This autumn, authorities in the Kazakhstani cities of Atyrau and Pavlodar have sabotaged “ZhasCamp”, a civic education conference aimed at raising youth civic engagement in Kazakhstan, which YISK has organized regularly since 2010. Due to the government-interference, which appears to have involved local security services, YISK was not able to carry out the trainings as planned.
On October 15-16, YISK was scheduled to conduct the ZhasCamp training conference in Atyrau in western Kazakhstan. On the night of October 12, before traveling to Atyrau to prepare for the event, YISK Director Irina Mednikova was assaulted by an unknown person outside her Almaty home. Having roughed her up, the attacker left with Mednikova’s purse containing materials essential to the trainings. Among the stolen items were conference contracts, a hard drive containing important ZhasCamp information and financial travel reimbursements for 33 conference participants.
Shaken by the attack Mednikova nonetheless decided to travel to Atyrau for the training, where she and the rest of the YISK team soon faced logistic obstacles: Citing double-bookings and air-condition issues, management at the hotels booked for the trainings, the “Atyrau” and “Renaissance”, told the YISK team ZhasCamp could not be conducted at their hotels.
Being refused from their original hotels, the YISK team was able to start the ZhasCamp trainings at a third hotel, the “la Casa”, on October 15. Approximately an hour into the conference a group of students appeared at the hotel and started recording the event. The group told YISK that they had been sent to film the event “until the camera from the Akimat (local authorities) would arrive”. A little later a representative from the Akimat arrived with a group of journalists who photographed and filmed the training. The “la Casa” refused to let YISK carry out the second day at the hotel, with the result that the training was cut short.
“Youth Information Service of Kazakhstan is a civil society organization dedicated to the development of youth civic participation, and plays a vital role in raising civic awareness in Kazakhstan. Instead of imposing obstacles to ZhasCamp, the authorities should value its important contribution to society”, said Marius Fossum, Norwegian Helsinki Committee Central Asia Representative. “In any case Kazakhstan must allow YISK, as well as other civil society organization, to carry out its activities in accordance with domestic law and international human rights standards”, he said.
On October 22-23 ZhasCamp was scheduled to take place in Pavlodar. YISK had obtained official permission many months prior to hold the training at premises of the Pavlodar State University. However, in the evening of October 21, university officials denied the YISK team entry to the university grounds, referring to an “order from above”. Later university security claimed that a pipe had burst in one of the rooms, and that therefore the training could not be conducted at the university.
The next morning, without a venue for the conference, the YISK team gathered the ZhasCamp participants at a nearby café where they conducted parts of the training program. In the café, they soon noticed several unknown men who were filming them, and, after about three hours, café staff expelled the ZhasCamp group, effectively ending the training session.
On October 23, the YISK team attempted to conduct a mini-training inside one of the rooms at the “Tourist” hotel, however hotel management and staff kept disturbing them and attempted to prevent the group from moving freely around the hotel.
Several of the Pavlodar ZhasCamp participants and organizers reported surveillance at the hotel where they were staying, namely the “Pavlodar”. One to two men would constantly sit in the hotel lobby, monitor the entrance and photograph anyone coming or going.
Speaking to the Norwegian Helsinki Committee about the situation surrounding ZhasCamp, YISK Director Irina Mednikova expressed perplexity as to why the authorities would interfere with the events. “We cannot understand what in our program could cause such a reaction from the authorities and possibly even the security services”, she said. “ZhasCamp has existed for years and has established itself as a high-quality education conference and has become very popular among the young people of Kazakhstan”.
The disruption of the ZhasCamp trainings occurs in a context where the Kazakhstani authorities have tightened its grip on civil society. Last year a new NGO law was passed, granting the authorities excessive powers over civil society and non-governmental organizations. Moreover, authorities have in recent years prosecuted civil society activists, imprisoned journalists, shut down independent media outlets and cracked down heavy-handedly on the freedoms of assembly and expression.