Kazakhstan: Human rights activist beaten and arrested

Kazakhstan: Human rights activist beaten and arrested

HUMAN RIGHTS campaigner and lawyer Vadim Kuramshina was violently attacked and arrested last week in Kokchetava, northern Kazakhstan.

Vadim was just leaving to meet up with Joe Higgins, Member of the European Parliament for the Socialist Party (CWI, Ireland), arriving on a visit.

Vadim, with a group of former prisoners, had been in Kokchetava to make a film about torture in the prison colonies. He has had brutal experience himself inside Kazakhstan’s torture-ridden prisons.

Recently, Vadim had received several anonymous calls claiming to be from representatives of the ordinary police and political police in which he was threatened with “inconvenience”.

A full report can be read here on socialistworld.net


  • Send protests demanding that Vadim should be immediately released with all charges dropped to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) secretariat (which Kazakhstan is currently chairing) at Wallnerstrasse 6, 1010 Vienna, Austria, telephone 00 43 1 514 36 6000 or faxed to 00 43 1 514 36 6996.

Protests should also be sent to the Kazakhstan delegation to the OSCE at Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the OSCE, Wipplinger Strasse 35 3rd Floor, 1010 Vienna, Austria, telephoned to 00 43 1890 8008 10 or faxed to 00 43 1890 8008 20.

Protests can be sent through the website at http://www.kazakhstan-osce.org/contact or emailed to [email protected] Please send copies to [email protected]

See also Worldwide protests against brutal attack on three Russian socialists