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My name is Lukpan Akhmedyarov, I am a journalist working in Kazakhstan
For the last 10 years I have worked for (Uralskaya Nedelya)a small regional newspaper in Uralsk a city in the western part of the country
The newspaper began in 2001 and was founded as a special project where the creators and directors were themselves journalists.
We very quickly acquired a reputation of being in opposition with the government.
a newspaper whose journalists have a tendency of conducting very close investigations and report on the authorities actions.
which suited us perfectly as we always remembered the famous phrase that journalists are the watchdogs of democracy, so we were carrying out this function
We followed and covered the elections and informed our readers how every year the elections are increasingly falsified, we brought light to various irregularities.
We observed how the parliament ceased being a multi party body, how it became a one party assembly when the President's party "Nur Otan" gained power.
We saw how increasingly, all independent branches of government ceased to exist, becoming integrated into the presidents vertical power structure.
Currently, Kazakhstan has no independent parliament, it is now directly within the vertical power structure.
there is also no independent judiciary, no independent courts or prosecution which would uphold the law.
and sadly, in the last 11 years, less and less media, and our colleagues, have managed to remain independent.
if in 2001, you had 3 independent TV stations
as well as a whole range of independent newspapers
then today in 2013, we are in a situation where practically no independent media remains.
there is no independent TV station which has coverage on Kazakhstan's territory.
And perhaps the most worrying, is that recently one politician informed me
"Lukpan, do you realise that your newspaper is the last independent newspaper in Kazakhstan"
this is truly awful as we are just a small regional newspaper in the west of Kazakhstan,
while the rest of the country with 16 million citizens, have no access to alternative sources of information.
The oil workers which went on strike in the town of Zhanaozen, did this for 7 months until the 16th of December
In March of 2011, they organised their first meeting to demand that the managers of the company "KazMunaiGaz" raise their wages.
People noticed that wages were very low for this region in spite of the colossal amounts of oil extracted
it was perceived ordinary people have not benefited as a result of this wealth
Yet the local government authorities and company management approached the situation in a very biased manner.
Instead of establishing a political dialogue and all holding talks with the striking workers
First they determined that this was a labour conflict not a political conflict and that their demands were illegal
Their second action involved firing all of the striking workers (more than 3000) depriving them of their livelihoods
And during the next 7 months, these workers came every day to the square, and just stood there, with the demand that the state and employers take notice of their situation.
throughout the 7 months, there was never a case of talks taking place, or a case of their concerns or needs being heard, or of any promises being made to them.
Instead the state authorities and company managers took a series of completely incomprehensible actions
first they fire the labour union leader and then open up a criminal case eventually sentencing him to 6 years in jail.
The motive? Allegedly the union leader who was trying to protect workers' rights, was all along "inciting social hatred". just complete nonsense...
at the same time there are other criminal incidents such as that of one activists daughter being kidnapped and killed.
also during this period, journalists from the TV station K Plus which were covering the story, faced a violent attack, by youths armed with traumatic guns, resulting in serious injuries.
the striking oil workers came to the understanding that no one from the government was going to talk to them. Neither the employers nor the state authorities wanted to talk.
This all ended on December the 16th, 2011, in the town of Zhanaozen, with shots fired at the protest action.
16.12.2011, Zhanaozen, Kazakhstan
According to official statistics, 16 people were killed with 70 injured,
as a result of this tragedy a government court opposition leader sentenced Vladimir Kozlov to imprisonment, again under charges of inciting social hatred.
Following this indictment, Kazakhstans court proceeds to ban all publications that had covered the events in Zhanaozen
this terminology of "inciting social hatred" has become a very useful definition for the authorities deal with inconvenient journalists and social activists.
On April 19, 2012, around 11 o clock at night, while walking home having just parked my car next to my house
two people emerged from the night and attacked me.
they shot me in the head with a traumatic gun
and then proceeded to stab me several times, the doctors counted 8, and then shot me again this time hitting my elbow.
And it was immediately apparent that this was not just an act of hooliganism, this was an attempted ***.
