INFORMATION NEWSLETTER
OF KAZAKHSTAN INTERNATIONAL BUREAU FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND RULE OF LAW
«HUMAN RIGHTS IN KAZAKHSTAN AND ALL OVER THE WORLD»
CONTENT
Kazakhstan:
Independent trade-unions face serious problems in Shymkent.
Slavic People’s Movement protests in Astana, and pensioners protest in Almaty
Freedom of speech violation in East Kazakhstan.
Violation of rights of prisoners in Kazakhstan.
Protests in Zhanatas (South Kazakhstan)
Kazakhstan is starting to control the Internet
KAZAKHSTAN
In South Kazakhstan city of Shymkent administration of Shymkentenergo company demanded that all of the employees enter the trade-union under its aegis. The last day to join was 11.01.2000. In the meantime some employees of this company already are members of the independent Energetik trade-union that due to its strong independent stand is very unpopular with head management of Shymkentenergo. In early February independent union leader Zhalgasbaev K. M. told Shymkentenergo employees that administration of the company has no right to interfere with activity of community-based organization and that such kind of "applied force" is a violation of the enhanced by law principle of voluntary membership. These events reveal the attempts to weaken independent union and eventually to close it down. The Energetik’s coordination council decided to appeal to procurator’s office.
Slavic People’s Movement Protests in Astana
On 6 of February Slavic People’s Movement "Lad" together with Cossak Union and Communist party of Kazakhstan had a sanctioned mass-meeting under the slogan: «Prosperity of Kazakhstan in its union with Russia and Belorusia».
Participants addressed the people and the President of Kazakhstan calling on referendum on the issue of Kazakhstan entering the Russia-Belorusia union.
Majority of media means gave a negative evaluation of the initiative calling it an attempt to rob the country of its sovereignty. On 16 of February leaders of "Lad", Communist party and Cossaks’ Union held a press-conference aimed at explanation of the referendum idea. They said that media outcry was orchestrated by authorities and idea and meaning of the meeting was deliberately misinterpreted.
And Pensioners Protest in Almaty
On the last day of February "Pokolenie" ("Generation") movement of pensioners had tried to conduct its traditional mass-meeting directed at bringing public attention to worsening conditions for elderly people. And again the same as the last time authorities did not sanction the meeting. It should be noted that pensioners deliberately ignore the requirement of permission from authorities to be issued prior to any public action. "Pokolenie" considers this requirement to violate Constitution guarantees of freedom of assembly.
Last time Almaty authorities tried to arrest those responsible for the organization of the meeting, this time another procedure was employed. The meeting was about to begin when akimat officials brought in students that despite wet snowflakes and cold had a running contest. With the help of sound amplifiers contest commentary was much louder than the speeches of the protesters and this way the authorities managed to put an end to the meeting. Looks like city administration finally found a way to deal with pensioners’ actions of protest without bringing in the police troops.
Freedom of Speech Violation in East Kazakhstan.
On 29 of February this year civil court of East Kazakhstan rejected an appeal of "HBC-Press" newspaper against the decision of Ust-Kamenogorsk city of suspension of publication for three months. For now this is the last development in this notorious case of press persecution.
In the end of November last year newspaper had published an article "An attempt to coup d’etait in East Kazakhstan" telling of the press-conference held by local KNB department about detention of armed separatist group of Vladimir Kazimirchuk. At the press-conference KNB gave the journalists a print-out of text of the appeal made by separatists. As soon as newspaper published an article containing this text it was accused of attempts to violate the Constitutional order and territorial integrity of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The situation is both sad and comical. Newspaper is punished for publishing a text given to everyone by an official agency. This document was officially distributed by Committee on National Security (KNB) and it is unclear why an independent newspaper has to be responsible for the actions of KNB.
Legal expert of KIBHR East Kazakhstan branch office had represented the newspaper in this case. He argued that this publication could not be viewed as an appeal to forceful change of constitutional order and territorial integrity of Kazakhstan due to the following reasons:
- The text contains only an appeal to create an autonomy within the Republic. This is a political goal and the appeal itself does not contain a description of methods separatists planned to employ. The text does not mention violence or force in any part.
- Creation of autonomy itself is not a violation of territorial integrity – it is an attempt to change administrative-territorial division within the Republic and has nothing to do with its territorial integrity.
- The same about Constitutional order – it can not be affected by changes in administrative-territorial division.
Court also failed to explain what constitutional order really is as there is no definition of this term in the legislation.
All of these obvious points made no impression whatsoever as court has ruled that publication of the newspaper should be suspended for three months. Editor-in-chief was also fined for giving a permission to this publication. KIBHR East-Kazakhstan Branch Office plans to appeal to the court of higher instance.
