NUR-SULTAN -- About 20 people have rallied in front of the president’s office in Kazakhstan's capital, demanding justice for loved ones killed in the violent dispersal of anti-government demonstrations in January.
The protesters who rallied on July 11 came from the cities of Almaty, Oskemen, Taraz, and Shymkent to demand that all posthumous charges against their relatives to be dropped and that thorough investigations into their deaths be launched.
One of the protesters, Murat Abdiraiym from the southern city of Shymkent, told RFE/RL that his son, Nurbolat Alpamys, was shot dead at the January rally. He said his son was unarmed and was exercising his rights to free speech and expression.
"They charged him with taking part in mass disorder. I demand that charge be dropped," Abdiraiym said.
The January unrest occurred after a peaceful demonstration in the tightly controlled, oil-rich Central Asian nation's western region of Manghystau on January 2 over a fuel-price hike led to widespread anti-government protests.
Thousands of people were detained by officials during and after the protests, which President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev said were caused by "20,000 terrorists" from abroad, a claim for which authorities have provided no evidence.
Human rights groups say the number killed was much higher than any of the various figures provided by officials. The groups have provided evidence that peaceful demonstrators and people who had nothing to do with the protests were among those killed by law enforcement and military personnel.
The government has not published the names of those killed during or after the unrest -- which led to the removal of former President Nursultan Nazarbaev and his relatives from the political scene -- and has rejected calls by Kazakh and global human rights groups for an international probe into the deaths.
At the small demonstration on July 11, two women from Almaty, Aigerim Niyazbaeva and Shapaghat Qadyrova, said their husbands were shot dead during the January unrest and posthumously charged with taking part in mass disorders. They said they want their late husbands' names to be cleared and all people involved in the killings to be brought to justice.
Police called on the demonstrators to move to a nearby building housing the Prosecutor-General's Office to meet with a presidential aide and the prosecutor. The demonstrators eventually agreed, but it was not immediately clear whether they met with the officials.
In late June, Kazakhstan's deputy prosecutor general, Aset Shyndaliev, said that six people were tortured to death after being arrested for taking part in the January protests and that 232 people died during the protests, which were violently dispersed by law enforcement and the armed forces.
Shyndaliev said at the time that eight officers of the Committee of National Security (KNB) and a police officer had been arrested on charge of torturing suspects. Overall, he said, 15 officers are suspected of using torture and illegal methods of interrogation on people arrested during and after the unrest.
The Prosecutor-General's Office said earlier that 25 people were officially considered victims of torture after investigators used hot irons on them during interrogations related to the unrest.