On April 10, Zhanbolat Mamay was sentenced to a six-year suspended sentence after the Bostandyk District Court found him guilty of charges of organizing mass disorder, insulting a state representative and of disseminating knowingly false information. In addition to his suspended sentence, the court ordered a ban on all political activities, activism, journalism, as well as use of social media for the entire six-year period. Zhanbolat Mamay declared in court that he intends to appeal the sentence as he considers himself innocent of all charges.
In the early days of January 2022, massive protests and the security forces’ response left hundreds dead in Kazakhstan. Following the tragic events, Zhanbolat Mamay organized a demonstration in February of that year to commemorate the victims of the unrest. On February 25, authorities arrested him on charges of organizing a protest without the government’s prior approval. He was then sentenced to 15 days’ administrative detention. In March 2022, when his administrative sentence had been served out, authorities transferred him to pre-trial detention and charged him with insulting a government official and of disseminating knowingly false information. In June, he was additionally charged with organizing mass disorder, in connection with the January 2022 unrest.
– Mamay and others like him serve to channel dissenting views and legitimate grievances of the population – by silencing them, authorities deprive themselves of insight into the popular mood, contrary to president Tokayev’s declaration of the ‘listening state’. If serious about democratic change and political reform, Astana should allow for dissenting voices to be heard in Kazakhstan, and must reverse the sentencing of Mamay, says Berit Lindeman, Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
Zhanbolat Mamay (b. 1988) is a long-time activist, journalist, and public figure in Kazakhstan. In his youth he led the group “Rukh Pen Til” (Spirit and Language), a youth political opposition group. Today he is a seen as one of the leading figures of the genuine political opposition in the country, in 2019 he helped cofound the Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, an unregistered political opposition party, of which he is the current leader. For his activism and journalism, he has several times found himself in the authorities’ crosshairs. In 2012, authorities arrested him and charged him with incitement of social discord, after he had voiced support for the striking workers in Kazakhstan’s extractive industries. At the time, he had recently taken over as head of the independent newspaper Tribuna. Although authorities did not proceed with the charges against him in 2012, he was found guilty of money laundering in a politically motivated trial in 2017: In September of that year, a court in Almaty barred him from engaging in journalism for a period of three years.