Kazakhstan: activist was sent to a mental hospital for one word

Erulan Amirov, a civil activist from Chimkent, was sent to a psychiatric clinic by a court decision for compulsory treatment for one month. At the same time, relatives and friends of the activist claim that he was never registered with a mental hospital and that he was taken to a mental hospital in order to hide the traces of torture and violence against him.

Erulan Amirov came to the attention of the authorities last year. On June 3, 2020 (three days before the law on peaceful assemblies came into force), an unknown person wrote to Amirov on Telegram. This man allegedly wanted to buy T-shirts from him with the words “Amnesty on loans”, “Each Kazakhstani is entitled to $ 120 during the quarantine period” and posters for the rally. But when they met, the stranger refused to buy props, and Amirov was detained by the police. They confiscated the T-shirts and posters from the activist, and beat him severely.

In May, Amirov recorded a video message to young people urging them not to be afraid to express their opinions.

“… If you consider yourself Muslims, I appeal to the youth of Kazakhstan, there is such a covenant from the Prophet. The imams don’t talk about it; they are afraid of the National Security Committee, but I’ll tell you. The best jihad is the spoken word before an unjust tyrant ruler. I am not calling on anyone to take up arms and fight against the government. However, as written in the article 20 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan, everyone has the right to express their opinion. We must put the authorities in their place, correct their mistakes, because the article 3 of the Constitution states that “the only source of power is the people”. Guys, if we don’t get involved in politics, politics will occupy us,” the Facebook group #IHaveAChoiсe #ActivistsNotExtremists quotes Amirov’s words.

For the use of the word “jihad” (translated from Arabic as “effort”), a criminal case was opened against Amirov under the article “Propaganda of terrorism or public calls to commit an act of terrorism”, and then two more articles were added to the charge – “Incitement to hatred” and “Participation in an extremist organization”.

And after that, according to the Facebook group #IHaveAChoiсe #ActivistsNotExtremists, by the decision of judge Nuraly Sarkulov, Amirov was sent for compulsory treatment to a specialized psychiatric clinic on June 8 with intensive supervision, allegedly because of the “affective hallucinatory delusional syndrome”. This clinic, located in the village of Aktas (Talgar district, Almaty region), is notorious for periodically placing political prisoners.

“On June 21, Erulan’s mother came to see him in the hospital. However, she wasn’t allowed to meet with him (not on June 21, to this day). Only thanks to pressure from civil activists in Almaty, she managed with great difficulty to get a telephone conversation with Erulan. We assume that the officers of the National Security Committee brutally tortured Amirov Erulan so that he incriminated himself and tried to hide the traces of violence, not allowing his mother, a public defender, to approach him, or they forcibly stuffed him with psychotropic medications (or drugs) in order to cause him to hallucinate, to fabricate case and put him in a psychiatric hospital,” the activists of the group believe.