Kazakh security forces have detained a Karakalpak activist and member of an opposition party at the request of Uzbek authorities, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports. Rasul Zhumaniyazov, a member of the opposition Forward Karakalpakstan party, was detained on March 26, the service quoted the party’s leader, Aman Sagidullaev as saying. Zhumaniyazov is the second activist from Karakalpakstan to be detained in Kazakhstan in 2024. 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. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, click here.
