Wednesday January 12, 2022
Authority speaks of criminals
Hundreds more arrests in Kazakhstan
The Kazakh city of Almaty, shaken by protests, does not come to rest: According to media reports, almost 1,700 people are arrested again, and human rights activists are concerned. Meanwhile, the US is pushing for Russian-led troops to be withdrawn from the country.
Almost 1,700 other people have been arrested in the Kazakh city of Almaty, which has been particularly hard hit by the unrest. The Kazakh media reported that they were looters and other criminals, citing the city administration in the metropolis in the south-east of the Central Asian country. The number of arrests was last given nationwide at around 10,000. Human rights activists warned that the authoritarian-led ex-Soviet republic must guarantee fair trials.
The situation in Kazakhstan recently appeared to have stabilized again. In the oil and gas-rich country on the border with Russia, displeasure about the rise in fuel prices had turned into protests against the government about a week ago. After peaceful demonstrations, violent riots broke out for days. President Kassym-Shomart Tokayev spoke of an attempted “coup d’état” that was also controlled from abroad. He set up a new government and let the military crack down on demonstrators.
USA urge troops to be withdrawn soon
Meanwhile, the US is insisting on the early withdrawal of Russian-led troops from Kazakhstan. Washington welcomes the fact that President Tokayev has declared the operation of the CSTO military alliance in his country to be over, said US State Department spokesman Ned Price. The US government calls on the soldiers of the alliance to comply with Tokayev’s request to “leave Kazakhstan immediately”.
Tokayev announced on Tuesday that a gradual withdrawal of the CSTO troops would begin on Thursday. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), in which four other former Soviet republics are allied in addition to Russia and Kazakhstan, sent more than 2,000 soldiers to Kazakhstan after the mass protests at Tokayev’s request. In view of the troop deployment, the US government had warned that it would be difficult for Kazakhstan to push back Russian influence.
Experts believe that President Tokayev also used the crisis to overthrow his predecessor, the influential ex-long-term president Nursultan Nazarbayev. It is also unclear who the armed rioters who stormed administration buildings and police stations, especially in Almaty, were. Tokayev spoke of “terrorists” several times.