Kazakhstan talks human rights with EU

    By Igor Kovalenko
    As Kazakhstan prepares to sign an expanded partnership agreement with the European Union, the two sides held consultations on human rights on November 26. Activists in Astana have warned of an alarming increase in arrests over social media postings and are calling on the EU to address this issue.
    As reported by EurasiaNet, rights activists are concerned that Brussels may choose to gloss over rights issues for geopolitical ends.
    While tolerance for dissent has always been low in Kazakhstan, authorities appear to have opened a new front by chasing down what they deem to be critical postings on websites like Facebook and Russia’s VKontakte, according to the report.
    “The EU should insist that the Kazakhstani authorities stop criminally prosecuting individuals who are legitimately exercising their right to freedom of expression to voice opinions or share information that may not be to the liking of those in power,” Brigitte Dufour, director of the Brussels-based International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), said in a joint statement with the Almaty-based Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law (KIBHR). “Open debate – both off- and online – is a key element in any society aspiring to be a free and democratic one.”
    The EU issued a boilerplate note of concern, which addressed pressure on independent media but avoided entering into specifics, according to EurasiaNet.
    “Democracy and human rights are universal values and a silver thread running through the all our actions in the EU and abroad,” the EU’s Toivo Klaar, co-chair of the human rights meeting, said at a civil society seminar on the sidelines of the main talks, according to New Europe.