Kazakhstan’s Propaganda Allergies
Kazakhstan, Politics and SocietyOne Comment
As megakhuimyak described it, last week in Kazakhstan “the senility grew ever stronger.” The country is astir over the president’s former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliev, now émigré enemy of the state # 1. People’s fear of the once-omnipotent oligarch and secret service official has turned into fear of being associated with a fugitive from justice, and has been aggravated by new standards of regulating internet content:
The [popular Kazakhstani forum] Center of Gravity now prevents users from typing the word “Aliev,” automatically replacing it with ellipses. This also happens when “aliev” is a component of another surname.
After some animated discussion of the new rule, the forum’s administrators stopped blocking the name and removed the discussion thread. “They gave us a tiny pittance after all,” comments megakhuimyak.
mnatali33 cites a declaration written by the opposition regarding the trial of Kazakhstani human rights activist Yevgenii Zhovtis, who was sentenced to 4 years in prison. The declaration asserts that the sentence was motivated by his substantial criticism of the law enforcement, judicial and political systems. The blogger adds, in despair:
As long as we’re quietly grubbing this for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we will never – you hear me? – NEVER have rights, or human rights activists, or a lawful state.
As if to confirm, dass cites official statistics for embezzlement since the beginning of this year – about nine billion tenge (over $60 million) – and adds his own mathematical reasoning:
The publicized figures are only for the first six months of the year, and only include theft that has been officially exposed by court decisions. Assuming that the majority of theft has not yet been discovered, and a part of the cases is still in the process of investigation, I estimate the total volume of embezzlement to be about 200 billion tenge for the current year.
Mantrovkz returns to the topic of Aliev, who recently announced the creation of an opposition movement:
The opposition in Kazakhstan is a ragged assembly of former officials who got exposed for their machinations. Now the maniac Rakhat Aliev is trying to create a unified opposition group called “For a Free Kazakhstan.” Personally, I’m for a Kazakhstan free from Aliev, Abliazov, Kazhegelgin and others, including current embezzlers and thieves who haven’t declared themselves the opposition yet.
Photo credit: Sonya >> 搜你丫
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