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One 12 months in the past, state media largely ignored the most important outbreak of civil unrest in Kazakhstan’s historical past. The job of informing the general public objectively in regards to the widespread protests fell on impartial reporters and some so-called citizen journalists and bloggers who did their jobs at nice private danger. These journalists have been attacked by protesters, assailed and tear-gassed by police, shot with rubber bullets, detained, and in some circumstances arrested, overwhelmed, and imprisoned.
When the air, so not too long ago full of smoke from grenades and bullets, each rubber and actual, cleared, reporters have been those urgent the federal government for a full accounting of the 238 individuals killed, greater than 4,500 injured, round 10,000 detained, and a number of other hundred reportedly tortured.
That is the story of the Qandy Qantar — “Bloody January” — rebellion by means of the eyes of those that lined it, starting in Zhanaozen and ending in Almaty.
You possibly can learn this sequence in English at The Diplomat and in Russian and Kazakh at Orda.kz.
TARAZ, Kazakhstan: Nuradin Rakay had not left his home in 5 days. He’d heard by means of colleagues that he was on a listing of individuals to be arrested after having attended the town’s January 2022 protests.
Nuradin stated he had gone to the town middle as an impartial journalist on January 4 however hadn’t worn his press vest as he livestreamed the protest to his Fb web page. However then, Nuradin — a former press secretary to the regional mayor and adviser to the town mayor — put down his digital camera and in an authoritative voice made two speeches, every lasting a few minute.
Afterward, a policeman pulled Nuradin from the gang and urged him to depart instantly. He did. Minutes later, police wearing black garments and surgical masks started grabbing protesters and ushering them into police buses. Two journalists have been briefly detained. A 3rd, Aizhan Auelbekova, a correspondent for Vremya, was taken to the police station the place she stated she was overwhelmed earlier than being launched three hours later.
Nuradin was summoned to the police station, too. Police instructed him there can be an investigation, suggested him to return dwelling, and warned him not depart his home. For days Nuradin waited. Via buddies he realized how 1000’s of protesters had amassed on the sq. and the way the peaceable rally had become a lethal riot.
On the night time of January 6, protesters set hearth to the buildings of the regional mayor, a political social gathering constructing, a number of police buildings, and a pre-trial detention middle.
Safety forces returned hearth on what they stated was an armed group of protesters. The Zhambyl regional mayor stated 15 individuals have been killed, all from bullet wounds. (RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, Radio Azattyq, lists 18 deaths from the area.) Greater than 288 individuals have been injured, most of them between 17 and 25 years previous.
On January 9, Nuradin heard the knock at his entrance door that he’d been anticipating.
Massive crowds gathered in Taraz to protest in early January 2022. Photograph credit score: Islambek Dastan
Watchers
About 110 miles west of Taraz lies Shymkent, with a inhabitants simply over 1 million — greater than twice that of Taraz. Though the 2 cities in southern Kazakhstan are dissimilar in some ways, the protests and legislation enforcement response in each throughout early January performed out in eerily related methods. Like Taraz, protests in Shymkent began round midday on January 4 however have been scattered all through the town.
Dilara Isa, 36, was a reporter for Azattyq in early January when protests broke out in Shymkent. Photograph offered by creator.
On that day, Dilara Isa, 36, then a reporter for Azattyq, observed a number of individuals sitting in a automobile watching her home. Dilara was used to seeing such watchers. For years, individuals wearing civilian garments would present up outdoors her home and comply with her any time there was a protest. Dilara usually took the bus to protests as a result of she felt safer amid the opposite passengers. However at the least one of many watchers would get on the bus, too, after which overtly take footage of her. A number of instances Dilara confronted the watchers — who she believes are police or state safety officers, referred to as KNB — demanding to know why they have been following her and taking her image. However they by no means answered.
When Dilara arrived on the sq. in entrance of the town corridor on January 4, she observed about 20 protesters and the identical individuals who had been staking out her home. Dilara traveled across the metropolis filming sporadic protests that have been shortly quashed when police hauled away a number of the protesters. Wherever she went, the watchers adopted her.
Carrying a press vest and a masks with the Azattyq emblem, Dilara livestreamed the peaceable rallies on to the Azattyq web site. She filmed individuals holding up the Kazakhstan flag and singing the nationwide anthem. At one level whereas she was filming police arresting protesters, a feminine police officer, who Dilara knew, demanded she cease recording. Dilara requested the officer to not disrupt her work, however the officer stood in entrance of her digital camera and regularly blocked Dilara’s view.
