Protest Movement Alive Despite Crackdown as Kazakhstan Protest Dictatorship – Arab Spring Redux?

Democracy, elections and voting at Democracy Chronicles

Rare anti-Nazarbayev protest in Kazakhstan

By Sayara Ma-Shan-Lo (AFP)

ALMATY — Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday defied a heavy police presence to stage a rare protest in Kazakhstan against strongman President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the conduct of legislative elections.
Around 1,000 people shouted angry slogans against the Kazakh leader on the fringes of Republic Square in the largest city Almaty in an unusually large protest for Kazakhstan’s tightly-controlled society.

“Freedom!” chanted the demonstrators. “Nazarbayev go!”

The demonstration had not been sanctioned by the authorities and police erected barricades around the square to prevent the protesters from entering its centre, an AFP correspondent said. With around 500 members of the security forces present there was an atmosphere of high tension but police allowed the demonstration to go ahead while preventing anyone from climbing over the barricades into the square.

Leaders and top activists from the anti-Nazarbayev opposition, which won no seats in parliament, took turns to denounce the leadership of the energy-rich state.

“Return the country’s riches to the people!” said the co-chairman of the Azat (Freedom) opposition party Bolat Abilov. “We will stage another meeting in February. Even more of us will come. Let’s stop being scared.”

Leading opposition journalist Gulzhan Yergaliyeva proclaimed: “The people are stronger than the regime. We must show our strength!” The next protest is to be hold on February 25, organisers said. The protest ended after over one hour, without the police making arrests.

But the general secretary of the Azat party Amirzhan Kosanov later wrote on his Twitter account that he had been summoned to a police station, apparently to be given an administrative caution for holding the protest. The demonstration — originally called to protest against fraud in parliamentary elections — has been given an additional impulse by the arrest and jailing of three prominent opposition figures over the last few days.