If officials in Nur-Sultan had hoped this choreographed process would go ahead without complaint, they will be sorely disappointed. On April 21, a pair of activists unfurled a banner carrying the words \u201cYou cannot run from the truth\u201d and the hashtags #forafairelection and #Ihaveachoice on the sidelines of a marathon. It was a small gesture of defiance, but enough to spook the authorities. The two activists who carried out the stunt, Asya Tulesova<\/a> and Beibaris Tolymbekov, were each handed 15-day jail sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Participants of the Almaty demonstration made clear allusion to Tulesova and Tolymbekov\u2019s rallying call. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have a choice!\u201d the Gorky Park protesters chanted frequently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Almaty rally was allowed to continue peacefully for four hours in what initially appeared an unusual show of leniency. Around 300 people were present at the peak of the gathering. While small in relative terms, this and other rallies going on elsewhere in the country at the same time represented the largest outpouring of discontent that Kazakhstan has seen since protests against land reform<\/a> in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTogether we are strength! No to dictatorship!\u201d the Almaty protesters chanted as they marched through the park, stopping for political declamations by speakers griping about anything from constraints on political freedoms to socioeconomic grievances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They also shouted \u201cShal ket!\u201d \u2013 Kazakh for \u201cold man out\u201d \u2013 reprising a favored protest slogan that nowadays reflects the conviction that although Nazarbayev has formally left office, he is still running the show from behind the scenes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe, the people of Kazakhstan are, to be honest, fed up with the regime and with what\u2019s happening in Kazakhstan,\u201d Darkhan K\u0435reyev, a 52-year-old protester, told Eurasianet. \u201cWe want democracy. We want freedom of speech. We never have democratic elections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dilyara, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, attended the protest with her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve come because we want change,\u201d she said. In homage to the jailed Almaty activists, the girl had the words \u201cyou can\u2019t run from the truth\u201d scrawled on the back of her T-shirt in large black letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, police moved in to drag away peaceful demonstrators, as is customary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The May 1 protests were ostensibly summoned by Europe-based regime gadfly and disgraced banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is wanted on various criminal charges by Kazakh authorities. It is difficult to ascertain, however, to what extent demonstrators came out in deference to Ablyazov or whether they were seizing a rare opportunity to register their anger against a government that has foreclosed all other avenues for dissent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some protesters who spoke to Eurasianet confessed to sharing Ablyazov\u2019s views. Others said they were drawn to the protest by a yearning for change. And then there were those who tagged along out of a combination of curiosity and enthusiasm after stumbling across the demo in the park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many melted away after menacing-looking riot police slammed the park gates shut when protesters tried to leave to continue their march through the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The protest dwindled to around 50 people who refused entreaties by police, prosecutors and officials sent by Almaty city hall to disperse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After initially appearing to break with tradition by standing back, police moved in to arrest at least a dozen people, who were manhandled into vans and driven away. They may be released with warnings, or tried and \u2013 if convicted \u2013 fined or jailed for up to 15 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Police in balaclavas in Nur-Sultan resorted to more robust measures, as seen in footage<\/a> filmed by RFE\/RL\u2019s Kazakhstan service, wading into a crowd of demonstrators and beating them back with clubs. Dozens of people were reportedly detained there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arrests also took place at protests in Karaganda<\/a>, Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty reported<\/a>, while a march in Shymkent<\/a>, Kazakhstan\u2019s third largest city, proceeded without detentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were also preemptive arrests<\/a>, with activists detained before the protests in case they planned to join.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The latest arrests continue the trend of zero tolerance<\/a> for public protest long since set under Nazarbayev and perpetuated from the first days of Tokayev\u2019s presidency, which began with the arrests of demonstrators<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As analyst Erica Marat wrote in a commentary<\/a> for Eurasianet this week, the question of how to deal with public manifestations of dissent presents the new president with a dilemma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf public protests continue to dominate discussions on social media, they may become more frequent, more emotionally laden and involve more segments of the population. The government\u2019s strategy \u2013 prevention and targeted arrests \u2013 may become ineffective. Tokayev will be faced with the option of banning protests altogether, like in Uzbekistan, or engaging with the protesting public and trying to respond to bottom-up requests.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Peaceful anti-government demonstrations in a few major cities in Kazakhstan culminated on May 1 with detentions and isolated cases of aggressive crowd-control tactics by the police. Many hundreds of people came onto the streets in cities like Almaty and Nur-Sultan to voice their generalized discontent, braving the draconian rules imposed by the authorities against unauthorized political gatherings. \u201cLet\u2019s unite! We… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3713,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712\/revisions\/3713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/eurasianet.org\/sites\/default\/files\/media\/image\/20190501_125728.jpg\")
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