“Pricey subscribers and readers of Qaznews24! How are you? I’m hoping you might be nonetheless sitting again and giggling at our information! There is masses to giggle about in our nation!” Kazakh blogger Temirlan Ensebek wrote in his newest letter from a detention middle on Wednesday.
“See you quickly on the Nauryzbay district court docket — imagine this your invitation! The trial might be hilarious too, I promise!” he added.
Ensebek is the founding father of Qaznews24, an Instagram web page that publishes satirical articles on present occasions in Kazakhstan within the taste of the American satirical information large The Onion.
The 29-year-old is in detention on fees of “inciting interethnic discord” over Qaznews24’s January 2024 submit responding to Russian media government Tina Kandelaki’s complaint of Kazakh government for renaming Russian-named railway stations into the Kazakh language.
“Kazakhstan slowly however indisputably continues to supplant the Russian language on the state degree,” Kandelaki had written on Telegram. “Beneath the pretext of securing one’s position in historical past, one can cross very a long way. It’s particularly handy to make use of historical past as a pretext for such doubtful choices.”
The commentary led to a public uproar in Kazakhstan, prompting the Overseas Ministry to promise to prohibit her from getting into the rustic.
However Qaznews24 used to be already forward of officers.
“Kazakhstani rappers recorded a difficult reaction to Tina Kandelaki,” stated Qaznews24 in a since-deleted Instagram submit from Jan. 21, 2024. The submit used to be accompanied by means of the viral 2000s rap tune “Yo, Orystar” (“Hello, Russians” in Kazakh), which might grow to be the root for fees towards Ensebek.
Police searched Ensebek’s house in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s greatest town, on Jan. 17 of this 12 months. He used to be therefore detained for 2 months.
“It’s unlucky that Kazakh government didn’t react to remarks and threats coming from a Russian propagandist. No longer one deputy made a commentary [in response to Kandelaki], so Qaznews24 took that burden upon themselves,” stated Ensebek’s attorney Zhanara Balgabaeva.
Temirlan Ensebek medianet.ngo
“Tina Kandelaki…isn’t even an ethnic Russian. She is Georgian. But, it’s to her that the lyrics of the tune ‘Yo, Orystar’ have been addressed to, that means Temirlan wasn’t aiming it at ethnic Russians, however at those that unfold the ideology of Russian imperialism,” Balgabaeva informed The Moscow Instances, stressing that her “defendant isn’t a russophobe.”
“His loved female friend Maria is an ethnic Russian,” the attorney famous.
Maria Kochneva — an activist who’s now Ensebek’s fiancée after he proposed to her all through a court docket listening to remaining month — may be no stranger to moving into bother over the viral tune.
In July 2024, Kochneva used to be sentenced to ten days of arrest for acting “Yo, Orystar”at a rap combat. The pretext for her arrest used to be using “profane language in a public position.”
“The entirety used to be pre-approved by means of the organizers and everybody used to be the use of profanities — it used to be a rap combat, in spite of everything,” Kochneva recalled in a dialog with The Moscow Instances.
“However [the authorities] singled me out and targeted best on my efficiency…since the video of it used to be circulating in Russian Z-channels,” she added, relating to Russian pro-war and pro-Kremlin bloggers.
First launched round two decades in the past, “Yo, Orystar” is one thing of folklore within the Kazakh phase of the web: it used to be coated dozens of instances and no person is aware of anymore who used to be the unique writer of the lyrics, that are necessarily a movement of obscenities addressed to Russians and Uzbeks.
“Nobody in fact listens to this tune, neither at events nor privately of their headphones. Nobody takes the lyrics severely,” defined Kochneva, noting that the decades-old monitor skilled a well-liked revival amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an anti-war protest tune.
“It has not anything to do with ‘ethnic Russians’ — it’s merely a reaction to aggression,” added the activist.
Kochneva believes that the costs towards her and Ensebek have an “glaring” Russian connection, for the reason that the monitor by no means generated any damaging public comments in Kazakhstan.
“I consider the Russian government burdened ours to make certain that I confronted some more or less punishment,” Kochneva stated. “The similar is going for Temirlan. Sure other folks foyer Russia’s pursuits [in Kazakhstan], claiming that there’s Nazism in Kazakhstan, that Russians are being oppressed right here, and so forth. And the government can’t forget about that.”
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Conquered by means of the Russian Empire within the nineteenth century, Kazakhstan used to be part of the Soviet Union till it proclaimed independence in 1991. But like different Central Asian states, the huge nation nonetheless grapples with how or whether or not to flee the orbit of its omnipotent neighbor.
