In Almaty, Kazakhstan, families looking for their arrested relatives
Audio 02:28
Demonstrators in Almaty to protest against an increase in energy prices, in Kazakhstan, January 5, 2022. (Illustrative image) AP - Vladimir Tretyakov
By: Anissa El Jabri Follow
3 mins
A little more than two weeks after the start of the social protest which degenerated into riots and armed repression in Almaty, many civilians are still looking for their missing.
Others want to know why someone close to them was killed and often tortured.
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When President Tokayev announced on January 7 that he had given the order to shoot to kill, without warning, and that essentially Russian forces were going to help him restore order, he mentioned “20,000 terrorists”.
No terrorist has yet been indicted or brought to trial.
But the toll of the repression is heavy: 200 dead, hundreds injured and at least 12,000 arrests.
►
To read also: Kazakhstan: Janaozen, the origins of the revolt
At 33, Oleg is a popular lawyer in Kazakhstan, very present on social networks and so far accustomed to handling ordinary civil cases.
In his bright office in the center of Almaty, the phone never stops ringing.
“
Over the whole of last December, I had about thirty cases to process.
Since January, after the events here, many people from all parts of the country have written to me.
So I opened a dedicated chat channel on the internet.
I open a message, I reply, I open the next message.
I still have a hundred waiting.
I'm constantly on the phone, my wife can't take it anymore.
People have even gone so far as to find my home phone and are calling for help on that line as well.
»
At the end of the line, always trying stories like that of Leylem who recounts the last time she saw her husband: “
It was when the police brought him home after his arrest to carry out a search. Her clothes were torn, so I asked if I could at least give her some other clothes. Since he was in handcuffs, we couldn't remove his T-shirt and jacket. But I changed his pants and saw his legs covered in bruises and blood. The policeman said to me: "
On the images of the cameras, we saw a silhouette resembling that of your husband distributing weapons
".
»
Without news, Leylem and his lawyer then spent ten days looking for him.
No one has seen her husband, who denies having participated in the riots, but he was located in a police station.
“
I saw several bullet holes
”
For Nurlan, on the other hand, there is no longer any hope. He left London where he works. And it was his brother's body that he found in the morgue. “
I helped prepare his body for the funeral. I clearly saw several bullet holes, bruises, his two completely broken hands, his broken nose, his damaged ankle.
“
His last words were during a call he made on returning from a dinner with friends where he told us
:
'
I have been arrested by the police
'
. »
Nurlan Zagghiparov lays hundreds of photos of his archaeologist brother on the table, smiling with his friends.
Like him, and each time, the witnesses we met insist on telling us: "
We are educated, we have travelled, we are ordinary people
" to tell us, without saying so, "
that they are not the terrorists
" whose spoke the president.
►
To read also
:
Kazakhstan: the president claims that the riots were an attempted "coup"
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