On May 14, the Senate (upper house of the Parliament) of Kazakhstan is due to consider the bill “On the procedure for organizing and conducting peaceful meetings in the Republic of Kazakhstan”. There has been heated debate around this bill since its appearance. Pro-government experts, political scientists, journalists, and bloggers praise it in every way, calling it liberal and democratic. However, independent Kazakh human rights defenders, together with international human rights organizations, express great concern about this normative act and believe that the bill on peaceful assemblies doesn’t meet international standards.
The director of the Kazakhstan’s International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, a well-known human rights activist, Yevgeny Zhovtis, is one of the opponents of the adoption of the draft law on peaceful assembly in its current form. According to Zhovtis, Kazakhstan needs a conceptually different law in this area. For such a position, the human rights activist was harassed not only in social networks, but also in the media, mainly in the Kazakh-speaking segment, but more on this later. To begin with, it should be noted that the bill “On the procedure for organizing and conducting peaceful meetings in the Republic of Kazakhstan” was developed by direct instruction of the President Kasym-Zhomart Tokaev.
“Any rallies are permissible if they don’t violate the law, don’t violate public order and don’t interfere with the peace of citizens. The time has come to impart a culture of rallies in the public awareness. Rallies are not only a right, but also a responsibility. The draft law on peaceful assembly has been developed. It’s not just about changes to the current law, but about a conceptually new law that regulates the organization and conduct of all forms of peaceful assembly,” said the President of Kazakhstan at the meeting of the National Council of Public Confidence (NCPC) in December last year.
The NCPC is an advisory body that was created by Decree of the President Tokaev in order to establish a public dialogue between the government and the society. The structure of the NCPC includes 41 people, who are the representatives of various fields: political scientists, economists, lawyers, public figures and bloggers. Within the framework of the National Council, several working groups have been created, such as on political reforms, on issues of language and culture, on social policy, etc. Initially, great hopes were pinned on the NCPC, but over time, it became clear that the NCPC is not so nice as it is presented by state media.
Let’s return to the bill on peaceful assemblies. Members of the NCPC, such as Erlan Sairov, related to pro-government bot farms in Kazakhstan, Marat Bashimov, Murat Abenov, Asylbek Kozhakhmetov and Mukhtar Taizhan (recently accused by businessman Margulan Seisembaev of taking money [$237,100] from him, but then went against his benefactor), took part in the working group on its development.
It is clear that with such developers, the bill clearly could not be democratic and liberal, as the pro-government comrades try to convince of this.
In February of this year, Yevgeny Zhovtis published a legal analysis of the bill and criticized the tightening of state control over the participation of citizens in peaceful assemblies. Moreover, the human rights activist said that this bill is nothing more than a reservation for those who disagree.
On April 21, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly appealed to the Kazakh government stating that “certain parts of the new law don’t comply with international human rights standards, or rather, the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, guaranteed by 21 articles of the International Covenant on civil and political rights”, which Kazakhstan ratified in 2016.
“A group of civil society organizations of Kazakhstan and their international allies called on the government to submit the bill to the OSCE and UN for examination. However, on April 30, the Senate passed the bill in first reading,” Freedom House said, recalling that Kazakhstan was given the status of “not free” in the ratings “Freedom in the World 2020” and “Freedom in the Network 2020”.
On May 5, the international non-governmental organization “Freedom House”, which studies the state of political and civil liberties in the world, expressed concern about the draft law on peaceful assembly, which has already been approved by Kazakh deputies.
“We are concerned about the decision of the Senate of Kazakhstan to accelerate the adoption of the law on peaceful assemblies at the time, when COVID-19 quarantine is in force in the country. The fact that the law, strictly restricting peaceful assemblies, is adopted during a state of emergency, with insufficient transparency and without public consultation, raises serious concerns about the democratic process in Kazakhstan. This step is particularly worrying after the government rejected the repeated demands of civil society to request an expert opinion concerning the bill from the OSCE’s Bureau for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights on the grounds that, in their opinion, it is contrary to international standards for peaceful assemblies. We urge the Kazakh authorities to postpone the vote on the bill and ask them to submit it to the OSCE for consideration,” said Marc Behrendt, Freedom House Program Director for Europe and Eurasia.
Against the background of all this, a campaign to discredit Yevgeny Zhovtis was launched in social networks and in the pro-government media of Kazakhstan.
“The persecution began in response to his criticism of a new bill that undermines freedom of assembly, and, in particular, his position on the rights of foreign citizens and stateless persons to participate in peaceful assemblies,” said Front Line Defenders, an international organization, whose work is to protect human rights defenders at risk. Front Line Defenders organization is concerned about the impunity that accompanied the campaign to discredit Yevgeny Zhovtis. Impunity can cause a negative attitude towards human rights defenders, first of all, to those who criticize and disagree with the authorities. Front Line Defenders is particularly concerned about the participation of political leaders and influential representatives of the Kazakh media in the discredit campaign.
