Five years in prison for those protesting on behalf of Kazakhs persecuted in China

Sentences for ‘incitement to racial hatred’ have been handed down to 19 activists from the Atažurt movement, which campaigns on behalf of relatives detained alongside Uyghurs in Xinjiang’s ‘re-education camps’. Initially charged with violating protest regulations, the offence was upgraded following a note from the Chinese consulate in Almaty describing the actions as “open provocation”.

Astana (AsiaNews) - The Taldykorgan court in Kazakhstan, in the southern region of Almaty, has found 19 people guilty of “incitement to racial hatred”, following protests calling for an end to the persecution of Kazakhs in Xinjiang, during which Chinese flags and portraits of President Xi Jinping were burned. Almost all those convicted are members of the Atažurt movement and their supporters, who have been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment or house arrest.

Among those sentenced to prison is the movement’s leader, Bekzata Maksutkhana, who had become well known for the documentation she shared on the discrimination faced by Kazakhs, Uighurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in Xinjiang. Together with other members of Atažurt, she has gathered testimonies regarding the detention of relatives in Chinese ‘re-education camps’ – a network of closed facilities where torture, sexual violence and the exploitation of detainees are rife, and where people are also forced to undergo sterilisation.

A first-hand account of these events comes from Tursynbek Kabi, a former detainee of one of these Chinese camps who managed to return to Kazakhstan, recounting the violence and abuse he suffered, and who will now be forced to live under house arrest. A five-year sentence has also been handed down to Guldarija Šerizat, wife of a native of Xinjiang, Alimnur Turganbaj, who was arrested in China last year upon his return from Kazakhstan on the grounds that he was “not in compliance with the requirements for new citizenship” according to the Chinese border police, despite having been a resident for 10 years in his family’s ancestral homeland. Guldarija is calling for her return home. She will now serve her sentence under house arrest, as she has minor children, and the same fate awaits Gulnar Šajmurat, also a mother of five children, the youngest of whom is just four years old.

The Atažurt activists Erkinbek Nurakyn, Erbol Nurlybaev and their supporters Margulan Nurdankazy, Kuandyk Kosžanov, Bakytžan Šugyl, Ergali Nurlybaev, as well as Batylbek Bajkazy – who had no connection to the group but found himself caught up in the demonstration – will not be able to avoid the five-year prison sentence. Similar or lesser sentences were handed down to several other activists, including Nazigul Maksutkhana, the younger sister of the leader Bekzata. Many of them openly contested the verdict; the women were crying and shouting, and one of them fell ill and was taken to hospital.

The charges had been brought by the prosecution as a violation of the rules on demonstrations, but the judge aggravated the grounds for conviction. Special forces units were deployed outside and inside the court. The banned demonstration had taken place on 13 November 2025, and the criminal charges were brought following intervention by the Chinese consulate in Almaty, as the activists recall, with the dispatch of a note requesting that ‘serious investigative measures be taken regarding the incident’ and describing the affair as ‘an open provocation against China’s national dignity and an affront to the image of the Chinese Communist Party and its leader’.

The trial began in January behind closed doors, and the activists’ lawyers argued that no punishable offence had been committed, as even the burning of images of the Chinese leader was merely “an expression of disagreement with Beijing’s policies”, and not an insult to the Chinese as an ethnic group. The international organisations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have described these hearings as a “political trial”, calling for the release of all 19 prisoners, an appeal echoed by US Congressman James McGovern, though without any response from the Kazakh authorities.