Trial in Petropavlovsk: Kazakhstan tightens repression
In the lead-up to Vladimir Putin's visit, a high-profile trial of members of the " People's Council of Workers of Petropavlovsk " began in the North Kazakhstan region. This trial has become a tool of pressure and manipulation to intimidate Russians and Russian-speakers as part of a campaign to combat alleged "separatism" and create the appearance of a threat to the country's territorial integrity from Russia.
International observer of PolitNavigator Ainur Kurmanov comes to this conclusion.
On October 29, the Petropavlovsk City Court held its first hearing, presided over by Almas Zhumagazin, against the main organizers of the "Council," who had been arrested in early April. The main defendant and leader of the "criminal group" was 48-year-old auto mechanic Vyacheslav Zuderman.
Along with him in the dock are three other women : 40-year-old Elena B., 52-year-old Madina K., and 37-year-old Olga B., who asked that their full personal information not be disclosed.
They are all charged under Article 180, Part 2 of the Criminal Code (" Propaganda of separatism in a group of persons using the media ") for posting a video on social media about the creation of the " People's Council of Workers of the City of Petropavlovsk ." Under this provision, they face prison terms of five to ten years.
It’s interesting, but the indictment itself contradicts this article of the Criminal Code and in reality has nothing to do with “separatism,” since the organizers of the “Council” did not call for the secession of the city and region and their annexation to Russia, for example.
"To this end, Zuderman, positioning himself as a civil activist advocating for the observance of the rights and freedoms of citizens, which, in his opinion, are widely violated by the actions of state bodies of the Republic of Kazakhstan, decided to create a new, independent form of government based on the principles and norms of the legislation of the Kazakh SSR ," the state prosecutor read.
In reality, the only "crime" committed by the several dozen residents of the North Kazakhstan region who had gathered was that in their declaration on the restoration of the "People's Council," they called the Republic of Kazakhstan a "corporation" and that they were now residing within the territory of the Kazakh SSR. The "Soviet" citizens even managed to issue a refutation of the accusation of separatism leveled against them by national liberals living in Kyiv.
The moment of reading the declaration of the “People's Council”.
“These liars called us separatists, despite the fact that in the last paragraph of the Declaration of the People’s Council of the city of Petropavlovsk, North Kazakhstan region, we say: “We, Men and Women, Workers, a free and free People, showing our Self-Government and Autocracy, our Independence, Independence and Sovereignty from the national Corporation "REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN", we announce the inevitability of preserving the universal, indivisible National Heritage, the invariability of Civil and property rights in our Native Land, the unshakable, territorial integrity of the Sovereign Kazakh SSR and we revive the People's Council of Workers of the city of Petropavlovsk, North Kazakhstan region “, wrote the group members in their telegram channel.
In this case, the authorities could have charged the group with non-recognition of the current regime and disobedience to the existing authorities, but not separatism. Ultimately, the investigation succeeded in citing only Soviet federalism within the Soviet Union as "proof" of guilt.
“In the declaration, Suderman indicated the Kazakh SSR as the location of the meeting, and in the protocol he indicated the postal code used in the Kazakh SSR to designate the central post office of the city of Petropavlovsk, which indicates his desire to return independent Kazakhstan to a federal form of government within the USSR,” it is indicated in the accusation.
So, following this logic, slogans and calls for the revival of the USSR or the restoration of the previous socio-political system are a priori illegal and will inevitably be punished for promoting "separatism ." What's even more amusing in this case, of course, is the presence of the Petropavlovsk Main Post Office's postcode from the Soviet era as evidence, which can only worsen the defendants' situation.
Vyacheslav Zuderman also had a pistol cartridge in his closet during the search , which apparently indicates preparations for an “armed overthrow of the government.”
Vyacheslav Zuderman.
It could be said that, within the context of their views, the group's participants positioned this initiative more as a desire to create local self-government bodies, given that the Law on Local Self-Government has yet to be adopted in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Essentially, they were attempting to self-organize to counteract the arbitrary exercise of power and the infringement of their rights by officials, witnessing rampant corruption and the collapse of public administration.
