The past year since the January events in Kazakhstan has once again demonstrated the obvious — for Kazakhstanis, residents of other Central Asian states, and Russians — the change of persons in autocratic regimes does not change the essence of the system. It is impossible to achieve truth and justice in it.
The “new authorities” of Kazakhstan have turned the investigation of the bloody events of January 2022 into profanity. Its interim results indicate that they are not interested in finding and punishing the perpetrators, who then killed 238 people in different cities in Kazakhstan. During the year, only two sentences were handed down in cases of death. According to the relatives of the victims and victims, as well as their lawyers, the authorities, on the contrary, cover the security forces and help them escape responsibility. Most of the cases of shooting or murder have been discontinued. The main reasons are “lack of corpus delicti” or “failure to identify the perpetrators”. Citizens’ complaints to officials and appeals to the courts on the facts of “lack of evidence of involvement in the January crimes”, “refusals to initiate cases on the death of a person”, “non-compliance with procedural norms”, etc. remain unanswered. Often, officials simply refer to the “secrecy of the investigation” https://rus.azathabar.com/a/32211071.html.
There are still no answers to the main questions — who exactly and how exactly killed, maimed, and tortured hundreds of people? Who is responsible for the order to shoot at citizens, most of whom were unarmed? Who staged provocations during peaceful protests that eventually led to a massacre?
To get answers to them, first, you need to answer questions not criminal procedural, but political. Namely, what was the root cause of the tragedy that happened? Who is in power, who in the Kazakh elites is behind the January events, the result of which was the strengthening of the position of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who “pushed aside” the predecessor of Nursultan Nazarbayev on the political scene?
This is still a mystery shrouded in darkness, which neither ordinary citizens nor experts are fully able to reveal in an autocratic state.
13.01.2023
