Monitoring of Opposition Trial in Kazakhstan Finds Process “Fundamentally Flawed”

Law enforcement fire on protesters in Zhanaozen.
Photo Credit | Screen-grab from video by user aoikaze777 posted on YouTube, zhanaozen strel’ba vid sverkhu.

Freedom House’s final monitoring report on the trial of Kazakhstani opposition activists Vladimir Kozlov and Akzhanat Aminov, and labor activist Serik Sapargali, documents gross violations of the right to a fair trial.  The defendants were convicted of inciting social hatred leading to violence on December 16, 2011, when law enforcement killed at least a dozen protesters in the western town of Zhanaozen. “The Kozlov trial was a true test of Kazakhstan’s commitment to the rule of law. Unfortunately it was a test Kazakhstan did not pass, and proved the commitment is in name only,” said Susan Corke, Freedom House’s director of Eurasia programs.

Read the report here.
Read the blog: Kazakhstan: One Year After Zhanaozen.