More than 12,000 arrested during violent protests in Kazakhstan
More than 12,000 people have been arrested during nearly two weeks of rioting in Kazakhstan, the worst unrest in the former Soviet republic since it gained independence in 1991, authorities said Wednesday.
Officials in Almaty, the country’s largest city which saw the worst of the violence, reported that 1,678 people had been detained in the past 24 hours and added that more than 300 criminal investigations into the mass protests and assaults on law enforcement are underway, the Associated Press reported.
Kazakh authorities also said that 164 people had been killed in the violence as of Sunday but the total death toll remains unclear.
The upheaval began on Jan. 2 over a hike in fuel prices in the oil- and gas-rich nation of 19 million and rapidly spread across the country to include protests against the authoritarian government.
In an effort to quell the unrest, the government announced a 180-day cap on fuel prices. The country’s former leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, the head of the National Security Council, was ousted and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called on Russia for assistance.
Russia, through the Collective Security Treaty Organization it controls, sent about 2,500 troops to Kazakhstan.
Tokayev, who has accused foreign-backed “terrorists” of inciting the violence, said Tuesday those forces will leave the country within the next couple of days now that law and order had been restored.
During the protests, government buildings were set ablaze, burned-out cars littered the streets of Almaty, and Tokayev ordered law enforcement and the army to “shoot to kill without warning.”
With Post wires
