News

Human Rights Defender Nuraddin Jumaniyazov dies in detention

After six months it has become known that Nuraddin Jumaniyozov (68), who planned to set up a trade union for hired laborers, died in prison on 31 December 2016.

Kazakhstan is in the top 10 worst countries for workers’ rights

The latest ranking of workers’ rights includes the global top ten, of which no country in 2017 should want to be a part.

Kazakhstan: a showcase for shrinking civic space

The Nazarbayev regime is using informal and formal methods to squeeze out NGOs, independent media and trade unions. Western governments should pay attention.

Kazakhstan: Union Leader Gets 2-Year Jail Sentence

A labour union leader in Kazakhstan who helped mobilize oil workers into defending their right to independent union representation has been sentenced to two years in jail on charges including embezzlement

Kazakhstan Jails Union Leader For Two Years

A court in Kazakhstan has sentenced labor union leader Amin Eleusinov to two years in prison. The court handed down the sentence on May 16 after convicting Eleusinov, a union leader at the Oil Construction Company (OCC), of embezzlement and of publicly insulting, assaulting, and refusing to obey a representative of state authority. Eleusinov was arrested in January after hundreds of OCC workers went on hunger strike for two weeks to protest the closure of a trade union alliance. (RFE/RL's Kazakh Service)

Investors who profit as oil workers face repression

The companies that this month helped to jail trade union leader Nurbek Kushakbayev are linked, via Kazmunaigaz, Kazakhstan’s state-controlled oil and gas firm, to Chinese and international capital.

Free Nurbek Kushakbayev! Support independent workers’ organisation in Kazakhstan!

Trades unionists have launched an international campaign for the release of Nurbek Kushakbayev, who was jailed this month for his part in organising strike action in the western Kazakhstan oil field.

Kazakhstan: Union Leader Sentenced to Prison

The ITUC has denounced the sentencing of Nurbek Kushakbayev, Deputy Chairperson of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan, to two-and-a-half years in prison in connection with calls for a strike at the Oil Construction Company.

The Astana City Court No. 2 of Almaty District added a €75,000 fine for “damages” to the prison term.

Three years imprisonment for documenting forced and child labor

Alternative Turkmenistan News (ATN) reporter Gaspar Matalaev remains imprisoned on false charges of fraud, despite his family’s hope that he would be released in December and again in February, when others charged with the same offense were given presidential pardons. Matalaev likely remains imprisoned due to his work monitoring state-sponsored forced labor in Turkmenistan’s cotton harvest.

Kazakhstan: Repression of Independent Trade Unions

The ITUC has written to the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to demand the release of imprisoned trade unionists and an end to repression of the ITUC-affiliated Confederation of Independent Trade Union of Kazakhstan KNPRK and its affiliates.