A leader of the Karakalpak diaspora in Kazakhstan, Nietbai Urazbaev, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in absentia in Uzbekistan over unprecedented Karakalpak protests in July 2022, has died in a hospital in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty.
Karakalpak activist Aqylbek Muratbai said on January 9 that Urazbaev died of a heart attack at the age of 54.
Urazbaev left his native Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan in 2004 fearing for his safety over his human rights activities and lived in Kazakhstan’s western region of Manghystau since then. In recent months, he stayed at his daughter's place in Almaty fearing he may be kidnapped by Uzbek secret service.
In July 2022, Urazbaev issued a video statement supporting Karakalpaks in his native republic's capital, Nukus, who protested Tashkent's plans to change the constitution that would have undermined the region's right to self-determination.
The protests were violently dispersed. Uzbek authorities said at the time that 21 people died during the protests, but the Austrian-based Freedom for Eurasia human rights group said at least 70 people were killed during the unrest.
In 2017, Urazbaev became a Kazakh citizen, losing his Uzbek citizenship as Kazakh laws do not allow dual citizenship.
In May 2023, an Uzbek court sentenced Urazbaev to 12 years in absentia over the video statement he issued during the protests in Nukus.
In January last year, an Uzbek court sentenced 22 Karakalpak activists to prison terms on charges including undermining the constitutional order for taking part in the protests.
In March 2023, another 39 Karakalpak activists accused of taking part in the protests in Nukus were convicted, with 28 of them sentenced to prison terms of between five years and 11 years. Eleven defendants were handed parole-like sentences.
The violence forced Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev to make a rare about-face and scrap the proposal.
Tashkent has tried to have Urazbaev extradited from Kazakhstan, which ran into legal issues as he was no longer an Uzbek citizen.
However, on December 1, 2023, Urazbaev was officially informed that his Kazakh citizenship was annulled due to what Kazakh officials called "incorrect documents" presented when he applied for Kazakh citizenship.
The move raised Urazbaev’s worries about his safety and caused a deep depression which most likely led to the lethal heart attack, Muratbai says.
Karakalpaks are a Central Asian Turkic-speaking people. Their region used to be an autonomous area within Kazakhstan before becoming autonomous within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1930 and then part of Uzbekistan in 1936.