By 8:30 p.m. about 5,000 individuals had gathered on Al-Farabi Avenue between Shymkent Plaza, which homes a multi-level procuring middle and the Russian Drama Theater.
Hundreds gathered outdoors Shymkent Plaza. Photograph credit score: Dilara Isa for RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, Azzatyq.
“For a second, the gang and the police appeared at a loss as to what to do subsequent,” Dilara stated.
Police blocked the streets however stopped attempting to detain anybody. Then the web ceased working, however Dilara continued to movie.
“All I used to be pondering is that I’ve to cowl every part as a result of I used to be the one journalist there,” she stated. “The entire duty to cowl this fell on me.”
Protesters made a listing of social calls for and insisted police launch people who had been detained. By 11 p.m. greater than 10,000 individuals crowded into the realm close to the plaza. The gang was loud however peaceable. They demanded the town mayor handle them; when he didn’t seem, they determined to stroll to metropolis corridor, about 5 and half miles away.
As the gang marched they sang the nationwide anthem and stopped visitors. These in automobiles turned on patriotic songs at full quantity and rolled down their home windows. Some shouted: “Previous man go away!” “Get up Kazakhs!” “Down with corruption!”
The procession stretched for greater than a mile. Residents stood on their balconies on each side of the streets to observe. Protesters inspired the bystanders to hitch them.
Most protesters have been younger, Dilara stated. Many have been girls and activists, however there additionally was a contingent of males carrying beards and quick pants — distinctly Islamic gown — who shouted “Allahu Akbar” — “God is the best.” Some protesters suggested the gang to not destroy property.
When the gang reached metropolis corridor at 1:30 a.m. on January 5, they have been met by an extra 1,000 protesters already gathered on the town sq.. Dilara noticed individuals attempting to get into metropolis corridor.
The peaceable rally then turned ugly: Somebody threw stones and broke home windows at metropolis corridor.
“I couldn’t imagine my eyes once I noticed somebody climb on high of the police automobile and began kicking it and breaking home windows,” Dilara stated. When she acquired nearer, she noticed that the police automobile had been turned over.
“One in every of them stated: ‘Let’s destroy all of the automobiles.’ In 10 minutes, the home windows of dozens of police automobiles have been smashed,” she stated. “There was smoke and dirt combined within the air.”
A police car overturned amid the early January 2022 protests in Shymkent. Photograph credit score: Dilara Isa for RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, Azzatyq.
“Individuals Have been Crying and Struggling”
On January 9, three days after the protests resulted in Taraz, Nuradin opened his entrance door to search out police wearing civilian garments.
“They took me to the station and arrested me,” Nuradin stated. “I used to be overwhelmed. They beat me with their palms, with a gun, with a baton. I used to be primarily overwhelmed on my physique, on my kidneys. However it wasn’t solely me. We have been in a small barracks, and so they have been bringing increasingly individuals —greater than 100 individuals. There was no air in there. Individuals have been crying and struggling.”
Nuradin stated he was pressured to go by means of a small hall the place police have been beating 10 individuals at a time.
“I believed that I used to be going to die,” he stated. He puzzled what would come subsequent and whether or not he may maintain the blows.
Listening to the cries of others being overwhelmed introduced him again to the second and the query of why he was punished for talking up. He mirrored on what he’d stated on the sq.. He thought he was doing the best factor, advising the protesters to not destroy property and to make their calls for identified to the mayor.
Police, carrying masks and civilian garments, pressured him and others to lie in a susceptible place whereas the beating resumed. The primary day he fell unconscious after he was overwhelmed. He had a tough time respiratory. Then his kidneys stopped working and for 3 days he couldn’t urinate.
Because the beatings continued, Nuradin fell out and in of consciousness. He was afraid in some unspecified time in the future he merely wouldn’t get up. “I believed if I die, I will be unable to show that I’m not responsible,” he stated.
Police dragged him right into a particular room for interrogation and used psychological tips on him. “They’d inform me: ‘Yesterday we noticed you with a grenade in your palms; we noticed you with a gun.’ ”
Throughout the interrogation he wasn’t allowed to have a look at his interrogators. Throughout beatings he stated he was made to face the wall or away from the individual administering the punishment. “They power you to say that you simply noticed some individual, you knew some individual. For those who refused to say what they instructed you, they made you enter the room the place the beatings came about.”
