Watchdog

Russian authorities have arbitrarily arrested thousands of peaceful protesters at anti-war rallies across Russia, in line with their increasingly brutal crackdown on those who disagree with Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on March 9.

The global rights watchdog accused Russian police of using “excessive force,” against protesters while detaining them, and, in several cases, inflicting “abuse amounting to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment, on those in custody.”

According to OVD-Info, a leading human rights NGO in Russia, 13,500 people have been arbitrarily arrested since Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

“Russian authorities continue to deny people the right to freedom of assembly and stifle the voices of those who disagree with Russia’s war in Ukraine,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The escalating police violence illustrates the length to which Russian authorities will go to intimidate and silence dissent.”

SEE ALSO:

A Detention, A Recording, A Brutal Beating: Another Window Into Russian Police Interrogations

During mass protests on March 6, police detained about 5,000 people in 69 cities, according to OVD-Info. On March 8, International Women’s Day, the police detained dozens of protesters at peaceful rallies across the country. That day women across Russia laid flowers next to monuments to protest the war.

Since February 24, Russian authorities have clamped down on public expressions of disapproval of the government’s official narrative, including by blocking independent media, criminalizing independent media reporting and calls to end the war, and by targeting peaceful protesters, HRW noted.

Embed share

Thousands Detained In Anti-War Protests Across Russia

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:24 0:00

It said social media posts documenting incidents on March 6 show peaceful protesters being detained for holding placards, marching, and chanting “no to war!” for wearing ribbons or clothing in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag, for filming arrests or simply, apparently, while passing by.

Police used violence against protesters on multiple occasions. OVD-Info reported at least 34 cases in which the police beat protesters on March 6.

Jailed Kazakh businessman Muratkhan Toqmadi, who was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for his alleged involvement in a banker's killing in 2018, has called on President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev to review his case as he had retracted his testimony against Mukhtar Ablyazov, a fugitive former banker and outspoken critic of Kazakhstan's government.

Kazakh media outlets carried Toqmadi's open letter to the president on March 9. Toqmadi's wife, Zhamila Aiymbetova, confirmed to RFE/RL that her husband wrote the letter.

In his letter, Toqmadi said he confessed to the killing of Erzhan Tatishev on a hunting trip in 2004 and falsely testified four years ago that he killed Tatishev at the behest of Ablyazov because he was tortured and faced psychological pressure imposed on him by the Committee of National Security (KNB).

Toqmadi’s letter to President Toqaev comes after deadly unrest in January that resulted in the removal of Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbaev and his clan from the political scene.

Toqmadi, who was initially sentenced to three years in prison for extortion and illegal firearms possession in 2017, entered the guilty plea at the murder trial in February 2018, which ended with him being sentenced to 10 1/2 years in prison.

SEE ALSO:

Kazakhstan Targets Associates In Hunt For Fugitive Tycoon

In November that year, Ablyazov was tried in absentia, convicted on a murder charge based on Toqmadi's testimony, and sentenced to life in prison.

After Tatishev's death on a hunting trip in 2004, which was ruled an accident at the time, Ablyazov became the bank's chief. He has been living abroad since 2009.

In a separate in-absentia trial that ended in 2017, Ablyazov was convicted of embezzlement, abuse of office, and organizing a criminal group and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Ablyazov denies all the charges, saying they are politically motivated, and has called the claim that he ordered Tatishev's killing a "lie."

Toqmadi's letter comes less than a week after the son of a Kazakh opposition leader, Zamanbek Nurqadilov, whose death in 2005 was officially declared a suicide, demanded a new probe into his father's death.

SEE ALSO:

Slain Kazakh Opposition Leader's Son Demands New Probe Into His Father's Death

Qairat Nurqadilov said on March 3 that he had filed a request to the Prosecutor-General's Office to reinvestigate the 2005 death of his father, Zamanbek Nurqadilov, once mayor of the oil-rich country's largest city, Almaty, and chairman of the emergency situations agency. In 2004, he turned into a fierce critic of then-President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his government.

Zamanbek Nurqadilov was found dead with two bullets in his chest and one in his head at his home in Almaty in November 2005. The death was officially declared a suicide.