Yevgeny Zhovtis, a leading human rights activist in Kazakhstan who is currently serving a jail sentence for vehicular manslaughter, thinks the world's leading democracies are turning a blind eye to authoritarianism. In a statement presented February 19 at a gathering of rights activists in Washington, Zhovtis took a swipe at the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, asserting that the world is experiencing "a crisis of the very concept of human rights."
"One gets the impression democratic states and international organizations are playing a game of hide-and-seek with dictatorships and authoritarian regimes," Zhovtis wrote in the statement. which was read at the Human Rights Summit 2010, an event sponsored by the democratization watchdog group Freedom House International. "You pretend that you agree with us on the issue of guaranteeing human rights . . . and we will pretend that we don't see you violating your obligations."
Zhovtis, who is the head of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, was not in Washington to read his statement. Since September of last year, has been held in a Kazakhstani prison following his conviction for being the driver of a car that hit and killed a pedestrian walking along an unlit road at night. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Zhovtis maintains his innocence, and has described his conviction as a "political setup." His appeal is currently making its way through the Kazakhstani judicial system. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In his statement, Zhovtis suggested that leading democracies, in particular the United States and European Union, lacked the will to punish states that violate international rights standards. "Either international human rights treaties are legally binding . . . and their implementation carries with it some practical consequences, or we need to admit that international law regarding human rights simply does not exist," the statement said. Zhovtis singled out post-Soviet states, where "the principle (that) citizens are permitted anything that is not forbidden by law, [and] the authorities are forbidden everything not expressly allowed by law, is turned on its head."
Zhovtis' conviction came only months before Kazakhstan assumed the OSCE chairmanship on January 1. Democratization advocates assert that Astana has not lived up to reform pledges that it made in order to secure the chairmanship. [For background see EurasiaNet archive].
Kazakhstan leaders insist that have lived up to their word, pointing to a number of reforms, including one that lowered the threshold for registering a political party from 50,000 to 40,000 signatures. Critics, meanwhile, counter that the country has a one-party parliament, which has recently passed laws restricting freedom of expression and curtailing religious freedom. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In his statement, Zhovtis hinted that the OSCE was not fulfilling its central role of encouraging states to democratize.
"Every report of the OSCE, which has monitored elections in Kazakhstan for almost 15 years, begins with the words that our country had taken an important step on the path to reaching international standards for free-and-fair elections. And every report eventually concludes that elections in Kazakhstan still fail to meet international standards, but steps have been taken. How many?" Zhovtis asked.
"I've counted," Zhovtis continued. "According to the OSCE reports, our country has taken at a minimum seven important steps, and so it's difficult to understand why, then, we haven't moved off of square one, and why in 2010, the year of Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the OSCE, we have a one-party parliament. I would venture to say that there are many such examples involving different countries around the world."
Zhovtis's case itself has become a symbol for rights activists, who contend that the judge's verdict appeared to have been prepared in advance of the closing arguments. [For background see EurasiaNet archive].
"We are deeply convinced that the trial over Yevgeny Zhovtis was not a trial over a participant in an automobile accident," Slava Abramov, editor of the Almaty-based Voice of Freedom of Central Asia, told EurasiaNet in a recent interview. "It was the trial over the human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis, and that's what's at issue here -- not the guilt or innocence of Kazakh citizen Yevgeny Zhovtis."
