Kazakhstan: convicted political scientist accused the authorities of legal lawlessness

Famous Kazakh scientist-sinologist, orientalist, political scientist Konstantin Syroezhkin, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of high treason, accused the Kazakh authorities of legal lawlessness.

Konstantin Syroezhkin is a very famous figure in scientific circles not only in Kazakhstan, but also in Russia and China. In 1981, Syroezhkin graduated from the Higher School of the State Security Committee of the USSR. In 1987, he defended his Ph.D. thesis on the topic “The political role of the working class in the PRC (1949-1957)”. In 1995 he defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “Regulation of interethnic relations in the PRC: theory and practice (50s-80s). He is an academician of the Academy of Political Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kazakhstan Academy of Social Sciences, as well as an honorary professor at Xinjiang University. Since 2006, he was the chief researcher at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (KISS) under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

He is author of books, numerous monographs, publications and research works in various areas of relations between Kazakhstan and China. It should also be noted that Syroezhkin was an adviser on Chinese issues to the current president of Kazakhstan, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev, during the years when he worked as Prime Minister. Moreover, there is information that the well-known sinologist was the main scientific consultant of Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev’s doctoral dissertation, which he defended in 2001 at the Institute of Contemporary and International Problems of the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow.

It is not surprising that with such a reputation and authority, the news of Syroezhkin’s arrest by the National Security Committee caused a great public outcry.

It should also be explained that the political scientist (as it turned out later) was detained in February 2019. However, the fact that he was detained on suspicion of high treason became known only in May, and even when his friends and acquaintances sounded the alarm about his disappearance. They couldn’t contact Syroezhkin for two months and no one knew, where he was.

And only when the noise arose, the National Security Committee issued a message that Syroezhkin was not missing, but detained.

On July 10, the American newspaper Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article containing details of Syroezhkin’s detention. It reported that the political scientist was detained in his apartment by counterintelligence officers during a secret special operation. “Syroezhkin may have handed over secret documents to people connected with Chinese intelligence service and, probably, “received a monetary reward for this,” the article said.

In addition, the WSJ cited the official position of Beijing: “the Chinese authorities described the Syroezhkin case as “news out of thin air.”

On October 7, in Almaty, Syroezhkin was sentenced to 10 years in prison with serving a sentence in a maximum security institution (a strict regime colony). After serving his sentence, the scientist will be deprived of Kazakh citizenship and expelled from the country with a five-year ban on entry to the territory of Kazakhstan.

It should be noted that since it was a matter of high treason and leakage of state secrets, the trial of Syroezhkin was held behind closed doors and no details of the case, as well as the charges, were reported. The state authorities kept silent about where Syroezhkin was serving his sentence and whether he was ok, take into consideration his age (at the time of his arrest Syroezhkin was 63 years old).

And only a year and a half after the arrest of the political scientist, in October 2020, the scientist made himself felt. Some Kazakh media published his article “Notes of a caring one. Paradoxes of Kazakhstan’s justice”. In this publication, Syroezhkin talked about his misadventures and what specifically he was charged with.

“The investigation examined my articles and materials prepared at the request of my Chinese colleagues as evidence of my “criminal activity”; my scientific contacts with Chinese colleagues; involvement of Kazakhstan’s scientists as authors of some materials and receipt of fees for our work by me and them from the Chinese side. But for me, it still remains a mystery how my activity could damage the interests of Kazakhstan’s national security and what exactly was this damage expressed?” wrote the political scientist.

At the same time, he emphasized that all his publications were prepared exclusively on the basis of open sources, which didn’t contain any classified information.

“In no way these materials could (and did not!) damage the national interests of the Republic of Kazakhstan and its international image. The purpose of their writing was different – a better understanding of each other’s positions and existing problems in China’s bilateral and multilateral relations with the Central Asian states. If we consider this activity as high treason, then Kazakhstan needs to stop all international cooperation, break international agreements that provide for contacts in the humanitarian (including scientific) sphere, and at the same time leave the Bologna system, one of the main requirements of which is availability of foreign publications and obligatory contacts with foreign colleagues. It would be logical to abolish the relevant articles of the Constitution of Kazakhstan, which guarantee freedom of speech, as well as the right to freedom of receipt and dissemination of information,” Syroezhkin said.

According to another well-known Kazakh political scientist, Andrei Chebotarev, most likely the reason lies in the fact that Konstantin Syroezhkin “didn’t please or interfere with someone”.

“However, we still don’t know the answers to these questions,” noted Chebotarev. “But the main thing is that in Kazakhstan, despite the fact that there have been certain political changes associated with the departure of the former president of the country, Nursultan Nazarbaev, we see that different categories of people actually remain defenseless. Even if the most prominent representatives of the system are defenseless before the system, what can we say about ordinary people who are faced with the police? What can we say about civic activists, about the opposition, who are also seized, taken to a pre-trial detention center and criminal proceedings are instituted? And when it came to the arrest of Syroezhkin, I immediately remembered the famous cases of doctors, academicians and scientists who were during the reign of Joseph Stalin. I hope that Syroezhkin will be able to achieve, if not an acquittal, then at least parole. People like him should mind their affairs, contribute to the development of the whole country, and especially science.

Chebotarev was, perhaps, the only one who reacted to Syroezhkin’s article.

“Unfortunately, my first note on the paradoxes of Kazakhstan’s justice didn’t receive a wide response from political scientists, lawyers and international experts, to whom, in fact, it was addressed. The silence of officials and deputies is quite understandable, although surprising, since the reform of the judicial and legal system should be widely discussed,” Syroezhkin commented on this in his new article published on December 18 on Facebook.

According to Syroezhkin, he revealed another paradox in the judicial system of Kazakhstan: according to the current legislation, he has the right to familiarize himself with the final materials on his case, but due to the fact that the case was about state secrets, he is denied this right.

“The situation, in which I and the administration of the institution, where I am serving my sentence, are, can be characterized as legal nonsense, generated by the desire to limit the publicity of the trial and to hide behind the secrecy label either their incompetence and unprofessionalism, or flaws in judicial, legal and political practice, or even worse – an order of someone from “the powerful of this world”. Any of these options has no relation to democracy and the norms stated in the international pacts on human rights signed by the Republic of Kazakhstan. Not reaching out to Kazakhstan’s justice, I decided to address with an open appeal to the President and the Parliament of Kazakhstan, and at the same time to Kazakh and international structures that call themselves human rights organizations. I hope that at least someone will respond, because from my point of view this is a real legal chaos!” Syroezhkin emphasized in his second appeal.