Nuradin continued to insist he was harmless. He’d been at dwelling since January 4, adhering to the police warning to not return to the town sq..
“I used to be fairly a well-known journalist round right here, and I additionally had some official place within the mayor’s workplace as an adviser,” he defined.
He stated his interrogators knew this and taunted him. “They stated: ‘Properly, why don’t you write about this then?’”
After studying that he had been detained, many buddies have been afraid to go his home, he stated. The neighborhood handled his household as if he had develop into “an enemy of the nation.”
“My spouse and youngsters didn’t know if I used to be alive or useless,” he stated.
Protesters Grow to be Aggressive
Because the protest within the early morning hours of January 5 grew violent, the protesters grew to become extra aggressive towards Dilara, too. One man scolded Dilara for filming the violence, saying her photographs and movies would get protesters in hassle. She ignored him. Others grabbed at her arm, attempting to yank away her cellphone. A younger man with a beard and quick trousers yelled at her to cease filming. She instructed him to not intervene. A youngster with the person stated they’d inform the “abi” and he would break her cellphone. An “abi” is the chief of a spiritual group.
Dilara observed that the protesters who smashed home windows and broken automobiles have been completely different from the peaceable protesters who’d put ahead calls for, sang the nationwide anthem, and suggested others within the crowd to not destroy property.
Extra police automobiles lay overturned after protests grew to become violent in Shymkent. Photograph credit score: Dilara Isa for RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, Azzatyq.
As protesters grew extra aggressive towards her, Dilara determined she wanted to depart. Her husband had joined her as soon as she’d reached metropolis corridor, however by then she felt it was too harmful for the 2 of them. Her husband drove them dwelling round 3 a.m., adopted by the automobile stuffed with watchers.
From dwelling, Dilara and her husband may nonetheless hear the sound of exploding stun grenades coming from the neighborhood of metropolis corridor, a 15-minute drive from their home.
Witnesses known as her on the cellphone and stated safety forces have been utilizing a water cannon.
The morning of January 5, Dilara went to metropolis corridor and noticed police and troopers lined up in entrance of the constructing. Close by have been a dozen destroyed and overturned police automobiles.
“The town gave the impression to be gripped by an incomprehensible worry,” she stated. In all places she went, individuals have been whispering that one other protest was deliberate for that night at metropolis corridor. “Individuals have been warned to take money from the banks. Some banks had stopped working. They have been warned to get groceries earlier than 5 p.m. as a result of the retailers have been closing. There was a number of panic.”
Dilara deliberate to cowl the protest a second night time, however when she known as her editor on the Azattyq workplace in Almaty, she was instructed that journalists in Almaty had been shot at. Editors have been ordering reporters to remain dwelling.
From dwelling at about 9 p.m., Dilara stated she once more heard the sound of stun grenades coming from metropolis corridor. Two hours later, a number of activists she knew known as her and stated individuals had been shot, some fatally, and plenty of have been injured. Why wasn’t she there? They requested. She instructed every of them that she’d been ordered to remain away by her editors.
Dilara stated she fought the urge to return to the scene all night time.
The calls stored coming till 3 a.m. She reminded herself she was the married mom of 4 youngsters.
“I couldn’t shut my eyes,” she stated.
The taking pictures continued till 6 a.m., she stated.
Later that morning, Dilara went to metropolis corridor and located 50 to 60 protesters milling about. Troopers encircled the mayor’s burned-out workplace constructing. There was blood on the bottom and bullet casings. Cobblestone on the sq. was destroyed. Vehicles have been burned.
A number of activists instructed her how members of the navy and particular forces had begun taking pictures and the way ambulances couldn’t attain injured individuals.
“I regretted then that I didn’t come out at night time and document what was taking place,” she stated.
Like a Russian Crime Film
On his fourth day in detention, January 12, Nuradin turned 35. He didn’t know the way lengthy he was going to have to remain in that place.
In some unspecified time in the future, Nuradin stated he had a trial earlier than a choose who appeared on a video monitor. “The choose instructed me that there ought to simply be a warning and I ought to must pay a positive.”