Such actions may subsequently develop into violence against human rights defenders. Front Line Defenders fears that a lack of censure of the discredit’s campaign from the side of the government will create an environment in which other human rights defenders of Kazakhstan can face impunity. Front Line Defenders organization considers the publication of these articles and messages on social networks as an organized attempt to discredit Yevgeny Zhovtis in connection with his criticism of the Concept of the draft law on the procedure for organizing and holding peaceful meetings in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Front Line Defenders expresses concern about the hostility that Yevgeny Zhovtis has faced and his psychosocial well-being as person, who has faced public assault that humiliates his dignity. Front Line Defenders believes that such hostility was an unreasonable response to his peaceful and legitimate human rights activities in Kazakhstan.
The ACCA’s correspondent in Kazakhstan contacted Yevgeny Zhovtis to find out if the persecution was really organized against him and what were its reasons.
– “Definitely, this campaign was caused by my criticism of the bill on peaceful assemblies,” Zhovtis believes. “This campaign was started by the media, which, as far as I know, receive the state social order, and people who are either members of the NCPC or are close to the authorities. And the main message, that flowed from this campaign, was connected with this bill. This was visible with the naked eye. Then other nastiness began to add to it. Initially, this was connected precisely with the law. The main task of this campaign was to demonstrate my anti-patriotism and my work for all kinds of foreign countries that allegedly participate secretly in our domestic politics. This is traditionally the United States and Mr. Soros. Then, to my great surprise, Russia was added to them! I don’t belong to supporters of Mr. Putin. If you look at all my speeches, then you will understand that I am extremely negative about the Committee for State Security’s regime of Mr. Putin in Russia! The leadership of Russia and the Russia, that now exists, is a classic authoritarian and propaganda state with serious imperial ambitions. That is, accusations, that I am a “Russian agent”, are absolutely untrue. Then, they tried to bind me to China … So, they got hooked on what I said that foreigners should be given the right to peaceful assembly in order to meet international standards and this would not create any problems. And then, the topic has already begun to continue in an anti-patriotic, anti-state and anti-Kazakh direction. And this was done mainly in the Kazakh-speaking segment of social networks and in the Kazakh-language media. That is, it was a concrete answer for my criticism of the bill, which the authorities, despite international condemnation, continue to push through with all their methods. This is a classic behavior for an authoritarian state that seeks external enemies in the fifth column.
– Among those who criticized you, there were such personalities as Samat Nurtaza, who is related to bot farms, and members of the NCPC, in particular, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Kazak Uni”, deputy chairman of the political party “Ak Zhol”, Kazybek Isa. Why did the media managers, journalists, and, most importantly, the members of the NCPC turn against you?
– Members of the NCPC were selected and chosen by political strategists, who are the President’s entourage. So, they chose people to the NCPC on their own understanding, that is, those, who seem to represent certain public mood, and, on the other side, are quite loyal and are on the mainstream regarding the new policy of the President Tokaev, his team and political strategists. The bill, which is now in the Senate, not only doesn’t meet international standards, but also doesn’t solve any problems. This bill was developed by the Ministry of Information and Public Development. As you know, this Ministry is an ideological body, and the ideology is supervised by the Presidential Administration. And for them, this law was very fundamental. They tried to prove that it was a completely new law, and we, adopting it, take a significant step forward. And from the very beginning, I said that there would be no step forward, we would just get foreign criticism. Moreover, I said this before the comments of the largest international human rights organizations. All that these organizations said, I had said earlier. I knew exactly what would happen. And those people, who are in the NCPC, and who should promote new ideas with the government, they were not ready for such criticism and demonstrated their closeness to the Ministry of Information and Social Development, that is, to this ideology. And not only them. Look, the Presidential Advisor, Erlan Karin, is also actively promoting this law. And since I contradicted this general line of promotion, the attack went on me.
– When the lower house of the Parliament had a second reading of amendments to certain legislative acts, the deputies decided to transfer slander from the category of criminal offenses to administrative ones. Can we hope that after consideration of the law on peaceful assembly in the Senate, it will become more democratic?
– Let’s first talk about the denationalization of slander. I don’t know if you saw the statement on this subject by the OSCE Special Representative for the Media Freedom, Harlem Desir. He said very well. “It’s correct that the article on slander was transferred into the Administrative Code, but the problem is that the Criminal Code has a number of other articles besides slander, which can infringe upon freedom of expression. There is the article “Insult”, and the article “Dissemination of knowingly false information”, according to which a number of civil activists are now made answerable. There are the articles relating to an attack on the honor and dignity of the first President and the incumbent President, on the honor and dignity of deputies; there is an insult to a representative of the authorities. That is, the Criminal Code has a number of articles that continue to criminalize “the word”. Just a word that can be not true, offensive, and so on. In my opinion, these articles should not exist in the Criminal Code at all. For this, they should not prosecute a person. A person can be fined. They may demand a refutation, but he/she cannot be held criminally liable.
