Kazakhstan

17 million people
8,260 USD GNI (PPP)
Internet:
Partly Free
Press:
Not Free
Not Free

Population and GNI data source

News & Updates

Press Release

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

Dec 13 2012 - 3:01pm

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.

Issues: 
Civil Society, Human Rights Defense, Rule of Law
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia
News update

Kozlov Case File: Final Monitoring Report on the Trial of Vladimir Kozlov, Akzhanat Aminov, and Serik Sapargali

Dec 13 2012 - 2:54pm

Freedom House’s final monitoring report on the trial of Kazakhstani opposition activists Vladimir Kozlov and Akzhanat Aminov, and labor activist Serik Sapargali documents additional 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.

Issues: 
Civil Society, Human Rights Defense, Rule of Law
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia
News update

Third Monitoring Report Shows Grievous Violations of the Right to a Fair Trial in Kozlov Process

Oct 8 2012 - 9:27am

Freedom House monitored the entire trial of Kazakhstani opposition leader Vladimir Kozlov, who was tried alongside activists Serik Sapargali and Akzhanat Aminov on charges of attempting to overthrow the government of Kazakhstan through agitation and organization of striking oil workers in the western city of Zhanaozen. Previous monitoring reports on the trial can be found here and here.  This report covers the final period of the trial, from September 10th until October 8th.

Issues: 
Civil Society, Human Rights Defense, Rule of Law
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia
News update

Second Monitoring Report Documents Further Violations of Fair Trial in Kozlov Case

Sep 12 2012 - 4:03pm

Freedom House is monitoring the trial of Kazakhstani opposition leader Vladimir Kozlov, who is being tried alongside activists Serik Sapargali and Akzhanat Aminov on charges of attempting to overthrow the government of Kazakhstan through agitation and organization of striking oil workers in the western city of Zhanaozen. This report covers the period from August 27-September 7, 2012. The report on the first week of the trial can be found here.

Issues: 
Civil Society, Human Rights Defense, Rule of Law
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Experts

Robert Herman

Vice President for Regional Programs

Issues: 
Civil Society, Democratic Governance, Freedom of Association, U.S. Foreign Policy
Regions: 
Sub-Saharan Africa

Sylvana Habdank-Kołaczkowska

Project Director of "Nations in Transit"

Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Susan Corke

Director for Eurasia Programs


Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Signature Reports

Freedom in the World

Freedom on the Net

Freedom of the Press

Nations in Transit

Countries at the Crossroads

Special Reports

Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On

“Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On,” marks the 20th anniversary of the failed Soviet coup of August 19, 1991. The retrospective essay examines the changes in the political rights and civil liberties in the former Soviet Union over the last two decades, as well as includes graphs and rankings that illustrate the region's performance in the annual Freedom House publications Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press. The report  concludes that there is a serious and disturbing failure to embrace democratic institutions in most of the post-Soviet region.

Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

The Perpetual Battle: Corruption in the Former Soviet Union and the New EU Members

This article provides an overview of a number of key issues related to corruption that confront the countries of the former Soviet Union and the new members of the European Union. Findings from Nations in Transit, Freedom House's annual assessment of democratic development in the region, suggest that despite the passage of two decades since the collapse of the Soviet system, the non-Baltic former Soviet Union remains mired in institutionalized graft. Meanwhile, the new EU member states face their own persistent challenges as they struggle to combat political corruption.

Issues: 
Democratic Governance, Rule of Law
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Muzzling the Media: The Return of Censorship in the Commonwealth of Independent States

Only a decade and a half since the end of the Cold War, freedom of the press for millions of people across the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has come nearly full circle. The media landscape across most of today’s CIS in some aspects differs from that of the Soviet era, but in important ways is imposing a no less repressive news media environment. Gone is all encompassing ideological state media control. Russia – and most of the countries on its periphery – today features modern methods of information control that effectively shuts off the majority of people in these lands from news and information of political consequence.

Issues: 
Freedom of Expression, Internet Freedom
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Programs

Kazakhstan

In Kazakhstan, we work with prominent human rights organizations and religious communities to advocate against the government’s repeated attempts to institute repressive religious laws.

Issues: 
Religious Freedom

Kazakhstan

In Kazakhstan, Freedom House enhances the capacity of local civil society groups to rapidly respond to human rights violations and to provide advocates with the skills to defend the right to freedom of assembly.

Issues: 
Civil Society, Human Rights Defense
Regions: 
Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia