Vlada Yermolcheva and Darkhan Sharipov, two activists of the Oyan, Qazaqstan! movement, were arrested in Almaty on May 6 and sent to a detention center for 15 days. Sharipov’s sentence is linked to a picket held against the results of the November presidential elections. Yermolcheva was found guilty of carrying out a demonstration in the aftermath of the March parliamentary election.
More than 100 protesters were detained in the capital Astana and in the western oil town of Zhanaozen on April 11 and 12 in relation to an oil worker protest. The workers had just been laid off by an oil service company that had lost a tender with the state-owned enterprise. They had traveled to Astana to speak to the ministry of energy and state-owned Kazmunaigas, but were only met by three deputies, a few mid-level officials, and hundreds of special police forces. After a few hours of detention, they were sent back to Zhanaozen on a special train. One Vlast photojournalist in Astana was detained for an hour and during the mass detentions a balaclava-clad policeman almost forced the work phone off another of our correspondents’ hands.
Opposition activist Madina Koketaeva, who unsuccessfully took part in March 19 parliamentary elections, has been detained in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, amid an ongoing crackdown over dissent following the balloting.
Fifteen Russian diplomats expelled by Norway this week had sought to recruit sources, intercept communications, and buy advanced technology, the Norwegian PST security police said on April 14.