"There was a high level of torture in the country and failure to provide full reparation to the victims. What actions were exempt from the definition of torture? What steps had been taken to amend the definition of torture contained in article 416 of the Criminal Code with a view to ensuring that it cover acts of torture committed by any “other person acting in an official capacity” and to removing the defence of physical and mental suffering caused as a result of “legitimate acts” of officials? --- There were reports that the Kazakh authorities regularly used preventive detention, for example, for participants of planned demonstrations. On what charges had recent protesters for land rights been held in preventive detention in Astana? --- As for the freedom of expression, to what extent did journalists have an enabling environment to carry out their activities? "
ohchr.org: (full text)
http://www.ohchr.org/RU/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20166&LangID=E#sthash.QLzdPXKh.dpufhttp://www.ohchr.org/RU/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20166&LangID=E
Forum 18: "KAZAKHSTAN: Harsher laws planned as 89-year-old fined"
http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2188
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News about well-known human rights defender Vadim Kuramshin:
http://forum-msk.org/material/power/11937207.html
npravo: "Vadim Kuramshin statement at the session of the OSCE in Warsaw"
(Summary)
http://npravo.org/archives/533
Ekaterina Kuramshina: "Exactly three years ago my husband, a human rights advocate from Kazakhstan, Vadim Kuramshin was making a speech here. He was talking about the corrupt judicial system, arbitrary rule in prisons, the transnational criminals who let themselves go in the CIS, the lack of freedom of speech and access to justice, as well as persecution of the independent mass media in Kazakhstan.
In the concluding part of his speech he predicted that, after his return to Kazakhstan, he would either be assassinated by a secret service or be reimprisoned. --- His return was followed by a violent arrest on the legal case in which he had earlier been found not guilty by a jury.
On the day when the verdict of the jury was abolished, long before the court order was announced, the police put a cordon round the building in which we rented a flat. Several hours before the abolition of the verdict the police, knowing what the court decision would be, started breaking in our flat.
Having broken down the door without a court order, a brutal special unit broke in our dwelling. Vadim, me, and our six-year-old son were brought down to the floor. They started beating Vadim before the child’s eyes. Then Vadim was brought to the prison in Petropavlovsk where he was thrown to a torture cell. He had to cut his veins in order to avoid sexual abuse there...."
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