Violation of rights of prisoners in Kazakhstan
The absence of regulation of terms of detention of suspects and accused continues to be a very problematic issue. Legislation is far from perfect and allows for accused to be isolated from any society for many months and in some cases even years. KIBHR has received a number of complaints of such "permanent" pre-trial detention. Statistics shows that each year this practice affects several thousands of people. According to the report of Legal Adviser to the President Rogov for the nine months of 1999 law-enforcement agencies arrested 26,786 people with 16,794 of this number being convicted afterwards. Even though 9,992 were innocent being arrested they still were imposed to imprisonment that in some cases lasted many months. Lengthy and hardly restricted by any legislation pre-trial detention of the person that has not been proved guilty is a punishment by itself and should be viewed as a major human right violation. Logically in case of such treatment of innocent person this violation should result in compensation. Nevertheless this logical conclusion never entered the minds of the legislative organs and the practice of lengthy pre-trial detention is being implemented more and more.
Kazakhstan law-enforcement agencies seem to view torture as a necessary element of the investigation/interrogation practice. Reports and complaints of torture of suspects are widespread. In June of 1998 Kazakhstan ratified UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Types of Treatment and Punishment but this fact seemed to go unnoticed. Suspects are tortured and pressured for confession the same way it was done before the ratification.
Here are just several examples of this horrible practice: so that Kirienko from Karaganda will confess the rape he was beaten by the chair and bottle, woman from Pavlodar had to sign the confession statement after they put a plastic bag on her head and she started suffocating. Vereschak from Almaty after being beaten on the head was handicapped. Under-age Utyrbaev from Kandyagach in the course of interrogated in connection with the case of car theft was severely beaten. The documents of the medical examination proving the fact of torture were admitted as an evidence but conveniently lost before the trial began. The examples are numerous. All of this proves that practice of torture as investigation tool is widespread in Kazakhstan.
Complaints of illegal methods of interrogation/investigation that are being made to human rights organizations are regularly given to procurators and to Ministry of Interiors Department of Internal Security. In 99% of the cases the answer says that police committed no crime and fact of torture was not proved. While explaining where all of the suspect’s bruises and wounds come from officials are often being cynical as in the case of O. Balashov when they said that he bruised himself hitting his head against the door-post. Interestingly enough the procurator had nerves to agree with such an explanation. This shows that investigation agencies and Department of Internal Security responsible for the control of interrogation agencies as well as procurators try to conceal the cases of torture and where concealment is not possible to avoid court proceedings.
Protests in Zhanatas (South Kazakhstan)
Two years ago Zhanatas became a scene of public protest actions. Reaction of police and internal troops was fast and protest were soon suppressed. Now the situation is once again out of control. Mass-meetings, hunger-strikes, city court pickets – all of this is an everyday occurrence at this small town with huge number of unemployed inhabitants.
Protests were sparked by actions of police that tortured 11 teenagers while investigating a fight. Almost all of the detained boys were severely beaten by the policemen.
Mother of one of the boys claims that her son – Seidahmetov was beaten up during the interrogation and policemen told her to pay a certain sum of money if she wants her son to be released.
The boy told that investigators put a volume of Criminal Code on his head and hit on it with the truncheons. Expertise proved that he suffered a concussion.
Zhandos Zhandabekov told that during interrogation they trampled him down. He suffered numerous breaks and no he partially lost the use of his left hand.
When the reports of torture in police stations became widely known around 14,000 protesters filled up the streets of the city. Authorities reacted by sacking the local police chief. Legal proceedings were brought up against the investigators of the case but the case was eventually closed. Procurators pretended not to see the obvious facts and did not demand the investigation of the torture case.
Kazakhstan is starting to control the Internet
November 1999 resolution of Kazakh government provided for creation Republican Center of Telecommunication Traffic - an official agency responsible for "registration and distribution of electronic address space of global networks of the Internet type".
To put it simple – a department of ministry of transport and communications will control the information on WWW and perform functions of information customs of some sort. This resolution introduces new procedure of routing the international electronic traffic. This system of information registration will monitor the lines of all of the Internet Service Providers.
This way government has legalized the control over information circulating in computer and telecommunication networks.
"The Instruction of order of official agencies and organizations collaboration in the field of exploitation of systems of operative-investigative measures in computer networks of the Republic of Kazakhstan" has been adopted.
This Instruction contains information on what the "system of special operative-investigative measures" is. Article 5 of the Instruction says that the System should provide for control of who is calling where and when. It also defines where the caller is at the moment of the call. This system should also be able to break any code of the networks users. Article 7 provides the definition of three categories of telephones, pagers and Internet users. For example the "total control" category means that all of the information received or sent by the user is viewed by the controllers in real time. "Statistic control" category means that there is no listening to the conversations but the controllers know with whom and when does the user communicate. The System allows operators to interrupt the connection or conversation of the controlled user or prevent other users from contacting him.
Resolution also says that Ministry of transport and communications is responsible only for "assisting the registration of international traffic information" but not for the registration itself. The registration is carried out by "specially authorized official agencies". It is not difficult to understand what kind of agencies are these.