Explore Issue Areas

  • Aging
  • Agriculture and Food
  • Animal Welfare
  • Arts and Culture
  • Athletics and Sports
  • Children and Youth
  • Civil Society
  • Community and Economic Development
  • Computers and Technology
  • Consumer Protection
  • Crime and Safety
  • Disabilities
  • Education and Literacy
  • Employment and Labor
  • Energy and Environment
  • LGBTQI
  • Government Reform
  • Health
  • Housing and Homelessness
  • Human Rights and Civil Liberties
  • Humanitarian and Disaster Relief
  • Hunger
  • Immigration
  • International Development
  • Journalism and Media
  • Men
  • Nonprofits and Philanthropy
  • Parenting and Families
  • Peace and Conflict
  • Poverty
  • Prison and Judicial Reform
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • Religion
  • Science
  • Substance Abuse and Recovery
  • Transportation
  • Welfare and Public Assistance
  • Women

Explore Collections

Special Collections are curated collections of research that address a specific topic or research question.

  • IssueLab Results is #OpenForGood

  • Democracy Special Collection

  • Gun Violence Special Collection

  • Immigration Strategies Special Collection

  • Affordable Care Act Special Collection

  • Race and Policing Special Collection

View All

Knowledge Centers are a custom service of IssueLab providing organizations with a simple way to manage and share knowledge on their own websites.

  • New York Foundation Knowledge Center

  • European Foundation Centre Knowledge Center

  • TrustAfrica's African Giving Knowledge Center

View All
Get our monthly emails
  • Help
  • Sign in
  • Upload
  • Issue Areas
  • Collections
  • Services
  • About
  • News

Please login first to save in your collection.

LOGIN

SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

My Collection (0)


Visit My Library
GET EMAILS UPLOAD

Kazakhstan: Cunning Democracy

Oct 16, 2013
  • Civil Society
  • Human Rights and Civil Liberties
  • Journalism and Media

  • DESCRIPTION

Kazakhstan has travelled a long and sometimes difficult road in the years since independence in 1991. From being largely isolated from the world outside the Soviet Union, globalization has taken hold at an increasingly fast pace. Today, numerous international flights bring in still larger numbers of visitors -- be they businessmen, tourists or locals returning from studies or work abroad. The internet age is slowly reaching even the most outlying parts of the country, bringing with it new impulses and perspectives to a young population that grew up after the Soviet era. While the ongoing integration of Central Asia into the global scene involves rapid change on many levels, certain areas are still left behind. It is not unusual for the population to be without electricity and gas during severe winter frosts. Bureaucracy too, retains much of its post-Soviet legacy, as do the attitudes of some government officials and key decision-makers. National economic indicators are not always consistent with the reality of those struggling to get by in the cities and villages dotting Central Asia's vast landscape. As the economic leader of the Central Asian region and the country most strongly tuned in to the global diplomatic and business communities, Kazakhstan carries a particular responsibility to respect, and indeed to promote, human rights and democratic principles. However, while working along an ambitious program for planned future achievements both on the domestic and international arena, Kazakhstan has seen several major steps backwards in the area of human rights over the past two years. Following the tragic events in Zhanaozen in December 2011, when at least 16 strikers were shot and killed by government forces, authorities cracked down on selected opposition leaders such as Vladimir Kozlov of the Alga political party, sentencing him to seven-and-a-half years' imprisonment for his alleged involvement in the strikes. Soon after, the offices of Alga were closed down by authorities, followed by charges of extremism against independent and opposition media outlets, many of which were closed down by court order. As a result, Kazakhstan is currently economically strong, but suffering a bleak media scene, a lack of real political pluralism and a widespread disillusionment as to Kazakhstan's commitment to human rights. The following report summarizes some of our current concerns with regards to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion or belief. It also brings the perspective of one of Kazakhstan's most respected writers on current affairs, Sergey Duvanov, in a special article for the 2013 Human Dimensions Implementation Meeting in Warszaw. Other texts were prepared by Ivar Dale (NHC) and Viktoria Tyuleneva (FH).

More

Kazakhstan: Cunning Democracy

Download via IssueLab (483.22 KB)

Save To Library

Share Via

Suggest an edit

WHAT TO READ NEXT

  • Swaziland: A Failed Feudal State
  • One Step Forward, One Step Back: An Assessment of Freedom of Expression in Ukraine during its OSCE Chairmanship
  • Whistleblowers for Change : the Social and Economic Costs and Benefits of Leaking and Whistleblowing

Published By

  • Freedom House
  • Norwegian Helsinki Committee

Funded By

  • United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
  • Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NMFA)

Copyright

  • Copyright 2013 Freedom House, Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

Document Type

  • Report/Whitepaper

Language

  • English

Geography

  • Eurasia
  • Asia (Central) / Kazakhstan
  • Eurasia / Kazakhstan
  • Europe (Eastern) / Kazakhstan
Linked Data show/hide

This web page is marked up with Schema.org microdata and formatted for machine-reading. Here's why that matters. Have a peek at what a machine sees here .

Title: Kazakhstan: Cunning Democracy
Publication date 2013-10-16
Publication Year 2013
Copyright holder(s) Freedom House , Norwegian Helsinki Committee
Geographical Focus Eurasia , Asia (Central) / Kazakhstan , Eurasia / Kazakhstan , Europe (Eastern) / Kazakhstan
Keywords cunning , kazakhstani , peaceful assembly , NHC , human rights
Document type Report/Whitepaper
Language English
URL: https://ofg.crc.issuelab.org/resource/kazakhstan-cunning-democracy.html
Resource provided by IssueLab

Get free, worthwhile monthly emails from IssueLab!

IssueLab
  • About
  • News
  • Services
Join Us
  • Add to Issuelab
  • Open Knowledge
  • Use Our Data
Support
  • FAQ
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • ToS

Subscribe to our mailing list

There was an error with registration, please try again
Successfully registered!