Along with sharing a 7,800-kilometer land border — the sector’s second-longest — Kazakhstan’s economic system remains to be firmly related to Russia and the rustic is a member of the Kremlin-led CSTO safety alliance.
When anti-government protests broke out throughout Kazakhstan in January 2022, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev organized the deployment of CSTO’s army contingent to “stabilize” the rustic — a transfer that analystswarned would additional cement its safety dependence on Russia.
But if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine got here, Astana stopped in need of backing Moscow and refused to acknowledge the independence of Kremlin-backed separatists in jap Ukraine.
This place grew to become Kazakhstan right into a common punching bag of Russian propagandists and lower-ranking politicians, who — like Kandelaki — time and again voiced dissatisfaction with Astana’s Kazakh-oriented language coverage or even hinted that the Kremlin may transfer to annex its northern areas in retaliation for rising “russophobia.”
“I’m 100% satisfied that there’s a Russian connection in Temirlan’s case,” stated Bota Sharipzhan, an activist with the Oyan, Qazaqstan! civil rights motion. “Russian textbooks have been used within the forensic exam and Temirlan had a couple of public arguments with the pro-Russian blogger Anton Budarov.”
Budarov is the writer of Budanbay, a Telegram channel with over 30,000 subscribers the place he feedback on occasions in Kazakhstan and “exposes” officers and activists who allegedly harbor anti-Russian evaluations.
Temirlan Ensebek. bureau.kz
The Myrotvorets database, a Ukrainian civic initiative that collects knowledge on folks whom its founders consider are threats to Ukrainian statehood, identifies Budarov as an “FSB agent.”
“There have already been a number of cases when Anton had public arguments with anyone over ‘ethnic problems’ and our safety services and products acted on his reviews relatively temporarily,” stated Sharipzhan, noting that this development may well be hooked up to nearer cooperation between the Russian and Kazakh safety services and products since January 2022.
“It is usually vital to needless to say there is not any want to give protection to ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan from the rest,” stated Sharipzhan. “Kazakhstan has at all times been house to more than a few ethnic teams, particularly after Koreans, Chechens and others have been forcefully deported to our nation [by Soviet authorities]. Everybody this is used to having Koreans, Germans, Russians, Kyrgyz, Tatars or Bashkirs as classmates. Primary cases of interethnic warfare are moderately uncommon in Kazakhstan.”
Political analyst Dimash Alzhanov stated he believes that the seek for a “Russian hint” in Ensebek’s case is simply an try to “shift accountability onto one thing far away, {powerful} and sinister” just like the Kremlin.
“The principle explanation why for his arrest and the continuing trial is jokes about Kazakhstan’s political management and the president [Tokayev] himself. After all, those jokes every so often touched on Russia — as we sadly percentage the similar knowledge area,” Alzhanov informed The Moscow Instances.
Qaznews24’s posts aligned with the broader damaging view of the Kremlin amongst Kazakhstan’s public, basically satirizing Tokayev’s “vulnerable place” vis-a-vis Russia, in step with Alzhanov.
“This [trial] is, before everything, concerning the president and the complaint expressed via those jokes,” he added.
Whether or not Russia had a hand in it or now not, the trial towards Ensebek has already grow to be one of the crucial highest-profile political instances in Kazakhstan in recent times.
Whilst the initial investigation and next Prosecutor Basic’s place of job inquiry into Ensebek’s case have been exceptionally swift, the trial reputedly stalled as in style public consideration stuck Kazakh officers off-guard, in step with attorney Balgabaeva.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Global and main Kazakh human rights defenders and activists have known as on government to drop all fees towards the blogger.
Two other folks have been sentenced to extended detention and two others have been fined for staging solo pickets in toughen of Ensebek.
In the meantime, the primary court docket listening to within the blogger’s case used to be moved on-line an hour sooner than the scheduled time and ended with a choice to transport court cases into a distinct district of Almaty, additional clear of the middle.
If discovered accountable, Ensebek faces as much as seven years in jail.
“Considered one of my colleagues when compared this example to a sizzling potato, which everybody is attempting to get off their fingers as temporarily as imaginable,” Balgabaeva stated in a telephone interview. “I need to spotlight that Temirlan’s [social media] web page is satirical and that submit [about Kandelaki] used to be in keeping with its goals and the satirical shape it makes use of.”
“Satire isn’t a criminal offense,” she stated. “It can’t be spoke back to with felony punishment.”
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