Members of the European Parliament and the Polish delegation of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group sent a written question to the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Ms Federica Mogherini and the European External Action Service (EEAS) on the current situation of the democratic opposition in Kazakhstan.
In their interpellation, 11 Polish MEPs (Mr Andrzej Duda, Ms Anna Fotyga, Ms Beata Gosiewska, Mr Marek Gróbarczyk, Mr Marek Jurek, Mr Zdzisław Krasnodębski, Mr Stanisław Ożóg, Mr Bolesław Piecha, Mr Kazimierz Ujazdowski, Ms Jadwiga Wiśniewska and Mr Janusz Wojciechowski) referred to the Kazakh authorities’ mass repression against the opposition in the country after the tragic events ofZhanaozen in 2011.
MEPs pointed out i.a. the lack of a fair trials in Kazakhstan, as well as the common use of torture and forced psychiatric treatment as tools to fight against Mr Nursultan Nazarbayev regime’s opponents.
In this context have been particularly mentioned the cases of Mr Mukhtar Ablyazov, Kazakh dissident in France, against whom they are usepolitically motivated requests for extradition; Mr Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the opposition in the country, imprisoned for a period of 7.5 years, as well as Ms Zinaida Mukhortova, lawyer and human rights defender recently released from a forcible stay in a psychiatric hospital.
In the questions to the chief of the EU diplomacy, the MEPs reffered also to the trade relations between the EU and Kazakhstan, as well as the just negotiated, in September 2014, enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which adoption depends on the consentfrom the European Parliament.