, as the Central Asian nation marks the 31st anniversary of its independence.