HRW: Kazakh authorities should release the activist Asiya Tulesova

The international human rights organization “Human Rights Watch” again criticized the Kazakh authorities. This time, the reason was the detention of the well-known civic activist Asiya Tulesova during an unauthorized protest rally in Almaty on June 6.

Recall that unauthorized protests took place in Nur-Sultan and Almaty on the day when the scandalous new law on peaceful assembly came into force, according to which a notification principle for holding such actions is introduced.

The organizers of the action were the unregistered Democratic Party and the movement “Democratic choice of Kazakhstan” (the leader of which is a fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov), which was recognized as extremist. Participants in the protests demanded that the authorities grant a credit amnesty and take back lands and objects transferred to private ownership.

However, the authorities, despite the repeated statements of the President Kasym-Zhomart Tokaev that rallies in the country are not banned, reacted in the traditional way: they began to push protesters into police cars and take them to police stations. The only know-how this time was the appearance of people in chemical protective suits, who, for some reason, decided to disinfect precisely those places where the protests took place. 53 people were detained, including the civil activist Asiya Tulesova.

By the way, she was detained twice (first with a group of protesters, and then at the courthouse, where Tulesova, together with other activists, came to demand the release of the detainees. It was then that her skirmish with a police officer occurred.

The video, which was distributed after, shows how the activist hits a standing policeman in the service cap and his cap flies from a blow.

A few days later, the activist published a post on social networks in which she explained her actions with an “emotional impulse”.

“I acted in an emotional fit of temper in response to, as I believe, the inhumane, cruel and unlawful treatment of the police to peaceful unarmed citizens who pose no danger to society, who came to a peaceful rally in order to express their peaceful demands. Among the detainees were not only elderly and young people, who came to the rally, but also just passersby. This is not the first time that I (and I am not alone) was a witness of such a humiliating attitude on the part of law enforcement agencies to citizens of Kazakhstan, who peacefully go to the streets and squares in order to express their opinion. There is a mass of documentary material, streams, articles about the brutality of law enforcement officers with their fellow citizens during rallies. I always try to make live streams from rallies. And that time also, I wanted to do the same, but I realized that I couldn’t stay on the other side of the camera. I wanted to help people who were tied and pushed into police cars, not paying attention to age, not whether a person came to the rally or was just a passerby. We with other citizens tried to stop one of these police car, but the police dragged us with brutal force,” Tulesova explained.

She also noted that after the detention, she was placed in a separate cell.

“They were kept the whole day, conducted interrogations, not giving the opportunity to make a call to relatives or lawyer. Many of those delivered to the police department had minor abrasions, bruises and cuts. Those who came to support us, Beibarys Tolymbekov and Marcel Shashaev, masked workers wrested from the hands of their comrades from “Oyan, Kazakhstan!”, using force, dragging along the asphalt, took into the police department. Beibarys said that he was beaten in the stomach. The rally on June 6 is not the only precedent for the repressive actions of law enforcement agencies, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Committee for National Security in ​​relation to their own citizens. Our President, his advisers, ministers, akims, deputies, the National Council of Public Trust are telling us about the thaw, the “reforms”, the “hearing state”, that Kazakhstan has been changed, that the repressions are in the past. However, being on Saturday at the rally, I saw all the same employees of the city hall and other services, who were hiding behind masks and dark glasses, cold-bloodedly pointing to the police at their victims. “I want our police to be not a punitive and repressive machine, but a law enforcement system that protects the rights and freedoms, health and life of citizens,” wrote Tulesova.

However, on the same day, Tulesova was released, without any explanations, but the activist’s freedom didn’t last long. She was detained on June 8. The Police Department of Almaty asked the court to sanction her arrest for 2 months, but the Specialized Inter-District Investigation Court of Almaty arrested Tulesova for 10 days. Tulesova is charged under two articles of the Criminal Code of Kazakhstan “Use of not dangerous violence against a government representative” and “Insulting a government representative”. According to the Criminal Code, these articles provide for punishment of up to three years in prison.

“The detention of Asiya Tulesova, on the basis of disproportionate charges, is a serious excess for both the police and the courts. Limiting peaceful rallies and applying criminal sanctions against Tulesova shows the repressive face of Kazakhstan when it reacts to peaceful protests. Kazakhstan activists shouldn’t be imprisoned for exercising their rights to freedom of speech and peaceful protest. Authorities must acquit of criminal charges against Alnur Ilyashev and Asiya Tulesova and release them,” said Mihra Rittmann, Senior researcher at Human Rights Watch for Central Asia.

Her opinion was published on June 12 on the HRW website.

Recall, the name of Asiya Tulesova became known to the general public in April 2019, when she and a group of like-minded people unrolled a huge banner with the inscription “You won’t run away from the truth” during the marathon in Almaty. For this, Tulesova received 15 days of administrative arrest.