Jailed Kazakh opposition activist Baghdad Baqtybaev has reportedly swallowed nails to protest his conviction and incarceration.
Bakhytzhan Toreghozhina, a leading member of the Almaty-based human rights group Ar, Rukh, Khaq (Dignity, Spirit, Truth), told RFE/RL on November 1 that Baqtybaev’s colleagues had informed her a day earlier that he had maimed himself by swallowing nails and needed urgent medical assistance.
After Toreghozhina raised the issue on social networks on October 31, Kazakhstan’s Penitentiary Service (QAZh) rejected the information, calling it “false.”
According to the QAZh, Baqtybaev did not swallow any nails and has no complaints about his health.
Toreghozhina told RFE/RL that a lawyer will try to visit Baqtybaev in the ZhDU-158/2 penal colony in the southern city of Taraz to verify the QAZh statement.
The 46-year-old Baqtybaev was detained in October 2020 and charged with being a member of the banned Koshe (Street) Party and with illegal drugs possession. He was sentenced to two years in prison in February.
The Koshe Party is associated with the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) of fugitive businessman and former Energy Minister Mukhtar Ablyazov.
Human Rights Watch has criticized the Kazakh government for using anti-extremism laws as a tool to persecute critics and civil rights activists. Several hundred people have been prosecuted for membership in the DVK and Koshe Party in recent years.
In November 2020, Kazakh human rights organizations recognized Baqtybaev as a political prisoner.
The Kazakh authorities have insisted there are no political prisoners in the Central Asian country.
