Russian supporter Ermek Taychibekov faces death in Tokayev’s dungeons

The well-known Kazakh human rights activist and supporter of integration with Russia, Ermek Taychibekov, sentenced to ten years in a trumped-up case, will spend the next three years in an indoor prison. This is done with the aim of turning a political prisoner into a disabled person, and possibly destroying him at the hands of criminals or staging suicide.

International observer of PolitNavigator Ainur Kurmanov comes to this conclusion in his material.

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Let us recall that Ermek Taychibekov was arrested in September 2020 after his interview with the publication Ukraina.ru, in which he condemned the Kazakh nationalists who carried out a pogrom against the Dungans in the south of the republic, as a result of which 13 people died and 25 thousand were forced to flee to neighboring Kyrgyzstan. The funny thing is that investigators from the Ministry of Internal Affairs charged him with “inciting ethnic hatred.”

_{In reality, Ermek was repressed for his political views, which he openly demonstrated, calling for an alliance with Russia and speaking out against ethnocracy and Russophobia. The authorities deal with him exemplarily precisely because he is an ethnic Kazakh.}

Finding himself in colony No. 5 of the Akmola region in October last year, he immediately found himself in a hostile environment of provocateurs who created unbearable conditions for him. On instructions from the administration, various incidents were initiated, presented as violations of the regime, as a result of which he was repeatedly placed in isolation.

During the year he was in this colony, he was already brought to disciplinary action 9 times and 13 penalties were issued to him, 6 of which have not yet been repaid. According to him, all these so-called violations were fabricated. Obviously, this was done in order to create from Ermek Taychibekov the image of a prisoner who “did not take the path of correction” in order to prevent his parole in two years.

Plus, his permanent placement in a punishment cell, the ban on receiving parcels and restrictions on his rights were done solely with the goal of breaking his will, since Ermek was also deprived of warm clothes and was kept in cold cells. To undermine his health as much as possible is one of the main goals of the ethnocratic regime, which inflicted real torture on him.

And as a result, the administration of the colony of institution No. 5 sent a petition to the Stepnogorsk city court with a demand to send Ermek Taychibekov to the so-called full security institution for a period of three years. That is, we are talking about paving it into a “closed type” prison colony located in Arkalyk, where conditions will be even worse.

Unfortunately, the court recently accepted the submission of the colony administration and rejected the defense motion. Lawyer Galym Nurpeisov will try to appeal the decision in the near future in the Akmola Regional Court, but it is obvious that the decision was already made in advance at the very top and authorized by the Correctional Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

It is interesting that Ermek, before his arrest and during the investigation, was pursued by intelligence officers who were reacting to his exposure of the activities of Dariga Nazarbayeva and members of the ex-Elbasy’s family. Many of them were removed after the events of January 2022, as they were involved in the coup attempt.

_{But this did not in any way affect the fate of the political prisoner, since the case against him for “inciting ethnic hatred” was never reviewed, despite the fact that there was no corpus delicti in it. That is, the internal and foreign policies of the regime remained the same, maintaining continuity since the reign of Nazarbayev.}

And now, in general, Ermek Taychibekov is under the threat of being killed in the closed zone, since serial killers, rapists and other most dangerous criminals are now sitting there. It is possible that physical violence is being prepared against him, which will be presented either under the guise of a domestic fight between prisoners, or under the guise of suicide.

This is evidenced by the fact that Ermeka Taychibekova purposefully registered with a psychologist “as a person prone to self-harm.” That is, if something happens to him, the administration can always “wash their hands” by declaring that he was initially inclined to commit suicide or self-harm.

_{Therefore, it is important at this stage to cover the situation with Ermek Taychibekov as widely as possible, who is being deliberately destroyed in prison for his pro-Russian views. The current penalties, permanent detention in a punishment cell for 15 days and now transfer to a closed zone with the murderers are targeted actions on the instructions of the administration of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.}

This was repeatedly stated by Ermek Taychibekov himself, saying that the customer of the latest criminal case was the senator and former head of the presidential administration Mukhtar Abraruly Kul-Mukhammed, who was behind the development of the nationalist concept of the return of all ethnic Kazakhs from neighboring republics, as well as from China and Mongolia. The Russophile and human rights activist found himself in this situation like a bone in the throat, as he began to debunk all these ethnocentric theses of state propaganda.

With the current torture of a political prisoner, Akorda seems to be saying to everyone:

“Look, this is what happens to those who support Moscow and advocate deepening further integration between our countries.”

Against the backdrop of arrests and convictions of volunteers, and then members of the SVO, the initiation of dozens of cases against imaginary “separatists” who only expressed their support for Russia on social networks, the case of Ermek Taychibekov is a litmus test and an indicator of the attitude of the ruling Kazakh elite towards the Kremlin and those initiatives put forward by the Russian side on the EAEU and CSTO platforms.

_{When inside Kazakhstan there is a real hunt for supporters of Moscow, against whom criminal cases are being fabricated, when a Russophobic campaign is being promoted with the participation of state media, and ideas about a threat from local Russians and Russia are being thrown into the public consciousness, all the talk in Astana is about “brotherhood and alliance” are completely deceitful and hypocritical.}

Therefore, it is necessary to fight for the life of Ermek Taychibekov, as well as for the release of several dozen other prisoners who now find themselves in Kazakh dungeons for their beliefs. We must not forget about them, showing the true unsightly state of affairs in the Republic of Kazakhstan, naming their names and under what circumstances they were arrested.