QYZYLORDA, Kazakhstan -- A court in Kazakhstan has rejected an appeal filed by imprisoned activist Erzhan Elshibaev against an additional seven years incarceration handed to him in September for "violating the penitentiary’s internal regulations and for calls to disobey prison guards."
Elshibaev’s lawyer, Zhanar Sundetqalieva, told RFE/RL on December 8 that the Qyzylorda city court of appeals in the country's south pronounced the decision a day earlier.
Sundetqalieva said her client was not allowed to be present at the hearing, adding that the court's decision will be appealed at the Supreme Court.
Elshibaev, who is recognized as a political prisoner by Kazakh rights watchdogs, was expected to be released in October next year. He was initially sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 after a court in his native town of Zhanaozen in the country's southwest found him guilty of hooliganism.
Elshibaev and his supporters have rejected the charges, saying they were politically motivated and aimed at ensuring he wouldn't lead any protests in the restive town.
Elshibaev was one of the leaders of several protest rallies in Zhanaozen in 2018 during which residents in the oil town demanded jobs.
Kazakh authorities have been very sensitive to any dissent or protests in the volatile town, where police fatally shot at least 16 people while dispersing rallies by oil workers in December 2011.
In January 2022, a rally in Zhanaozen against abrupt fuel price hikes led to unprecedented anti-government protests across the nation that ended with violent dispersals in which at least 238 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, were killed.
The European Parliament has urged Kazakh authorities to release Elshibaev and other political prisoners.
Kazakhstan’s government has denied that there are political prisoners in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.