Lawyers accuse government of concealing truth about January 2022 unrest 

The Kazakh authorities have failed to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the January 2022 unrest, a group of independent lawyers has said. 

About 230 people died in the violence that followed days of peaceful rallies across Kazakhstan. The protests, which were triggered by a rise in fuel prices, turned violent when they reached Almaty.  

President Tokayev’s government said the unrest was a coup attempt by associates of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The latter confirmed that in a recently released autobiography. Former security chief Karim Masimov and several other officials were tried on charges of treason after the riots. 

However, the government has failed to ensure thorough, open, and fair investigations into the killings that took place during the unrest, the International Legal Initiative told journalists at a briefing in Almaty this week. 

“This is being done to conceal the whole picture,” ILI head Amangeldy Shormanbayev told the briefing that was streamed live on Facebook. 

The ILI has been for the past two years monitoring trials connected to the unrest and providing legal assistance to the victims and their families. Some victims were shot by law-enforcement forces in suppressing the unrest, and some were tortured to death in police custody. 

The ILI members said that many of the civilian deaths were not investigated as murder or manslaughter cases but as abuse of power or exceeding one’s remit – offences that entail lighter punishment. Most of the trials were closed. 

They cited the case of Zhasulan Anafiyayev, who died of torture at a detention centre. Seven people have been convicted over his death. However, they were not charged with murder, but only with using torture. 

There was no proper medical examination of the dead bodies, which suggests that there was no intention of conducting proper investigations into those deaths from the outset, the ILI lawyers said.  

Almaty’s Respublika square, the focal point of the unrest, was quickly cleaned up, which the ILI sees as concealment of evidence and obstruction of justice. 

“The square was a crime scene, but they swept up all the empty shells and bullets,” Shormanbayev said. 

The authorities have also suppressed victims’ families attempts to seek justice, according to ILI lawyer Qyzgaldak Kalykulova. 

The ILI members also said their research did not find any evidence that the violence was started by the protesters.  

They said that according to video evidence and witness accounts there were specific “groups” who started attacking the police once the protesters reached the main Almaty square.  

Shormanbayev alleged that those “provocateurs” were criminals used by the security service to spark violence. The goal was to give the police an excuse to start forcible suppression of the protest.  

“The police had no intention of starting a dialogue, they were prepared to use force at once,” he said. 

The ILI also questioned President Tokayev’s decision to invite Collective Security Treaty Organisation forces to help restore order. 

“It was our internal political affair. There was no external aggression, we were not invaded by anybody,” Shormanbayev said. 

He added that since the weapons used by CSTO forces were not registered in Kazakhstan’s bullet and shell casing repository, “if they killed anyone here, we will never be able to prove it”. 

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