Kazakhstan: human rights defenders demand to stop discrimination against feminists
The Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights (KIBHR) has made an official statement to the authorities of Kazakhstan with a demand to stop discrimination against feminists.
As noted in the statement, the reason for this appeal was the attacks on the participants of the events of Feminita fem-initiative that took place in the country in May and July of this year.
The first incident took place on May 29 in the city of Chimkent, where a meeting of activists of the non-governmental organization “Kazakhstan Feminist Initiative Feminita” was to take place. According to the initiators of the meeting, it was to be devoted to the rights of LBTQ women (LBTQ – lesbian, bi, transgender and queer). The meeting was supposed to be held in a coworking space, but the owners of the premises refused at the last moment to rent the hall to Feminita, although an advance payment was made. Then the participants of the meeting went to the nearest cafe, but there they were awaited by a crowd of aggressive men who disrupted this meeting. It’s worth noting that a police representative was present at the scene. However, instead of calling the aggressive men to order, the policeman, on the other hand, dragged the initiators of the training, the leaders of Feminita from Almaty Gulzada Serzhan and Zhanar Sekerbaeva, out into the street, then put them in a car and drove them away. During this scuffle, Zhanar Sekerbaeva accidentally tore off the shoulder strap from a police officer. As a result, a criminal case was opened against the women under the article “Insulting a representative of the authorities”.
A second similar incident took place on July 29 in Karaganda. There was also a meeting dedicated to the rights of women and representatives of the LGBTIQ community (LGBTIQ – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queers). However, a couple of days before the meeting, the owners of the premises, as it was in Chimkent, refused Feminita to rent the hall. The organizers urgently found another place for meeting and kept its address in the strictest confidence. 11 girls and 3 guys came to the meeting. Less than an hour later, a crowd of angry men gathered near the building, where the training was taking place, demanding to burn the participants of the meeting.
“Even before the crowd gathered, the deputy mayor of the city Nurlan Bikenov and the head of the internal policy department Lyazzat Akilzhanova demanded to stop the event. When the participants of the event entered the buses through the police corridor, they were insulted and hit by the crowd. At the same time, the police didn’t see “at the scene of the incident, the facts of violation of public order and riots”. Moreover, in their press release, the police officers openly call the members of Feminita “representatives of the LGBT community”, obviously with a negative and stigmatizing tinge,” the KIBHR said in this regard.
At the same time, human rights activists believe that both attacks (in Chimkent and in Karaganda) and the inaction of police officers suggest that they were planned rather than spontaneous, possibly with the direct participation of government officials.
“Often, in various regions of the country, members of feminist organizations and representatives of the LGBTIQ community are discriminated and harassed by the local population, to which the authorities and the police don’t react at best, and at worst, they can be not only involved in a campaign of aggression, but also stand for organizing harassment, as it often happens with opposition activists, independent journalists and human rights defenders. The Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law is extremely concerned and outraged by the current situation. We demand an immediate investigation and local government response to this human rights violation. If the attack in Karaganda is not investigated and doesn’t receive a proper assessment, our suspicions that the authorities may be behind it will receive additional confirmation,” the KIBHR notes in its statement.
