Campaigners urge Kazakhstan to free activists facing trial over land reform protests | Land Portal

By: Umberto Bacchi

Date: October 11th 2016

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation


LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Two Kazakh land rights activists who are due to go on trial over their involvement in public protests against land reforms in the Central Asian nation are facing unfounded criminal charges and should be released, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.


Max Bokayev and Talgat Ayanov are each facing up to 10 years in prison on charges of inciting social and national discord, disseminating false information and organizing an illegal protest, the human rights group said.


"What we have here are individuals that are being criminally prosecuted and face extended prison terms for exercising their right to peaceful protest," Mihra Rittmann, Europe and Central Asia researcher at HRW, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.


"Bokayev and Ayanov should be freed," Rittmann said in a statement. "Expressing a negative opinion about government policy is not a crime."


The Kazakh embassy in London did not reply to requests for comment.


The protests, in April and May, were sparked by fears the reforms would allow foreigners - especially Chinese companies - to take over farmland, though many Kazakhs also demonstrated to express general discontent at President Nursultan Nazarbayev's rule.


Police detained dozens of protesters most of whom were either fined or jailed for up to 15 days.


Several leading activists, including Bokayev and Ayanov, were charged with more serious offences.


In a rare climbdown following the protests, Nazarbayev in August deferred a plan to lease large areas of farmland to foreign investors for five years. He also set up a commission to review the land reforms and replaced the ministers for the economy and agriculture.


(...)


Read full article here


Photo source: World Bank Photo Collection via Flickr/Creative Commons (CC By-NC-ND 2.0). Photo: © World Bank Photo Collection

Copyright © Source (mentioned above). All rights reserved. The Land Portal distributes materials without the copyright owner’s permission based on the “fair use” doctrine of copyright, meaning that we post news articles for non-commercial, informative purposes. If you are the owner of the article or report and would like it to be removed, please contact us at hello@landportal.info and we will remove the posting immediately.

Various news items related to land governance are posted on the Land Portal every day by the Land Portal users, from various sources, such as news organizations and other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. The copyright lies with the source of the article; the Land Portal Foundation does not have the legal right to edit or correct the article, nor does the Foundation endorse its content. To make corrections or ask for permission to republish or other authorized use of this material, please contact the copyright holder.

Share this page