While the authorities of the country from high tribunes announce the construction of New Kazakhstan, the rights of civil activists who participated in the January events continue to be infringed.
ACCA has already reported on the administrative arrest for 15 days of activist Kosai Makhanbaev, who was shot during the January rallies and then, after being detained, was subjected to torture.
On June 1, relatives of those killed and arrested during the January events, as well as the victims themselves, gathered near the building of the Prosecutor’s Office in Almaty. They gathered to find out what the response of the supervisory body will be to their demand for a fair and transparent investigation of the January events and the punishment of those who killed the protesters and those who tortured the detainees. The head of the initiative group, Kosai Makhanbaev, and three other people were immediately taken to the police, but later released. In the evening, Makhanbaev was again detained and taken to the police station, and then released again. And on June 2, he was arrested for 15 days for violating the law on peaceful assemblies.
However, Kosai Makhanbaev was not released after the arrest period expired. Moreover, as his lawyer Ainara Aidarkhanova said, her client’s arrest was extended for another two months.
“I went to find out on what basis such a decision was made,” Aidarkhanova told journalists who had come to cover the release of Makhanbaev. “I was told that the reason was his inappropriate behavior.”
According to relatives of Makhanbaev and members of the initiative group (about 20 people came to meet him), on June 16 at 18.00 they were confirmed that Kosai would be released at about 22.10. That is, the law enforcement agencies, Makhanbaev’s associates conclude, deliberately misled them, knowing well that the trial to extend the period of arrest had already taken place.
“There were appointed lawyers at the trial, although Kosai has his own defenders,” Aidarkhanova said. “But we couldn’t protect him because we weren’t notified that there would be a trial.”
It should be emphasized that these two months, for which the court extended his arrest, Makhanbaev will spend in the pre-trial detention center No.18 in Almaty – in the same pre-trial detention center where he was transferred from the hospital, wounded in the January rallies, and where he was then brutally tortured.
According to the activist’s relatives, Kosai Makhanbaev will again be subjected to torture in this pre-trial detention center in order to force him to give up his demands to conduct an honest and fair investigation of the January events, as well as to punish all the detainees guilty and involved in the torture.
“This is how the rights of our citizens are being violated. Here is such a New Kazakhstan, which the President is talking about. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, can you hear us? Is this New Kazakhstan? We appeal to the EU Embassy to demand from the authorities of Kazakhstan the immediate release of Kosai Makhanbaev and bringing to justice the police, prosecutors, the National Security Committee, the army involved in the torture and shooting of civilians,” friends and relatives of Kosai Makhanbaev said on this occasion.
