ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN —
Uzbek law enforcement officials this month confirmed to VOA that an Uzbek extradition request was behind the February 15 arrest in Kazakhstan of Karakalpak activist Akylbek Muratov, known as Aqylbek Muratbai on X and other social media.
Karakalpaks are indigenous Turkic people of Karakalpakstan, since 1993 a sovereign republic within Uzbekistan with its own parliament, national symbols and language. This status has been a source of friction with the Uzbek government because it often stirs discussions of secession.
Muratov, arrested in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, had been under Uzbek scrutiny since 2015. He is suspected of engaging in separatism and “destructive activism,” according to officials in Tashkent.
Karakalpakstan's Internal Affairs Ministry indicted him late last year, accusing him of preparing and distributing materials that "threaten public safety and order." Uzbek authorities say he has used social media to foment mass unrest in Karakalpakstan, but he denies the charges.
Uzbek officials told VOA that Muratov had been warned through the Uzbek Consulate in Almaty and by his father, but that he persisted in what Tashkent views as anti-government propaganda. Writing on the X social media platform, formerly Twitter, in October, Muratov described these messages as threats and vowed to "not stop my activities to disseminate information about repressions against ethnic Karakalpaks in Uzbekistan.”
Muratov is the sixth Karakalpak to be taken into custody in neighboring Kazakhstan at Uzbekistan’s request since protests in July 2022 against proposed constitutional amendments intended to strip the republic of its autonomous status and right to secede. At least 21 people were killed during the unrest in Nukus, Karakalpakstan’s capital.
None of the five previously arrested in Kazakhstan has been extradited, but they have not received refugee status, which would offer more international protection, including the opportunity to resettle in another country. Muratov, who lived in Kazakhstan for 13 years, is seeking that status.
As a result of the unrest, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev withdrew the proposed amendments that triggered mass discontent and pledged not to change Karakalpakstan's status.
Sixty-four people were convicted for their roles in the violence. One defendant, former police officer Polat Shamshetov, died in prison in February 2023, shortly after receiving a six-year prison term. The longest sentence, 16 years, was given to the lawyer and blogger Dauletmurat Tajimuratov, whose case Muratov often highlighted.
Muratov’s detention, days after a new Kazakh government was sworn in, has drawn attention to Kazakhstan and put Karakalpaks in Kazakhstan on edge.
Muratov’s sister, Fariza Narbekova, told VOA that he has been charged by Uzbek authorities for publishing video of Karakalpak activists’ speeches at an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe conference in October and for urging Karakalpaks on his Telegram channel to switch off lights at home on November 13 for 16 minutes to mark the first anniversary of Tajimuratov’s 16-year imprisonment.
Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a February 26 statement that the charges “have no merit and should be dropped, and Kazakhstan should release him from custody immediately.”
“Kazakhstan is bound by international human rights law not to return Muratbai to Uzbekistan, where he faces serious risk of politically motivated persecution,” she said.
Human Rights Watch said human rights organizations had “documented numerous cases of torture and other ill-treatment, and arbitrary detention, of individuals accused of anti-state crimes in Uzbekistan in recent years.”
This is “a clear-cut case of retaliation” by Uzbek authorities against Muratov for exposing human rights violations in Karakalpakstan following the July 2022 protests, Rittmann said.
Karakalpaks feel discriminated against in their own homeland because migrants from other parts of Uzbekistan are given jobs and farmland there, Galym Ageleuov, an Almaty-based Kazakh rights activist, told VOA.
The proposed constitutional amendments triggered an outpouring of discontent that had built up in Karakalpakstan for years, he said, citing local frustration that Tashkent brings workers from elsewhere to develop gas fields in the Aral Sea region instead of employing locals.