ALMATY (Reuters) – Kazakh prosecutors are investigating the cases of six people detained following street protests last month who then died after being subjected to “unlawful interrogation techniques”, a senior prosecutor was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Human rights groups have urged the Central Asian country to investigate allegations of widespread rights abuses in the wake of the worst unrest in its post-Soviet history, in which at least 227 people were killed.
Rizabek Ozharov, head of the special prosecutor’s service at the prosecutor general’s office, told the official Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper that his service was investigating the six cases.
The interior ministry did not immediately answer telephone calls and an email seeking comment.
This month, the foreign ministry, commenting on a report about abuse by Human Rights Watch, said Kazakhstan “condemns any possible cases of excessive use of force, unlawful detention, torture or ill-treatment of detainees” and would review every case of alleged torture.
Ozharov said that prosecutors were looking into another case of a man, who was alive and in detention, who was allegedly tortured with a clothes iron.
However, Ozharov said such cases were not widespread.
Protests in several Kazakh cities in early January triggered by increases in the price of fuel for cars turned violent in several places, including the biggest city, Almaty, in what the authorities said was an attempted coup d’etat.
About 10,000 people were detained although most of them were released within days.
(Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov and Mariya Gordeyeva; Editing by Robert Birsel)
