Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published their press freedom index this month, highlighting the region-wide crackdown on freedom of expression in Central Asia. While Turkmenistan remains at the bottom of the table, the scores of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have all plummeted compared to last year.
The General Prosecutor’s Office confirmed on April 29 that former minister of internal affairs Yerlan Turgumbayev was detained for abuse of power. A special court in Astana confirmed on May 2 that he will be kept in pre-trial detention for two months. Former President Nursultan Nazarbayev appointed Turgumbayev as minister of internal affairs in February 2019, just before resigning. Turgumbayev received strong criticism for his role during the repression of country-wide protests in January 2022, known in Kazakh as ‘Qandy Qantar’.
Kazakhstan: Government grappling with how to regulate social media eurasianet.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurasianet.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A fire hit Semey Ormany, a forest and national park in the north east of the country on April 26. Semey Ormany suffered severe damage last summer when it was engulfed by massive fires, which burned more than 60,000 hectares of forest. Late on April 19, wildfires also broke out in the southern Almaty region. The authorities found themselves unprepared for the fires last year, not unlike this year with the floods that hit several regions.
Is Kazakhstan experiencing the early stages of a democratic awakening? UkraineAlert by Rustam Kypshakbayev
Opposition supporters in Almaty protest against political repression. February 28, 2021. (REUTERS/Pavel Mikheyev)
In February 2021, Kazakhstan’s Young Voters League, a civil society initiative led by Kazakhstan’s Youth Information Service NGO, published independent research
data indicating that the ruling party had received 48.3% of votes in the country’s January elections. This figure was based on 177 voting protocols and contrasted sharply with
official results indicating a far more convincing 71.9% vote share.
It is extremely rare in Kazakhstan for even unofficial results to suggest an outcome of below 50%. In most previous elections, the ruling party has typically been credited with staggeringly high official victory margins and only slightly less impressive independent estimates.