Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday urged Kazakhstan to drop allegedly politically motivated charges against satirical blogger Temirlan Ensebek, and encouraged the government to respect Ensebek’s freedom of expression.
Temirlan Ensebek was charged with “inciting interethnic discord” under Article 174 of Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code and now faces up to seven years in prison. This is primarily due to posts on his Instagram account Qaznews24, where he shared a satirical post. The authorities have not specified which post led to his arrest. But the charges reportedly stem from a year-old post featuring Russian TV presenter Tina Kandelaki, accompanied by a song allegedly containing offensive language about Russians. The Almaty police department, however, claim the “case is not related to so-called satirical publications” but is about “material containing clear signs of inciting ethnic discord, with elements of insulting representatives of an entire ethnic group.”
Marie Struthers, AI’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, found it to be a “politically motivated prosecution, which relies on a vague and overly broad definition of ‘incitement’ within Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code.” She further condemned the case as a violation of free expression, stating:
Free expression is not a crime and the authorities must end their misuse of the criminal justice system and the charge of ‘discord’ to suppress dissent and silence critical voices. These baseless charges must be dropped and Temirlan Ensebek should be immediately released from detention.
Ensebek is no stranger to government scrutiny. In 2021, he faced accusations of “spreading knowingly false information”. This was after Qaznews24 published a satirical post suggesting former Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev be granted the status of God. Although the charges were later dropped, he now finds himself in the middle of yet another battle over free expression in Kazakhstan.
Other organizations, including Article 19 and Human Rights Watch, have similarly urged Kazakhstan to release the satirical blogger and uphold free expression.
