Kazakhstan: police blocked highway to detain journalist

The chief editor of the newspaper “Uralsk week”, Lukpan Akhmedyarov, was detained by the police. Moreover, the police officers made a show to achieve their goal.

According to Raul Uporov (deputy editor-in-chief of Uralsk week), in the morning of February 3, together with Lukpan Akhmedyarov and Isatay Dusekeshev, they left for Atyrau to prepare material about the activist and political prisoner Maks Bokayev, who should be released on February 4.

There was a traffic jam near the village of Kushum. As Lukpan Akhmedyarov said in a live broadcast on his Facebook page, the traffic jam was created by the police. They blocked traffic on the highway for three hours, allegedly due to bad weather conditions.

During three hours, while the car with the journalists was in a traffic jam, a minibus with policemen arrived from Uralsk. The law enforcement officers delivered to Lukpan Akhmedyarov the order for his forced convoy to the police.

“The investigator of Abai police authority under the police department of Uralsk, senior police lieutenant Adaev T.M., having examined the materials of the criminal case No. 202700011000112, established: the investigation department of Abai police authority is investigating a criminal case registered on December 9, 2020. During the investigation, on February 2, 2021, Lukpan Akhmedyarov was issued a summons to carry out investigative actions. In this regard, it’s necessary to deliver him for additional interrogation by a witness who has the right to defense. On the basis of the foregoing, I demand that Lukpan Akhmedyarov be forcibly delivered for investigative actions,” the resolution notes.

“Yesterday this investigator gave me a summons for February 5. I didn’t refuse. I always go. Let him send me a summons again, I will come based on the summons. Forced delivery is applied only if the person evades the appearance,” says Akhmedyarov to the policemen.

Then a lieutenant colonel, deputy head of the local police department, Yernar Sultangaliev, approached the car.

“Do you understand that you are breaking the law? How many years have you worked in the police?” Akhmedyarov asks him.

“I don’t have to answer you,” says the policeman.

“Look, you once came to the police to fight crime, to catch criminals… and now you are trying to take me to the police based on the summons issued to me for February 5!” the editor-in-chief of Uralsk week is indignant.

“If you can read, you must obey the law. I will take you to Abai police department. This is my mission,” Sultangaliev answers him.

“And it turns out that you kept all these people on the road just to take me to the police! All these people stood on the road just so that you could hand me the summons!” Akhmedyarov asks a rhetorical question.

Despite the indignation, he went with the police:

“I could have stood there, of course, further, but they kept a hundred cars at the checkpoint of Kushum only in order to turn this arrest over,” the journalist explained his decision.

However, the story didn’t end there. Akhmedyarov’s deputy Raul Uporov with Isatay Dusekeshev went further along the planned route, but they couldn’t go far.

About an hour later, after Akhmedyarov was detained, their car was caught up by a police car and forced to stop.

The policemen told the driver of the journalists that he was suspected of having committed an accident that happened today in Uralsk. So, his car was arrested for orientation. After that, the car was taken to the village of Chapayevo to give explanations.

“All this is incredible stupidity, bordering on idiocy,” said Uporov on this matter. “And the point is not even that Lukpan was detained, and then we were arrested. The policemen didn’t disdain to hold dozens of cars on the highway for several hours, which were clearly going towards Atyrau. There were cars, fuel trucks. They all stood and waited. To be honest, I didn’t believe until recently that this was possible. I didn’t believe even when Lukpan was brought the summons directly to the road. Immediately after that they began to let cars pass… Well, now they won’t let us there, we will not specifically film the moment when Max Bokayev left. But then we’ll go and do more interviews with him in a week! What is the meaning of all these movements?!”

Later, Uporov said that he and the driver were next to the building of the district police station of Chapayevo. The driver entered the building. They are waiting for a criminalist who, according to the policemen, for some reason must come from a neighboring district.

It’s worth recalling that Lukpan Akhmedyarov once again became a defendant in the investigation because of his publication in which he reported violations of the law in the distribution of land in the city of Uralsk. As a result of these violations, several land plots became the property of the mother of an employee of the Prosecutor’s Office of the West Kazakhstan region, who oversaw the observance of the rule of law in the distribution of land by the city hall.

It should also be noted that the political prisoner Maks Bokayev, to whom Akhmedyarov went, was included in the list of political prisoners of Kazakhstan, compiled by the expert council of human rights defenders of Kazakhstan.

In November 2016, Maks Bokayev was sentenced to 5 years in prison for participating in a peaceful rally against amendments to the Land Code of Kazakhstan. The international independent non-governmental organization “Human Rights Watch” appealed to the President of Kazakhstan, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev, regarding Bokayev, with a demand to release the activist and cancel his court sentence.