After deadly Kazakhstan unrest, families wait outside jail, search morgues
- Dozens died in Kazakhstan unrest that began with protests over an energy price hike
- Hundreds were injured and police said they arrested more than 12,000 people
With about 12,000 people arrested after anti-government protests in Kazakhstan last week, friends and relatives of those held by police waited outside a jail, hoping to learn their fate.
Some even went to morgues to see if a loved one was among the scores killed in the unprecedented violence in the Central Asian nation.
Authorities have refused to allow relatives or lawyers to see those in custody, giving little information about them, according to human rights activists.
The demonstrations began January 2 in the western part of Kazakhstan over a sharp rise in fuel prices and spread throughout the country, apparently reflecting wider discontent with the government, which declared a state of emergency for the whole country and asked a Russia-led military alliance to send in troops to help restore order.
Another 1,678 people were arrested in one day this week in Almaty, the largest city that was hit hardest by the turmoil, and more than 300 criminal investigations have been opened. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev blamed the unrest on foreign-backed “terrorists”, but did not provide any evidence, and had given shoot-to-kill orders to security forces to quell the unrest.
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Outside a branch of the Internal Affairs department that housed a large detention centre, a man who gave his name only as Renat said he has been waiting nearly a week to see or get any information about a close friend, Zhandos Nakipovich. He said Nakipovich, whom he described as being like “a brother” to him, was taken into custody on January 4 during a peaceful protest.