Current Events II

Several posts have already passed, but I have not said a word about the country where I come from and what is happening there. It is time to correct, so I will talk about political censorship in the media and the violation of civil rights, which are closely intertwined.

Sadly, protect civil rights is one of the most acute problems in Kazakhstan. The largest opposition political organization "Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan", for example, is recognized as an extremist, demonstrations in its support are illegal, and any mention in the media is minimized. Although I don’t want to criticize or approve the court’s decision, as I didn’t fully understand the situation and the available data is rather contradictory: the head of the organization, Mukhtar Ablyazov, is accused of embezzling 7.5 billion dollars, some people in Kazakhstan actively support the organization and deprecate government corruption.

On March 22, during the state holiday Nauryz, through a video on YouTube, Ablyazov called to go out with blue balls as a sign of the support of the organization. Given that blue is a popular spring color and the basis of the Kazakh national flag, it is unclear how many of those who wear blue balloons were Ablyazov’s supporters and how many of them simply celebrated the holiday with their families. Police officers detained everyone indiscriminately and without any reason, accompanied the citizens to check documents in official cars and violated several points of the police regulations. The same thing happened to journalists and anyone who tried to shoot this chaos on camera.

After the holidays, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan stated that it did not distribute among its employees instructions to detain people with blue balloons during the celebration of Nauryz, and the balls themselves were not ordered to withdraw to anyone. Days later, official publications did not write about this incident, and the news was spread only through independent resources and memory managers.

You can find more information here: https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/ablyazovs-balloons-kazakh-opposition-co-opts-the-color-blue/