Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Kazakh authorities to invite international experts to join its domestic investigative efforts into serious human rights violations during a deadly wave of unrest in the country last month.
In a statement on February 9, HRW said the independent inquiry was needed "to ensure that the results are seen as credible," adding that the statement followed talks between the watchdog's executive director, Kenneth Roth, and Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi.
"Kazakhstan has announced investigations and commissions to examine the January events, but the government has a long history of such efforts failing to bring accountability or justice," Roth said.
"A hybrid investigation, with international experts joining national investigators, offers the best opportunity for these new investigative efforts to be more successful," he added.
A peaceful protest in the tightly controlled Central Asian country's western region of Manghystau on January 2 over a fuel-price hike led to mass anti-government protests across the country and ended with deadly shootings in the country's largest city of Almaty and elsewhere.
During the protests, Kazakh authorities switched off the Internet and restricted mobile phone operations for five days.
President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev blamed rights activists and independent journalists for "inciting" the protests, which led to the arrest of several reporters in towns and cities across the country.
Toqaev said in the wake of the protests that "20,000 extremists trained in foreign terrorist camps" attacked Almaty, but he did not provide any evidence to support the claim. As the unrest spread, Toqaev requested help from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Toqaev also publicly said at the time that he had ordered security forces "to shoot to kill without warning."
Kazakh authorities have said that 227 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, were killed across the country.
Human rights groups say the exact number of people killed during the unrest may be much higher, providing evidence proving that there were peaceful demonstrators and persons who had nothing to do with the protests among those killed by law enforcement and military personnel.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, several UN human rights experts, the United States, and the European Union's human rights envoy have called for an independent investigation into the January violence.
