Three Kazakh activists detained after rally for change

• Tweet

Sign-Up

By Robin Paxton and Dmitry Solovyov

ALMATY (Reuters) - A Kazakh court ordered the arrest and detention of three opposition activists Saturday for holding an unauthorised rally, at which protesters condemned the recent election as fraudulent and demanded the release of jailed colleagues.

The three were arrested hours after about 300 people, opposed to long-serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev, gathered in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, calling for democratic change.

At the rally, Bolat Abilov and Amirzhan Kosanov, leaders of the opposition All-National Social Democratic Party, had demanded a transparent investigation into riots last month in the oil-producing region of Zhanaozen, the Central Asian state's deadliest violence in decades.

"After the rally, Abilov and Kosanov were brought to an administrative court in Almaty," an aide to Abilov told Reuters, requesting anonymity. "Abilov was given 18 days in custody and Kosanov 15 days for holding the unauthorised rally."

Amirbek Togusov, the head of the Social Democrats' Almaty headquarters, was put under arrest for 15 days, he said.

"We saw them off right to the threshold of the detention center. They appeared to be in good spirits and were confident in their actions," Abilov's aide said. The court could not be reached for comment because it had closed.

Abilov and Kosanov, addressing the rally, had demanded that their colleagues jailed on charges of inciting the oilmen's riots in Zhanaozen, western Kazakhstan, be freed.

It was the second peaceful protest since the January 15 parliamentary election gave Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party an overwhelming victory. After denouncing the election as rigged and faulty during an unauthorised rally on January 17, Abilov and Kosanov were fined and warned they could be arrested next time.

"WE WANT PEACEFUL CHANGE"

Saturday, the protesters had originally planned to gather at a monument to the 19th century Kazakh poet and philosopher Abai but city authorities, who denied permission for the rally, fenced off the square and unarmed police stood guard. The demonstrators gathered instead outside a nearby hotel.

"We want change, peaceful change and democratic change. We want to be reckoned with," Abilov, co-chairman of the All-National Social Democratic Party, told the crowd.

A solitary Kazakh flag waved among a crowd that was swollen by the presence of journalists and plain-clothes police. A succession of speakers took the megaphone over nearly two hours, before Muslim prayers ended the rally.