However, all of these articles remained in the Criminal Code. Therefore, the decriminalization of slander, as in the case of the law on peaceful assembly, is just a small half measure. If you look at the recommendations concerning the reports of our state by the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Human Rights Committee, there were not only recommendations for decriminalizing the article on slander, but also on other articles too. It’s more complicated here. As for the law on peaceful assembly, it’s conceptually wrong. It could be improved. After all, they improved it a little. They reduced the time for notifications and allowed holding single pickets not only in specialized places, but also near state bodies for no more than two hours. However, this doesn’t solve the key problems, because there are the specialized places that contradict international standards; there is still a ban on spontaneous events when it is impossible to request permission in advance; there is a huge number of reasons to refuse meeting notifications, a huge number of obligations to participants and organizers, etc. Moreover, in the Administrative Code, there is a phrase that nobody pays attention to for some reason – “other public events”. That is, they will continue to punish for flash mobs, flowers laying, walking with balloons, wearing T-shirts, caps… That is, all this remains. Therefore, this bill is conceptually wrong. I hope that, most likely, at the second reading in the Senate, which will be held on May 14, these key points will somehow be resolved … We can already assume the reaction of the international community to this law, if it isn’t conceptually changed. I don’t quite understand why this was done, if it was possible to adopt a normal law!
– You have mentioned the criminal article “dissemination of information that is not true”. The discriminatory information, that was disseminated against you, is not true. Will you take any measures in this regard: to sue the distributors of this information and whether to demand a refutation from them?
– No, I will not! Unfortunately, in our country such discrediting publications accompany any social or socio-political activity. Similar attacks occur on us periodically. It’s in the order of things for us. Each person has a choice how to react to it. I posted my answer to this on social networks. This is enough for me, and I don’t see the need to somehow prosecute those who arranged all this. Although, on the part of the state (in case, it supports them or not), taking into account the fact that the NCPC’s members took part in this campaign, some kind of reaction would be desirable. I had a similar situation in the 90s. Then one major official actively criticized our reports on human rights, claiming that they damage the country’s reputation. And then, we wrote the letter to the President Nazarbaev with one simple question, “Do you share this position, or is it the personal opinion of this official?” In response, we received a call from a representative of the presidential administration, who said that this position was not the point of view of the President. That was enough for us. Unfortunately, such technologies are used in our country. Look, social networks are full of trolls. This is unpleasant, unreliable, but I don’t see the need to make a fuss about this.
– In 2009, your confrontation with the Kazakh authorities ended with your arrest and four years in prison for persons who committed a crime of negligence, wasn’t it?
– Yes.
– Are you afraid of a repeat of this situation?
– In our country, nothing can be guaranteed. As far as I understand, the incumbent President has chosen for himself, both internationally and domestically, the image of a reformer, a person of liberal views, a person who is trying to implement political and economic reforms, especially against the background of the difficult period, that we are experiencing because of the global pandemic and a clear downturn of the global economy and falling oil prices. The situation in economic terms is very difficult, and it will not be resolved in the near future. The global economy will recover for a very long time, and it will be very difficult for us. The President also has a lot of challenges that he needs to solve. He chose the path of a modern and progressive reformer. And in this regard (now it’s not 2009, and our political structure is completely different), I don’t think that they need it. Although nothing can be guaranteed. There is only one hope that there is common sense and they estimate their steps. The same situation in 2009 didn’t give them anything, except the fact that this issue was constantly raised at all levels and was accompanied by great noise and scandal. Why then did they need it? I don’t understand. Moreover, the incumbent President is now demonstrating attempts to move away from the debts of the previous government. For example, they released Dzhakishev. He nevertheless takes some steps to resolve old problems, but there are new ones. For example, Alnur Ilyashev. However, the general trend is still positive.
– Do you continue to work at the Administration of the President?
– I never worked there!
– But in your biography on the Wikipedia website, there is such a phrase …
– Yes! Every time we find it, we change it, but someone then returns it to its place again. You know, I have never worked at any government agencies, and I am not going to do this. In my opinion, this is also one of the elements of the discrediting campaign that Zhovtis is against, and he works at the Administration of the President. Maybe, they want to show that I am appropriating non-existent regalia. This, unfortunately, continues for several years, immediately after my release. Someone is constantly rewriting the section about me. We put everything to its place, but the situation is repeated. Who does this and why? I don’t know.
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