ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Earlier this month, while millions in Kazakhstan and beyond were still processing the horrors of a spousal murder trial that drew parallels with the O.J. Simpson trial in the United States, a young woman announced that she had been beaten by her husband -- a serving Kazakh diplomat.
Like Saltanat Nukenova, the deceased partner of ex-Economy Minister Quandyq Bishimbaev, Karina Mamash's face was covered in egg-shaped bruises.
Unlike Nukenova, she lived to accuse her alleged aggressor in an video posted on Instagram by the NeMolchiKZ group, an organization that assists women and children subjected to physical and sexual violence.
"I am the wife of the adviser to [the Kazakh] Embassy in the U.A.E., Saken Mamash," Mamash said in the video. "I declare that I have been subjected to violence for 10 years. I want my husband to be deprived of his diplomatic status and put in prison for all the abuses that he committed against me."
The Bishimbaev trial, which saw the main defendant found guilty of murder and handed a 24-year jail sentence by a court in the capital, Astana, on May 13, has shattered the myth that domestic violence in Kazakhstan is a mostly socioeconomic phenomenon.
The trial also provided momentum for the passage of a historic law that should, in theory, afford greater protections to all survivors of domestic abuse.
That in turn raises the questions of whether members of Kazakhstan's political and economic elite may face further accusations of violence from women, including allegations of past misconduct, and how a system that has in the past downplayed the problem might address that challenge.
"I think there will certainly be more public accusations of this type," Dina Smailova, the founder of NeMolchiKZ, said in an interview with RFE/RL.
But the self-exiled Smailova, who is under criminal investigation in Kazakhstan for fraud and other charges that she attributes to the impact of her organization's work, points out that Bishimbaev did not serve in Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev's government.
Moreover, she says, Nukenova's death resonated strongly with the public and abroad, conditioning the government's response. Past practice "shows that the system will punish with one hand and shield with another," Smailova added.
'Image Of The Country'
Karina Mamash's May 6 video accusation came on the back of what she described as a violent assault on her husband's part, allegedly directed against her and her older sister, who was visiting the family at their home in the U.A.E.
The same day, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said that Mamash had been recalled from his diplomatic posting and was to be fired from his job. The ministry also reunited Mamash with her children and arranged her flight home.
The case is currently under police investigation.
On May 12, the politics-focused YouTube channel Nukte published an interview with the diplomat's wife, in which she described how she had felt under pressure not to file complaints against her husband, due to the effects they may have "on the image of the country."
"When we were waiting for the consul [in the U.A.E.], I felt very bad," said Mamash, whose face was still swollen with bruises when she gave the interview.
"[Foreign Ministry staff] did not want to take me to the hospital.... If something had happened to me, the incident could have been dismissed as an 'unfortunate accident.' It would all have been hushed up," Mamash said.
"Saltanat [Nukenova]? I understand that the same thing could have happened to me."
At a briefing on May 13, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov said the ministry was "together with" Mamash and was now conducting checks among its personnel. Smadiyarov said the Kazakh consul's response to the situation had been adequate.
When it comes to Kazakhstan's image, the Bishimbaev trial has proven a mixed bag.
On the one hand, there has been widespread shock at the footage of a former political high flier savagely beating Nukenova inside a food mall that his family owned. Instead of immediately calling an ambulance, the partner of the former economy minister was left to die.
On the other, Kazakhstan's Supreme Court gained credit for live streaming the trial, a decision that ensured massive domestic viewership, as well as strong interest from Russia and other countries where Russian -- the language of the trial -- is spoken.
The Kazakh authorities have also received praise for re-criminalizing two offenses that the authorities had decriminalized back in 2017: battery and intentional infliction of light bodily harm, both of which are closely associated with domestic violence.
The new domestic-violence law signed by President Toqaev last month eliminated "reconciliation" between parties as a reason for police to drop cases of repeated spousal violence.
According to the Interior Ministry, police processed nearly 100,000 complaints related to family violence in 2023, while courts handed administrative sanctions to 67,270 people.
But advocacy groups -- including Smailova's NeMolchiKZ and the global rights groups Equality Now and Human Rights Watch -- have highlighted how there is still much work to do.
They have argued that the new law still leaves women with few protections against stalking, bullying, economic harassment, and psychological violence -- actions that often precede and accompany physical violence.
'You're Extorting Me!'
There was widespread public appetite for Bishimbaev's heavy punishment, and not just because of the evidence that the former official subjected Nukenova to hours of brutality and likely beat her multiple times before that.
For many, he was a symbol of elite impunity, continuing life as a wealthy businessman after his release from jail in late 2019, having been convicted of embezzlement and bribery at the beginning of the previous year.
Before that fall from grace -- and relative slap on the wrist -- he was serving as the country's fresh-faced national economy minister, apparently a favorite of then-President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who granted him a pardon just over a year into his sentence.
There have been a number of cases in the last few years demonstrating that acts of violence and intimidation against women are very much a problem in Kazakh officialdom.
Just last month, a former chief of police in the southern town of Taldyqorghan, Marat Kushtybaev, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for raping a woman in his office.
Then there was the more convoluted case of the well-known economist Olzhas Khudaibergenov, who served as an adviser to Toqaev in 2019, his first year in office.
In November 2023, days after Nukenova's violent death, Khudaibergenov's wife, Moldir Kabylova, went public with claims that the economist had engaged in coercive and controlling behavior during and after their marriage.
After they separated, Kabylova said that Khudaibergenov made her sign agreements allowing him to monitor the movements of her and her four children in London, where she was studying.
In a press conference, Kabylova revealed that she had filed charges against Khudaibergenov in the United Kingdom for attempting to abduct their children in March 2022.
But in April of this year, a court sentenced Kabylova's father to seven years in jail for extortion, honoring Khudaibergenov's claim that his father-in-law had demanded money from him in exchange for Kabylova dropping those charges.
Khudaibergenov has publicly denied Kabylova's accusations, while portraying both her father and her brother as fraudsters.
Smailova, the advocate for victims of domestic violence, told RFE/RL that there is a risk that other powerful men with access to resources will be able to use similar tactics to turn the tables on their accusers.
"We studied the materials of this case closely. The authorities freed his hands and allowed him to persecute his wife and her family," she said.
Critics have argued, meanwhile, that the authorities' targeting of Smailova, is a question mark over the government's avowed commitment to preventing violence against women.
In December 2023, police said that Smailova was the subject of six criminal cases that encompassed crimes including disseminating false information, violation of privacy, and large-scale fraud. A number of ordinary citizens who had donated to the organization reported being called in for police questioning.
"We have worked to defend women and children for the last eight years," Smailova told RFE/RL. "During that time we regularly cooperated with state bodies. But after I was charged, none of those bodies, not even the human rights ombudsman, spoke up in my defense. This system knows well how to protect itself."
