Washington, D.C. – Freedom Now welcomes the release of Azamat Umbetaliyev from wrongful detention in Kazakhstan. Umbetaliyev, one of eight men convicted for being members of a religious WhatsApp group, was released on probation on December 6, 2021 after serving three years and one month of a five and a half year sentence. While on probation he must routinely report to the probation service and is unable to change his residence or travel without permission.
“We are grateful that Azamat Umbetaliyev has been released,” said Freedom Now Program Director Karl Horberg. “However his imprisonment was a flagrant violation of human rights. We call on the Kazakhstani government to abide by the decision of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and release the remaining members of the WhatsApp group immediately and unconditionally.”
Umbetaliyev was arrested in October 2018 with seven other individuals – Beket Mynbasov, Samat Adilov, Zhuldyzbek Taurbekov, Zhasulan Iskakov, Nazim Abdrakhmanov, Ernar Samatov, and Bolatbek Nurgaliyev. The men are all practicing Muslims who resided in various regions of Kazakhstan. Prior to their arrests, none of the men had a criminal history and many of them had never met each other in person.
In December 2013, Nurgaliyev created a WhatsApp group to share information and engage in discussions concerning Islam. His stated intention was to create a forum to discourage individuals from engaging in terrorist activities, which he opposed. Between 2013 and 2018, the group grew to 171 members and thousands of messages were exchanged.
All eight men were members of the WhatsApp group in October 2018, but the involvement of each varied. A significant portion of activity involved simply sharing articles by Islamic scholars. Some members posted articles and comments more frequently than others. One of the men, Abdrakhmanov, only ever sent one message to the group – a section of text that he copied and reposted from an earlier message. Another man, Adilov, only joined the group 12 days prior to his arrest and never presented his own opinions or analysis.
Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB) first obtained messages from the WhatsApp group as early as August 2018. In September 2018, the KNB commissioned an expert analysis of texts, which concluded the messages showed “signs of agitating of religious discord.” A second expert determined the messages propagated “religious-radical views.” A criminal case was opened on October 18, 2018 after the KNB received a written statement from an anonymous source who claimed participants in the group actively discussed “religious topics.”
On October 27 and 28, 2018, KNB officers arrested seven of the eight men either at their homes or at public locations near their residences. In the case of Umbetaliyev, officers lured him outside of his home under the pretense that they wished to discuss some religious matters with him. Umbetaliyev was then assaulted by a group of plainclothes officers who pushed him into one of the eight cars that the officers arrived in. Similarly, Nurgaliyev, was lured to a nearby market under the pretense of a potential business transaction. Once Nurgaliyev arrived at the market, masked men seized him. The eighth man, Adilov, was later arrested when he sought to testify to KNB officers that the WhatsApp group was only used for religious discussion.
On February 18, 2019, all eight men were charged under Article 174 of the Kazakh Criminal Code for inciting social, national, clan, racial or religious discord. The indictment claimed that because the WhatsApp group’s founder, Nurgaliyev, is a Salafi Muslim and because groups following similar ideology have conducted terrorist activities, the WhatsApp group therefore promoted terrorism. Four of the men, including Nurgaliyev, were also charged under Article 256 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits promoting terrorism.
The trial of the eight men officially began on March 12, 2019 and spanned for the next five months. Over the course of the trial, the prosecutor’s office sent four successive prosecutors to try the government’s case. The government presented no evidence that any members of the group advocated, encouraged, or condoned acts of terrorism. The only connection made between the petitioners and terrorism was the allegation that their denomination of Islam was Salafism.
On August 5, 2019, the court found seven of the defendants guilty of violating Article 174. Nurgaliyev, Samatov, and Mynbasov were also found guilty of violating Article 256. Abdrakhmanov, Adilov, Iskakov, and Umbetaliyev were sentenced to five and a half years’ imprisonment; Samatov and Mynbasov were sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment; Nurgaliyev was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. The eighth defendant, Taurbekov, was found guilty of violating both Article 174 and 256 and sentenced to seven years in prison in January 2020, due to a health condition that postponed his trial.
As of December 2021, none of the other 162 members of the WhatsApp group have been arrested, indicted, or tried in relation to their membership in the group.
In September 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion which found Kazakhstan violated international human rights law by imprisoning the eight men. Responding to a legal petition filed by Freedom Now and the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, the UN concluded that the arrest and detention of the men was a violation of their internationally protected human rights “on the ground of discrimination based on their religion aimed at and resulting in ignoring the equality of human beings.”