Kasachstan

Weeks after the conclusion of bloody protests across Kazakhstan, attention in the Central Asian nation has turned to whether the government is capable of impartially investigating their origins — and of moving toward greater democracy.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Kazakh authorities to invite international experts to join its domestic investigative efforts into serious human rights violations during a deadly wave of unrest in the country last month.

Talking to representatives of the oil-rich nation's leading businesses on January 21, Toqaev said "real reforms" and "deep transformation of the social structures" are needed to address problems brought up by some of the protesters.

Security forces blocked several downtown streets and cordoned off one of the squares in Kazakhstan’s biggest city Almaty on Wednesday (19 January) as an opposition group planned to stage protests, a Reuters correspondent reported from the scene.

A Russia-led military contingent completed its withdrawal from Kazakhstan as the country lifted a state of emergency Wednesday after unprecedented unrest in the Central Asian state.

From January 6 through January 19, Russia and its allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) conducted a successful stabilization mission in Kazakhstan, at the latter country’s urgent request. … Collective in name but largely Russian in practice, this was the CSTO’s first real-world mission.

Kazakh ex-President Nursultan Nazarbaev has denied any conflict with his successor after deadly anti-government protests in the oil-rich Central Asian state earlier this month triggered allegations of a power struggle.

Peacekeeping troops deployed under a Moscow-led regional military alliance have begun pulling back from Kazakhstan, officials said. They were deployed amid anti-government protests that left scores of people dead.

Kazakh authorities said Wednesday they detained 1,678 more people in the past 24 hours over their alleged participation in the violent unrest that rocked the former Soviet nation last week, the worst since Kazakhstan gained independence three decades ago.

As the death toll from the recent unrest in Kazakhstan mounts to 164, the UN Office for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday requested “prompt, independent, impartial investigations” into the killings, and whether “unnecessary and disproportionate use of force was made by security forces”.