At least 225 people died during the riots that took place in this Central Asian country at the beginning of the year.
Le Monde with AFP
The Kazakhstan announced, Saturday, January 22, have arrested more than 450 people for “terrorism” and “mass disorders” after the deadly riots that have shaken this Central Asian country in early January.
Unprecedented events against an increase in energy prices had degenerated in riots and armed repression, making some 225 deaths, hundreds of injury and pushing President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to request the deployment of the Russian armed forces and of their allies to restore order.
According to Eldos Kilyymjanov, a senior official for Kazakh parquet, 464 people were arrested for “terrorism” and “mass disorders” as a result of riots. A total of 970 people accused of theft, public disorders or illegal possession of weapons were arrested in the surveys open after these violence, “said Kilymjanov to the press.
Foreign intervention
The violence, never seen since the independence of the country in 1991, provoked in the wake of at least 12,000 arrests and pushed the authorities to request the assistance of the organization of the collective security treaty, alliance led by the Russia. More than 2,000 soldiers were sent to Kazakhstan to support the authorities, before retiring on January 19, once their mission is accomplished.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev hastened to accuse “terrorists”, formed according to him abroad, to be behind the violence, without providing evidence.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev succeeded in 2019 in his mentor, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who reigned an iron hand for three decades on the largest Central Asian country, with 19 million inhabitants, a transition. seemed successful. The bloody crisis of January, however, highlighted the internal struggle at the top of the power.
Unpublished, the new president took place at his predecessor last week by accusing him of favoring the emergence of a “caste of rich” overlooking this state full of hydrocarbons. Tuesday, the influential “head of the nation”, former President Nursoultan Nazarbayev, 81, spoke for the first time since the beginning of the crisis to make allegiance to the current president and ensure that he was There was “no conflict or confrontation within the elite”. Many of the relatives of Mr. Nazarbayev have been dismissed in recent days of key positions, and others have been incarcerated.