With the hasty conviction of Zhovtis, which comes on top of scores of other false cases, Kazakhstan is entering deeper and deeper into a human rights black hole, just months before Nazarbayev is meant to take over the Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE)...
Lawsuits filed by state-controlled BTA Bank, Kazakhstan’s largest lender, to recover 917 million tenge ($6 million) from a newspaper and a charity have so far yielded nothing but seven pairs of boxer shorts.
In a case that is sending shockwaves through Kazakhstan’s non-governmental organization community, Yevgeny Zhovtis, one of the country’s leading human rights activists, was found guilty on September 3 of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to four years in prison. Prior to the reading of the verdict, Zhovtis denounced his two-day trial as a "political setup."
The advent of social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook has changed the nature of political dissent. But as this summer's unrest in Iran and China has demonstrated, authoritarian-minded governments have done their homework, and have kept pace with the revolution in communications.
Turkmen president says gas-rich nation will build Caspian Sea naval base amid energy disput
Kazakhstan-focused funds suffered big losses over the past year. But even with stock prices now rebounding, it’s proving difficult to attract international investors, who remain sceptical about the country’s prospects.
The decision to make Kazakhstan chairman of the OSCE was made by the member countries solely to promote the relations between the East and the West, said Alexander Kelchevsky, the head of the OSCE center in Kazakhstan.
