Freedom of Speech and Civil Rights in Kazakhstan

Three guests from Kazakhstan and Russia visited the Karelian Institute on Monday 11^th of March. They gave a talk at the VERA research seminar on ‘Freedom of Speech and Civil Rights in Kazakhstan’. Julia Mazurova who is a documentarist from Moscow presented her documentary ”Zhanaozen The Unknown Tragedy” about the strike of oil workers in Western Kazakhstan (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0sOb1bkSdhkS214SkYteHB1U3M/edit). A Kazakhstani journalist Igor Vinjavskij introduced the Kazakhstani background to Julia’s documentary and briefly discussed his own arrest in January 2012. He was accused of posing a challenge to the constitutional order of Kazakhstan. The seminar and the theme of civil rights in Kazakhstan were documented by Yle’s Jyrki Saarikoski for the programme A-studio: http://areena.yle.fi/tv/1824608. 

Tanja Lipiäinen