On June 8, blogger Valery Kudryavtsev was beaten by unknown persons in Almaty. According to the victim, the incident took place at five o’clock in the morning near the building of the Kazakh State Academic Drama Theater named after Mukhtar Auezov.
“Beasts. We will not be able to live normally until there is order. They robbed me… right near the theater!” wrote the blogger on his Facebook page, also reporting that there were two attackers on him and that they took away his iPhone Xs smartphone.
The blogger’s mother Tatiana Kudryavtseva (Tatiana Korol) works in the public fund “NeMolchiKZ” [“Don’t be silent KZ”] for helping victims of violence.
“Yesterday evening, near the theater of Auezov, a robbery attack was committed on a young Kazakh blogger-activist Valery Kudryavtsev, the son of our employee Tatiana Korol. He had a broken nose, jaw, and also broken teeth. His phone was stolen. He has a concussion, a broken zygomatic part; doctors fear hemorrhage. Valera is now under medical supervision. Tatiana, still in the hospital with a severe course of Covid19, has 75% lung damage, was reanimated four times, at which time her son was attacked. We are in Tbilisi, undergoing rehabilitation and training in human rights activities.
We cannot physically help and support, we are afraid that the attack was of a custom-made nature, that the timing was not accidental, since the whole #NeMolchiKZ team is now unable to be near the teenager. We ask you to take measures and ensure legal protection of the rights of a citizen of Kazakhstan. He was beaten by two men. We hope that the criminals will be promptly detained,” the head of the fund, Dina Tansari, wrote on her page.
Meanwhile, Tatiana Korol wrote in the comments to her son’s post that she suspects the police officers in the attack.
“Earlier I wrote that if something happens to my family, I will consider the police guilty. And so it happened, and not far from home. First of all, I consider the police officer Tashimov to be guilty!” wrote Korol.
In 2019, investigator Tashimov searched the office of the public fund. According to Tatiana Korol, the search was carried out illegally. The human rights activist wrote a statement against him.
“The Anti-Corruption Service of Almaty has opened a case against Tashimov on the fact of illegal actions and theft of equipment. However, he was transferred from one district to another – and right next to my house – and I, not unreasonably, worry about myself, my family, property. Considering that earlier he regularly threatened us, now I have every reason to fear for the safety of my family and property. I clashed with him, he threatened us many times. As a result, the proceedings are still going on since 2019,” Korol wrote in the comments to the video about the search, which she posted on YouTube.
Meanwhile, the deputy head of the police department of Almaty for investigative work Rustem Abdrakhmanov took the case of the blogger’s beating under personal control and instructed the head of the police department of Almaly district, Essen Iskakov, to find the attackers as soon as possible.
He also responded to the accusations of the blogger’s mother against investigator Tashimov.
“With regard to the involvement of police officers in a committed criminal offense, you can contact the Internal Security Directorate of the Police Department or me with a statement regarding the police officer Tashimov in the manner prescribed by law,” Abdrakhmanov wrote.
On the evening of June 8, the deputy chief of the city police announced that the suspects in the robbery of Valery Kudryavtsev had been detained.
“The identity of the attackers was established by us immediately. During the day, a complex of operational and special measures was carried out, thanks to which both suspects were detained and placed in the temporary detention center of the Police Department of Almaty. The perpetrators are residents of Ili district (Almaty region), both are unemployed, born in 2002. Currently, the place of sale of material evidence (the victim’s mobile phone) is being established,” Rustem Abdrakhmanov said in the evening of June 8.
The blogger himself said that he didn’t intend to forgive the offenders.
“Let’s see what happens next. I want to say that there will be no forgiveness. My face hurts terribly, there are many stitches. My whole face is under an anaesthetic. I lost one of the two largest front upper teeth. I had a hematoma, which was punctured with a hefty syringe. My eyelid was swollen that night; now it is watering. I can’t chew normally because of pains in the jaw. I feel giddy. They give me painful injections, etc.”, wrote Kudryavtsev.
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