The United States and international human rights groups today expressed concern over the conviction of Yevgeny Zhovtis, a Kazakh human rights activist and government critic, following a trial for manslaughter many believe was politically motivated.
“In recent days, we have expressed our concerns about this case and urged the Kazakhstani authorities to provide Mr. Zhovtis access to fair legal proceedings, consistent with Kazakhstani law,” said a statement from the U.S. embassy in Almaty.
During a break before the judge declared his decision, Zhovtis vowed that he would appeal the guilty verdict he anticipated and insisted that he was being victimized for his activities as director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy, and his criticism of government policy. “It’s a demonstration of strength, a demonstration of the absence of the rule of law,” Zhovtis said. “It’s all decided at the political level.”
Reports of the trial suggest that it was demonstrably unfair and the verdict predetermined:
His lawyer, Vitaly Voronov, told RFE/RL that the judge repeatedly ignored the defendant’s requests during the trial. He said he was certain that the text of Zhovtis’ verdict had been printed beforehand, as the judge spent about half an hour writing up the decision and returned to the courtroom with the verdict printed on five pages.
“The judge’s unwillingness to consider important evidence from Zhovtis’ lawyer made it clear that this was really a choreographed political trial,” said Andrea Berg, Central Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. Democracy watchdog Freedom House called the two-day trial “a miscarriage of justice“.
The verdict draws attention to Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record as it prepares to assume the rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010.
“We note that there will inevitably be intense international scrutiny placed on how the appeals process will be conducted because of Mr. Zhovtis’ prominence in the international human rights community and as Kazakhstan prepares to assume the Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010,” the U.S. embassy statement said.
Kazakhstan has been a fairly terrible place for human rights for many years now,” writes international human rights lawyer Robert Amsterdam, “but with the conduct of the government in the past six months, especially in relations with the Austrian prosecutors in the case of the former ambassador and Nazarbayev son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev, things have really gone off the rails.”
Recent Comments