Human Rights in Kazakhstan, issues 2, 3 (excerpts)
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Subject: Human Rights in Kazakhstan, issues 2, 3 (excerpts)
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Yevgeniy Zhovtis <[email protected]>
Human Rights in Kazakhstan, issues 2, 3 (excerpts)
INFORMATION NEWSLETTER
OF KAZAKHSTAN INTERNATIONAL BUREAU FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND RULE OF LAW
"HUMAN RIGHTS IN KAZAKHSTAN AND ALL OVER THE WORLD"
N 2 (March 1-15, 2000)
CONTENT
Kazakhstan:
* Journalists have to follow certain "rules" when they communicate
with authorities (from the newsletter "Internews Network - Kazakhstan"
N 6 (57), 28 Feb-7 Mar 2000)
* Pensioners are going on hunger strike
* 15 kilometers from the new capital Astana people are loosing any
connection with outside world
* Unions of Slavic People, Cossacks and Communists disagree with the
Prosecutor General
* Unsuccessful attempts to create "People's Parliament"
* Illegal methods of interrogation and investigation are used
throughout Kazakhstan
* Absurd restriction of freedom of movement
......................
Unions of Slavic People, Cossacks and Communists disagree with the
Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan
Unions of Slavic People "LAD", Union of Cossacks in Stepnoy Kray and
the Communist Party of Kazakhstan announced their disagreement with
the statement of the Prosecutor General of 18 February 2000 in which
the appeal to hold a referendum on possible joining of Kazakhstan to
the union of Russia and Belarus was considered as "encroachment on the
sovereignty of the country".
According to the statement they spread, "the statement of the
Prosecutor General roughly and deliberately misrepresented the sense
of speeches of the participants and the content of the Statement to
the President, the entire character of the meeting held".
USP "LAD", Union of Cossacks and the Communist party of Kazakhstan
qualify the General Prosecutor's presentation of the initiative to
hold a referendum as an attempt to change the existing constitutional
system, to change its unitary system and the territorial integrity of
the state as well as forms of administration as impudent lie. In
striving to attach the "non-constitutional" meeting ethnic character
and through such qualification to accuse of "violating international
accord, civil peace and stability in the country one can see the
aspiration of the prosecutor's office to close USP "LAD" union. They
want to give "a lesson and to influence other political parties and
unions by this example."
Above mentioned parties and social organizations consider that "the
statement of the General Prosecutor's Office is not a legal but
political act for it has no any legal basis. It is aimed at
suppression of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, rights of
citizens to come out with appeals and statements. Ultimately, to hold
back growing democratic self-consciousness by creating an atmosphere
of fear and irreparable losses in the society."
......................
Limitation of freedom of movement carried to the point of absurdity
A young woman came to the Bureau and told a story that allows to
conform that Kazakhstan officials contribute to the fact that common
Kazakhstan citizens become homeless people.
Gulnara Chernikova, a citizen of Kazakhstan, several years ago married
to a citizen of Uzbekistan and left for her husband's place where she
lived under the temporary visa.
As far as her Soviet passport became ineffective she had to come to
Kazakhstan to receive a new Kazakhstan Passport. But at the passport
and visa service department she was refused to change the passport
because she was not registered at the place of residence. The
officials from the passport and visa service department offered her to
register at the place of residence. But Chernikova is not going to
live in Almaty, her family is in Uzbekistan and she wants to return
there. She has just to change her passport for a new one. Why should
she register at the place of residence if there is not such? The Rules
of passport system operating in Kazakhstan do not contain a
requirement of registration in the organs of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs while receipt or exchange of passports. Obviously, it was the
initiative of Kazakhstan officials to impose this requirement to
obtain money from those who are eager to have a passport.
Practically any person in Kazakhstan who lost his passport or achieved
the age of 16, 25 or 45 and for some reasons was discharged from the
home register book or from the authorization to an apartment becomes a
citizen not possessing full rights. In this case he cannot receive or
exchange the passport. He is doomed to become a homeless person or he
will have urgently to seek the ways to buy the right for accommodation
without a passport or for some bribery to get the registration
mentioned. All three ways are illegal. Such was the situation with
Chernikova, who is formally a citizen of Kazakhstan, but actually she
cannot be such citizen without the passport.
-----------------------
INFORMATION NEWSLETTER
OF KAZAKHSTAN INTERNATIONAL BUREAU FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND RULE OF LAW
"HUMAN RIGHTS IN KAZAKHSTAN AND ALL OVER THE WORLD"
N 3 (March 15-31, 2000)
CONTENT
Kazakhstan
* Mass-meeting of the opposition Republican People's party in Almaty
* Tatyana Deltsova, a well-known TV journalist has been discharged for
political motives
* Action of protest of workers in the capital of Kazakhstan, the city
of Astana
--
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