Kazakhstan: Release Opposition Party Leader: Zhanbolat Mamay
Zhanbolat Mamay is a well-known political activist and journalist in Kazakhstan. He is the former editor in chief of Tribuna newspaper (now closed).
In 2019 he founded and became the leader of the Democratic Party of Kazakhstan (DPK). The opposition party’s repeated efforts in 2020 to obtain official registration have been unsuccessful. In February 2020 police arrested three leaders and more than 100 would-be delegates of the founding congress of the party ahead of the 2021 parliamentary elections, thus halting the process of registration. The move was seen as an attempt to sabotage the assembly of delegates, as Kazakhstani law requires the participation of at least 1,000 people in the founding congress of a political party for it to be officially recognised.
On 4 January 2022 in protest against a dramatic rise in fuel prices, thousands of people took to the streets of Kazakhstan. Their economic discontent was quickly followed by broader popular calls against corruption, political stagnation, and widespread injustice. Authorities responded with hostility to the protestors, by targeting and silencing journalists and activists, and by suppressing freedom of expression and the flow of independent information. In an alarming development, as damage to property and the number of casualties grew, troops in the streets were instructed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to open fire without warning. Additionally, when the protests spread and violence broke out in Almaty and elsewhere, the authorities shut down the Internet and disabled social media and other means of digital communication. The official figures provided by the government of those killed during the protest are 230 people including 19 of whom they said were identified as police or army personnel. The government of Kazakhstan has failed to act on calls from Amnesty International and others for an independent international investigation of the January 2022 events.
Mamay and other members of the DPK joined peaceful protests on 4 and 5 January. On 13 February Mamay organized a peaceful public vigil in Almaty to commemorate those killed in the violence that wracked the country in January. He was arrested on 25 February and sentenced to 15 days of “administrative detention” for organizing or participating in an “unsanctioned” meeting (Code of Administrative Offences, Article 488, part 11). He was due to be released on March 12, but instead is being kept in detention facing criminal charges.
The charges brought against Mamay on March 14 relate to two separate incidents dating back to 2021. The charge of insulting a government representative stems from statements he allegedly made to police on 18 September 2021 when police prevented him from joining a public protest he had organized in opposition to government policy related to the use of citizens’ online data. Mamay has denied the charges. An investigation into the incident was opened in December 2021.
The charge of spreading false information is based on a YouTube video Mamay made in October 2021 that sought to explain to people with financial debts how to obtain help from credit companies in rehabilitating their debts. The video sparked an estimated 8,000 applications to credit companies for help using Mamay’s instructions. The prosecutor’s characterization of the video as false information was contradicted by a report by a judicial expert who found no evidence of any criminal offence; nonetheless the charges have not been dropped.