KZBlog

Disturbing news from Kazakhstan’s prisons. Prisoners have been mutilating themselves and 38 were injured during a riot in Akmola oblast last week. Prisoners claim that they are routinely beaten and tortured, that prisons are overcrowded, and that there is no complaint system. The government claims that there is a complaint system in place which is effective and that most complaints “prove not to be true.”

Nonetheless it is hard for the government to ignore self-mutilation and one prisoner who allegedly set himself on fire. The BBC article linked above has some disturbing pictures of the inmates’ injuries.

One interesting note that has come out of this is that Kazakhstan far more prisoners than other post-Soviet countries or Europe:

According to a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, the prison population in Kazakhstan is three times the average in Europe and well above the number in other post-Soviet countries. At the beginning of 2010 there were nearly 64,000 prisoners in Kazakh jails. Officials say that number has now been reduced to just over 60,000.

Nowak came to Kazakhstan in May of this year and noted many “

Subscribe or Share