Kazazh Fisherman, 2006. Photo byvoixsynthetique.
The Kazakh Bureau for Human Rights had some very good news yesterday -- long-imprisoned human rights defender Evgeny Zhovtis is due for release in two weeks -- welcome indeed after the years of efforts by Western diplomats (including Richard Holbrooke) and human rights groups to get him out.
As Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanovis is in town visiting Hillary Clinton for talks, there's a tendency to see Zhovtis' release as some kind of "sweetener" for Kazakh-US relations -- as Joshua Kucera writes on EurasiaNet.
That's hardly the case, as the Kazakh government is very busy with its "catch-and-release" program like good fishers of men -- they may have let out Zhovtis -- and that was for a planned 20th anniversary amnesty anyway -- but they're busy putting more people in jail. And on more serious charges that are demonstrably political in nature.
Zhovtis' jailing on charges of vehicular manslaughter when he was sober and the victim was intoxicated shouldn't have led to 4 years of jail in any event; and getting out after more than 2 years shouldn't be seen as any kind of "concession".
The Kazakh regime had to put Zhovtis away during its chairmanship of the OSCE, as he is the leading human rights critic of Kazakhstan. He could be safely let out as a fake gesture when the issue was no longer human rights criticism, but opposition protests during the rigged parliamentary elections -- so under Kazakhstan's conservation program, one can be thrown back into the sea of indifference, and several more can be caught and held as bargaining chips -- or not.
And today there are still more arrests in Kazakhstan -- Bolat Atabaev, theater director and Janbolat Mamay, head of the Ruh pen til club, were arrested and charged with "incitement of social enmity" -- whatever that is -- and forced to sign a pledge not to leave town, the Kazakh International Bureau of Human Rights has reported.
Oksana Makushina, deputy editor in chief of Golos Respublika was brought in for questioning for six hours by the KNB. The secret police wanted to know who organized the press conference for the arrested editor of Vzglyad, Igor Vinyavsky, and showed her a leaflet that is forming the basis for the case being cobbled together against Vinyavsky.
The Human Rights Bureau has described the case as "crudely put together". Lawyer Sergei Utkin has also been summoned although he is abroad.
Authorites are now confiscating the computers and office equipment, the Bureau and the Committee to Protect Journalists report.
Kucera wonders whether Zhovtis' release could "bury the mounting bad news"? Huh? How could it do that? It's the bad news Zhovtis himself would be reporting more of if he weren't in jail. When he gets out in two weeks let's see how much he is able to get back to his previous level of human rights monitoring and criticism.
Here's the leaflet Vinyavsky is incriminated with -- it says
Kyrgyzstan Got Rid of The Thieving Bakiev Family; That's Enough; Throw Him in the Garbage
Hardly the inciter of "social unrest" imagined, as the Bakiyev story stands as a warning to all dictators in the region even without any posters.
Ah, but we can see how this is going. Kazakhstan is maturing! Measured criticism on human rights may be ok now -- within its limits. But actual opposition agitation actually to challenge the powers-that-be -- no. And the journalism that enables it.