Freedom Now strongly condemns the conviction of 18 members of the Kazakhstani human rights organization Atajurt on charges related to their involvement in a peaceful protest. The government should immediately vacate the convictions, release those still held in custody, and cease further prosecution of the activists on the basis of their peaceful protest.
Eighteen activists affiliated with Atajurt were arrested in November 2025 after staging a peaceful protest against the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including its repression against ethnic Kazakhs. The government of Kazakhstan accused the activists of “inciting ethnic discord” in violation of the notorious Article 174 of Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code. Thirteen of the activists have been held in government custody since their arrests while the remaining five are under house arrest. On April 13, 2026, the Zhetysu Criminal Court convicted the 18 members of Atajurt, along with another person present at the protest, of violating Article 174. The Court sentenced 12 of the members, including the current head of Atajurt Bekzat Maksuthan, to five years in prison. The remaining defendants face restrictions on their freedom. All of the defendants are banned from participating in political activities for three years.
Since its founding, Atajurt has provided rare insight into the wide-scale human rights violations occurring in Xinjiang. Atajurt has interviewed many released detainees who have provided first-hand experience of the camps where more than one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and other ethnic Turkic Muslims have been detained since 2017. Through these interviews, Atajurt has compiled significant amounts of information on China’s crackdown in the region. The government of Kazakhstan has repeatedly targeted Atajurt activists for harassment and arrest. In 2019, the government arrested the organization’s founder, Serikzhan Bilash, after he encouraged people to share information about human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Speaking to Freedom Now about the possible impact of the Court’s decision, Bilash warned that “If Atajurt is terminated, we will lose all hope of exposing Chinese genocide.”