ORAL, Kazakhstan -- A court in Kazakhstan’s northwestern city of Oral has sentenced Luqpan Akhmedyarov to 15 days in prison over his participation in April 9 rallies protesting the results of parliamentary elections last month.
The court found Akhmedyarov, who is a Kazakh journalist and would-be candidate for office, guilty of violating regulations on holding public gatherings and sentenced him late on April 12.
Akhmedyarov pleaded not guilty.
Earlier on April 12, courts in the Central Asian nation's largest city, Almaty, sentenced opposition politician Mukhtar Taizhan and activist Alnur Iliyashev to 15 days in jail each on the same charges.
Akhmedyarov and Taizhan unsuccessfully participated in the March 19 balloting as independent candidates. The ruling Amanat party won a majority of seats in the elections, which many independent candidates and opposition activists called rigged, citing the improper counting of ballots and government pressure on public employees to vote for certain parties.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which had an observer mission present at the elections, noted after the vote that "limits on the exercise of constitutionally guaranteed fundamental freedoms remain and some political groups continue to be prevented from participating as political parties in elections."
While the voting "was organized in a smooth manner overall," the OSCE said "significant procedural irregularities were observed."
Days before the parliamentary elections, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev signed a law strengthening the punishment for individuals calling for mass unrest -- a crime authorities often equate with calls for spontaneous protests, which are illegal.
The amended law raised the maximum prison sentence for the offense to seven years from a previous three years, with the possibility of early release on parole excluded.
Opposition activists have complained for years that they have been not allowed to register political parties at the Justice Ministry.