Except I survived, thanks to our doctors,
this act was a clear warning to our newspapers journalists, and to the wider public, that this is what will happen to you if you criticize the government, if you dare to have a different opinion.
Following this attack I went to the hospital, was operated on and survived thanks to our doctors
But it was immediately clear that law-enforcement agencies were disinterested in investigating this case in an objective manner.
The following day the police opened up a criminal case under the article of hooliganism
and the city's prosecutor deemed that though it was a *** attempt, this was purely coincidental and in no way linked to my profession.
This resulted in spontaneous protests where people were outraged that a journalist was attacked and the police is inadequately investigating the case.
At this point Reporters without Borders as well as the OSCE issued statements urging the government to thouroughly investigate this case.
Within 3 days, the police reclassified the case and reclassified the case as an attempted *** attempt.
However the thing is that in 2012, a further 19 journalists were attacked, and in no case were they classified as attempted murders of journalists
instead they have all been classified as acts of hooliganism
In addition, people are unhappy about various other government actions.
Firstly it is the total corrupt state of society which is present in all levels of the government.
Our citizens are forced to deal with this every day, for example to send your child to pre-school, one has to pay a bribe.
If you want your wife to give birth under normal conditions, you also have to pay bribes at the hospital
To send your child to school you have to pray a bribe, in higher education, to recieve good grades students pay bribes.
To get hired for a job you have to pay bribes, and it even went to the extreme that to bury someone you have to pay a bribe to get a piece of ground.
And you have to understand that a Kazakh citizen is forced to deal with this from their birth to their deaths, and corruption has taken on an all encompassing nature.
And all of this begins with the fact that state budgetary processes are completely hidden, and people have no idea of how their taxes are being used.
how efficiently their tax money is being spent.
We see regular cases where tax money is used to build a hospital and it turns out it was completely inadequately built and could not be used.
Or recently in Kharkand, a newly built residential building collapsed on itself, due to insufficient cement being used
The fact that Kazakhstan entered the OSCE, later gaining the OSCE presidency and now entering the Human Rights Council
is used by the government as a propaganda tool to convince people that they are respected internationally.
that all criticism of us being a undemocratic country is unsubstantiated
There are crucial factors which influence world economic and political structures to believe Nazarbayev, which are
oil, gas and metals.
In any international dealings Nazarbayev always holds these aces.
Many of these resources go to Europe, for example every 4th car in Switzerland gets its petrol from Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan exports gas to Europe as well as precious minerals
Of course I understand that Europe needs these resources to grow their economies, to maintain a high standard of living.
I can see Europe is very concerned with defending its economic interests, then why can't they also help defend human rights, freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protests.
It appears to me that the OSCE, UN, IMF etc. are trusting Nazarbayev while at the same time they should be asking
Mr. President, we extended our trust to you, however we must work out how you will reciprocate this trust.
Lets set terms, for example that in 2 years, mechanisms will be set up to allow for free and fair elections,
to set up principles and mechanisms to allow for the formation of a multi-party parliament
to within the year create conditions for the existence of a free and independent media
None of these conditions are being set, hence creating a sense of disillusionment amongst the people towards international institutions.
and the disillusionment which arose when in 2011 Kazakhstan gained the OSCE presidency, while at the end of the year the police opens fire on its own people in Zhanaozen,
led to the fact that many of the 16 million people in Kazakhstan think that
the OSCE and the UN serve no purpose, if they close their eyes on such unlawful actions.
at the moment I am expecting Kazakhstan's presence in the Human Rights Council will not have the desired effect
At the same time one must understand that this is a political process on the part of the international community where it is necessary to continue the dialogue
where the UN and international organisations trust Kazakhstan to improve their internal situation, that they will respect their obligations.
Such steps are necessary as without any kind of dialogue hoping for a change of attitudes would be completely futile.
So I hope that the Kazakhstan's membership in the Human Rights Council will hold the presidents administration within certain borders
He will not get better, but I just hope that he doesn't get worse
This is my hope