ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A journalist has been assaulted in Kazakhstan amid a series of attacks against independent reporters as early parliamentary elections in the oil-rich Central Asian nation draw near.
Daniyar Moldabekov says he was attacked in the morning on February 22 in the corridor of his apartment building by a masked man in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty.
Moldabekov told RFE/RL that he was returning home from a coffee shop when a man wearing a medical mask hit him in the jaw with a single blow that dazed him.
"He hit me and shouted 'Hey, don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong!' and quickly left the premises," Moldabekov said, adding that the attack was most likely linked to his latest investigative reports about alleged corruption in the city.
"I will not stop. I will continue working as a journalist. That is for sure. And I will write about anyone I want to," Moldabekov said. He did not say which of his reports could be behind the attack.
The Almaty city police department told RFE/RL that the attack is under investigation.
Attacks against journalists in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic have been on the rise since early January as the country gets ready for early parliamentary elections scheduled for March 19.
On February 20, another Almaty-based journalist and vlogger Vadim Boreiko said that two cars belonging to his cameraman, Roman Yegorov, were burned in an arson attack.
Boreiko and Yegorov said the attack was linked to their professional activities.
In early February, the chief editor of the Ulysmedia.kz news website in Almaty, Samal Ibraeva, received a box from unknown people that contained a hunk of meat and pictures of her children. She described the package as a fresh attempt "to intimidate" her and her staff.
Several other attacks were registered in Kazakhstan last month.
International human rights watchdogs and the embassies of several Western nations have urged Kazakh authorities to investigate the attacks.