Kazakhstan

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.

Issues:

Civil Society, Human Rights Defense, Rule of Law

Regions:

Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Freedom Alert

Kazakh Court Rejects Appeal for Activist Kozlov

Nov 19 2012 - 3:37pm

Freedom House condemns a Kazakhstani court’s decision to reject the appeal of opposition activist and leader of the unregistered Alga! Party, Vladimir Kozlov. Kozlov was sentenced October 8th to 7½ years in prison for inciting social hatred, calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order of the state, and creating an organized criminal group. The charges were originally levied against Kozlov following the government’s violent suppression of riots in the town of Zhanaozen in December 2011.

Issues:

Civil Society, Freedom of Association, Human Rights Defense, Rule of Law

Regions:

Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Press Release

U.N. Elects Human Rights' Foes to the Human Rights Council

Nov 13 2012 - 2:38pm

The reelection of the United States to the United Nations Human Rights Council was a positive development in a largely disappointing election by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) yesterday, in which seven countries with poor human rights records—Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela—were also elected.

Issues:

Human Rights Defense, U.S. Foreign Policy, United Nations

Regions:

Americas, Asia-Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe

Experts

Robert Herman

Vice President for Regional Programs

Issues:

Civil Society, Democratic Governance, Freedom of Association, U.S. Foreign Policy

Regions:

Sub-Saharan Africa

Susan Corke

Director for Eurasia Programs

Regions:

Central and Eastern Europe/Eurasia

Sylvana Habdank-Kołaczkowska

Project Director of "Nations in Transit"

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

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