Yermek Narymbay. Photo: KazTAG.
A court in Astana has placed political activist Yermek Narymbay under arrest for two months over social media posts about Kazakhstan’s new Constitution, Vlast.kz reported, citing his lawyer Vasily Sadykov.
“Yesterday he was remanded in custody for two months, until April 3. He is charged under Article 430 [of Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code] — failure to comply with a court sentence,” the lawyer said. The article provides for either restriction of liberty or imprisonment.
According to Sadykov, the charges stem from Narymbay’s social media posts expressing his views on constitutional reform. A court had previously banned him from “engaging in public, political, and socio-economic issues.”
“That is precisely the reason. He had a ban in place. He was detained in Bishkek and then taken to Kazakhstan,” the lawyer said.
The post in question remains available on the activist’s Facebook page (the social network is banned in Russia and owned by Meta, which is designated extremist in Russia). In it, he wrote, among other things, that abolishing the majoritarian system in parliamentary elections “cleans it of figures undesirable to Akorda,” and that the proposed reforms “preserve a managed system.”
Narymbay was detained the day before in Kyrgyzstan, where he was visiting. Journalist Lukpan Akhmedyarov said the activist was deported to Kazakhstan without a court order.
Narymbay is often described as the author of the slogans “Shal, ket!” and “Nazarbayev, ket!” (“Old man, step down!” and “Nazarbayev, step down!”). He is also known as a defender of the rights of clients of Kazakh banks. In 2010, he received a four-year prison sentence after a gathering about a referendum calling for the early resignation of then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In 2016, Narymbay was convicted of inciting discord after publishing an excerpt from the book Wind from the Street. He was sentenced to three years of restricted liberty but left Kazakhstan and moved to Ukraine. In February 2022, after the January events, Narymbay returned to Kazakhstan and was placed in pretrial detention for violating probation rules. He was released in July 2023.