“I instructed them that I’m not going to pay cash and that if I’ve any guilt, I’ll go to jail. I’m not in any situation to pay any cash. I’ve 5 youngsters to lift.”
Some detainees have been fined about 60,000 tenge, about $124, and have been joyful to pay to be free of police detention, he stated. Others acquired 10 days of administrative detention and didn’t dispute the sentencing as a result of it meant they may depart the barracks the place they have been overwhelmed each day.
On January 21, Nuradin was launched. He posted about his 13 days in police detention on Fb.
“For half a month they investigated whether or not I used to be a terrorist,” he wrote. “It was a scene from a daily Russian crime film. What did the chief of the social gathering whose constructing burnt down achieve from horrifying journalists? I’m not a terrorist.”
Nuradin’s physique was purple with bruises and his head was swollen from being hit, he stated. After his launch, he was nonetheless having issue urinating and sought medical therapy. He stated docs on the hospital instructed him his kidneys have been barely broken, nevertheless it wasn’t vital.
Discovering a job was his largest problem. After his detention, he stated firms have been afraid to rent him. “They have been pondering that I might deliver issues.”
It took 5 months, however he lastly was employed as a journalist at Channel 31, he stated. He had beforehand labored for the channel for 9 years till 2019. After that he labored as a press secretary for the regional mayor. And after that job, he labored as an advisor within the Division of State Architectural and Building Management.
Nuradin contends that earlier than he made his speech on January 4, he resigned from his metropolis place “so no one would have issues due to me.” However on his Fb web page, Nuradin twice instructed his readers that he was fired from his job.
Nuradin Rakay went to the town middle of Taraz as an impartial journalist on January 4. Photograph offered by creator.
A Secret Doc
Dilara was decided to search out out what had occurred late January 5 and early January 6 when the taking pictures began in Shymkent. She interviewed witnesses, the injured, and households of the useless.
Dilara needed to know the way 73 individuals had been shot and 20 killed, and why police had detained greater than 3,500 individuals. She wrote tales in regards to the useless and lined their circumstances in court docket as prosecutors labeled them “terrorists.”
“All these tales began to have an effect on me psychologically,” she stated. “The deeper I acquired within the tales, the small print of how a few of them died, and the way others have been purely unintended had an impact on me.”
Dilara believed her cellphone was tapped and that she remained below surveillance by the KNB or police, so she was cautious about the place and the way she interviewed individuals. A supply, whose identification she continues to guard, offered her a secret police investigative doc in regards to the 20 individuals killed throughout the protests.
“It was a vital doc,” she stated. “My editors have been shocked.”
For weeks, metropolis officers denied that police and navy had used reside ammunition towards protesters. The key doc Dilara acquired offered simple proof that metropolis officers had sanctioned police and particular forces to make use of lethal power on protesters.
In accordance with the doc, about 11 p.m. on January 5, Shymkent metropolis officers licensed the police and navy officers to fireside 9 mm caliber pistols and 12 mm automated weapons on protesters.
“The protesters have been in a state of alcoholic intoxication, weren’t afraid of stun grenades, tear fuel, and water cannons, have been extremely aggressive and used smoothbore weapons and different weapons, threw Molotov cocktails, and attacked the police and the navy from all aspect,” the doc said.
Twenty-three navy, 51 law enforcement officials and two medical staff have been injured, based on the doc; 142 police and navy automobiles have been burned or broken. The doc additionally listed objects stolen throughout the protests: two Makarov pistols, 151 items of physique armor, 81 shields, 57 helmets, 110 rubber batons, 51 radios.
Of the 20 individuals killed, solely three had traces of alcohol of their system, based on the doc. Solely a type of killed was discovered with a weapon: an automated pistol and 4 rounds of ammunition.
The households of the useless have been outraged once they realized the town authorities had licensed the usage of reside ammunition. “My son went to a rally,” stated Murat Abdraimov, father of Nurbolat Alpamys, 19. “However he didn’t break something. My son was shot within the head. Why are they allowed to shoot at unusual peaceable individuals?”
In November, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev granted amnesty to tons of of people that have been charged and imprisoned in reference to the January protests. Human rights activists say the amnesty permits legislation enforcement officers who opened hearth on unarmed demonstrators to evade prosecution.
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Tomorrow, January 7, we are going to comply with the story of Kazakhstan’s Bloody January to Almaty.
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