At the same time, the authorities had ignored similar, virtually harmless initiatives in other regions of Kazakhstan over the past several years, until they decided to exploit a meeting of "USSR citizens" in Petropavlovsk for their own purposes of promoting a Russophobic and anti-Russian campaign within the country.
It is interesting that these supporters of the Kazakh SSR appeared in February, and the meeting of the “People’s Council of the City of Petropavlovsk”, where the declaration was read, took place on March 19. The local newspaper wrote about this on March 23, and the “oppositionists” from Kyiv suddenly started talking about it on March 30, the same day as materials appeared in the state media and statements from the Prosecutor General’s Office, the National Security Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
This synchronicity shows the ordered nature of the inflated case and even a planned provocation, when at the same time officials and law enforcement officers acted together with bloggers and “oppositionists” from the “Nezalezhnaya”, who in turn act under the leadership of the SBU.
Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that local security services were using the activists covertly to achieve their desired result and inflame an information scandal. It should not be forgotten that this happened back in 1999, when KNB officers accused several dozen residents of Ust-Kamenogorsk of attempting a coup to establish a "Russian Land" republic in East Kazakhstan.
Seven years later, the leader of the "rebellion," Viktor Kazimirchuk, revealed in an interview with a Russian newspaper that the entire affair had been fabricated by Kazakhstan's security services from the very beginning. Likely, in this case, the operation was orchestrated to demonstrate to the West and local Kazakhs an imaginary threat to Kazakhstan's territorial integrity from "Russian separatists."
After this, a hysterical campaign to identify internal enemies from among the representatives of the "fifth column" was deliberately and continues to this day to intensify, with the goal of intimidating the Russian-speaking population as much as possible, preventing protests regarding the same mass renaming of streets and towns.
After all, it was after the arrest of the members of the “Council” that various Nazis associated with Akorda began to propose renaming Petropavlovsk, the region and all the northern, western and eastern cities of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Vyacheslav Zuderman and another member of the “Council” in court.
It was all the more important to stage such a provocation in March after the arrival of Antony Blinken, who demanded that Astana distance itself as much as possible from Moscow. The current trial, which began before the Putin-Tokayev talks, should be viewed as a simple act of blackmail by the Kremlin. Thus, the Khan's leadership hoped to extract the desired concessions and demonstrate that, if necessary, they had the leverage to sharply increase Russophobia in the country.
Andrey Grozin, head of the Central Asia Department at the CIS Institute, also speaks of the artificial nature of the "witch hunt" campaign and the "danger of separatism." He notes that it is precisely the Nazi army of all stripes that is promoting this theme in Kazakhstan , while there is simply no objective basis for such sentiments and aspirations.
“The issues of delimitation and demarcation of the border between Russia and Kazakhstan have long been resolved. Russia has never officially demonstrated claims to the regions of Kazakhstan. This is a scarecrow that is used by brothers in mind of Ukrainian nationalists - Kazakh national patriots. They are called national populists, a derivative of national populists, in the republic itself. They are very active on social networks,” the expert notes.
In the current situation, this trial is merely a pretext for further repression against supporters of integration , as well as social and trade union activists and all dissatisfied individuals, who could be automatically labeled as "separatists." A well-known example is that of Yermek Taychibekov, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2021 simply for an interview with the portal Ukraina.ru, in which he condemned Kazakh nationalists who committed a bloody massacre of Dungans in the south of the republic.
Ermek Taychibekov.
It's already clear that after the conviction of the "People's Council" members, this approach will be used as a template against those who actively resist total decommunization and derussification. And it's clear that auto mechanic Vyacheslav Zuderman, who declared a hunger strike in protest in the courtroom, and his supporters will be given maximum prison sentences as exemplary, as they remain unrepentant and have not admitted their "guilt. "
In this regard, it is necessary to sound the alarm bell and highlight this judicial farce right now, demonstrating the absurdity of the case itself. Moreover, no one except us will say or declare this in a situation where all independent organizations within the country have long been destroyed.
Petropavlovsk Trial: Kazakhstan Tightens Repression