Qaster Musakhanuly in the courtroom. Photo by Bagdat Asylbek, Fergana
Murager Alimuly and Qaster Musakhanuly, two ethnic Kazakh refugees who fled China’s Xinjiang province into Kazakhstan, have been sentenced to one year in prison for illegally crossing the Kazakh border. They will not be deported back to China, the pair’s lawyer Lyazzat Akhatova told Fergana.
“They just passed the sentence. No deportation! This has to be seen as a victory. One year in jail, because there were aggravating circumstances. The mitigating factors were that they had turned themselves in voluntarily, they assisted the investigation, and that underage children are involved. Given that they have already spent 3 months and 3 days in pre-trial detention and the new law states that this time must counted as 6 months and 6 days, they will be in prison for five months. The main thing is that they will stay in the country. From the start, we told the judge that we would accept any sentence, as long as they remain in the country. When they are released (from prison), the question of granting them refugee status will be addressed,” Akhatova said.
Some of those in attendance were live streaming events from the courtroom as the sentence was read out. After the sentence was pronounced, people who had gathered in front of the court building celebrated and sang the Kazakh national anthem.
The court case against the two ethnic Kazakhs began on 6 January in Zaysan. Dozens of activists followed the proceedings, travelling from all over the country to support the pair. At the first session only a few witnesses were allowed to testify.
Radio Liberty’s Kazakh website Azattyk reports that soon after the start of the final session, the judge invited the two sides to make their closing arguments. State prosecutor Erzhan Azimbayev stated that the suspects’ guilt was demonstrated by the testimony of witnesses, by their own testimony and by records of an examination of the scene of the offence. The men’s lawyer Lyazzat Akhatova said that her clients had been forced to cross the border illegally in order to save themselves from persecution by state authorities in Xinjiang. Musakhanuly and Alimuly admitted their guilt in court but requested not to be sent back to China.
Musakhanuly and Alimuly’s escape from Xinjiang was made public on 14 October at a press conference in Almaty, during the course of which the pair announced their intention to seek asylum in their historical homeland. According to them, they had fled Xinjiang due to the Chinese authorities’ oppression of ethnic minorities there. The pair were later taken into custody to be tried for illegally crossing the state border.
At the start of December 2019, the head of the Kazakh Border Service Darkhan Dilmanov announced that Musakhanuly and Alimuly would be handed back to China. “The chances of them staying here are zero. This (the legalisation of their presence in Kazakhstan — Fergana) categorically will not happen. We will act, and act firmly,” he said.
The pair’s lawyer Lyazzat Akhatova argued that if the two were handed back to China, they could face the death penalty. Another lawyer, Bauyrzhan Azanov, rejected reports that the men would soon be handed back. He said that under the international Convention on the Status of Refugees, Musakhauly and Alimuly could not be deported to China since they had received documentation confirming their application for asylum in Kazakhstan.
State persecution of local inhabitants on religious (adherence to Islam) or ethnic grounds has increased in recent years in north-western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The Chinese government justifies its measures with the need to fight a war against terrorism.
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