This article attempts to find out how protests in Kazakhstan differ from each other, in which part of the country they occur more often, and at what time of the year there are the most protests.
In the first days of January 2022, protests began in many regions of Kazakhstan, but soon the quite peaceful demonstrations changed to chaotic scenes of riots and caught the attention of the world. To the casual observer, rallies may seem unusual in a relatively peaceful Kazakhstan, but statistics over the past three years show that the number of protests in the country has been steadily rising. This article attempts to find out how protests in Kazakhstan differ from each other, in which part of the country they occur more often, and at what time of the year there are the most protests.
The analysis of protests in Kazakhstan is based on the ACLED database, a project that collects, analyses and maps out crisis situations and unrest. The information is tracked around the world in real time, collecting data on dates, actors, locations, fatalities and types of events taking place. The ACLED project methodology covers a range of event types including battles, explosions, violence against civilians, protests, riots. These types of events are further broken down into sub-events for more detailed analysis.
The monitoring of ACLED in Central Asia started at the beginning of 2018 and reflects different types of events. This information comes from more than 130 unique sources. The data is updated weekly by experienced researchers who study traditional media in Kazakh, Tajik, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Russian and English.
Analysis of the protests
Overall, 2019 can be called a significant and crucial year for Kazakhstan as the country underwent a power transition: in March 2019, the country’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, stepped down, offering the candidacy of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in his place. The transfer of power caused a surge of civil and political activity in the republic. Various protests organised by citizens took place on a wide range of economic, social and political issues.
Between 1 January 2019 and 7 January 2022, according to the ACLED database, there have been 2,904 episodes of various types of protest events in Kazakhstan. Peaceful rallies constitute the majority of these. Between 2019 and 2022, 2,591 protests took place in the country, of which 2,249 were peaceful rallies, representing 77.5% of all entries in the database.
In addition to peaceful rallies, protests also include rallies with the intervention of the authorities. This type of sub-category is characterised by when a peaceful rally is attempted to disperse or suppress a protest without serious/lethal injuries or the use of lethal weapons against protesters. These types of events are the second most frequent and account for 306 cases or 10.5% of the total number of protests.
The third largest group of events is violence against civilians and includes violent attacks against unarmed civilians. These are mostly acts of brutality and torture by members of the security forces or unidentified individuals. In addition to victims of politically motivated violence, this sub-category also includes prisoners detained in police custody for various reasons.
A significant part of events are also riots, mass disturbances of public order, which includes various kinds of street riots and demonstrations that have taken violent forms. If we analyse this type of event, they as well as peaceful protests can take place for various reasons, whether it is a local specific problem; dissatisfaction with the work of the local or central government; a dispute between residents and a private (foreign) company.
The database also has a category called strategic events and captures contextually relevant information on the activities of extremist (violent groups) that are not in themselves recorded as politically motivated violence, but may influence future events or contribute to political dynamics within and between states. They typically include disparate events such as recruitment, looting, incursions as well as the location and date of peace talks and arrests of politicians, activists of high-ranking officials or large groups.
Geography of protests
According to the map based on the database, most of the protests took place in the cities of Almaty, Nur-Sultan, Shymkent, as well as in the Almaty, Mangistau and Aktobe regions. During 2019-2022, the largest number of protests took place in Almaty – 473 cases, representing 18% of the total. Almaty is the former capital and the largest city in Kazakhstan in terms of population and this probably explains the leading number of protests.
Following Almaty, the capital city of Nur-Sultan comes in second place with 361 cases of protests, or 14% of the total. Next in third place is Mangistau Oblast, an oil-rich province in western Kazakhstan, where periodic protests take place mainly by oil and gas industry workers. The tragic events in the town of Zhanaozen in this province in 2011 is a case in point. In Mangistau oblast, 258 protests were registered for the years 2019 – 2022. The third largest city in Kazakhstan, Shymkent (213 protests), and then Aktobe region (210 protests) round out the list.
If we divide and analyse the types of protest events by region, the above-mentioned cities and regions are also in the lead. However, for some specific types of protest events, such as riots, which include street riots and violent protests, Zhambyl and Almaty oblasts lead, with 18 and 16 cases of street riots recorded in the last three years. These episodes include pogroms in the Dungan villages of Masanchi and Sartobe in the Korday district of Zhambyl Oblast in February 2020, as well as periodic interethnic clashes with members of the Uyghur, Chechen diaspora and with Chinese company workers in Almaty Oblast in 2019-2021.
The seasonality of the protests
Over the past three years, the number of protests has increased every year - statistics confirm this. In 2021, the number of protests doubled compared to 2019, and in the first week of January 2022, 92 such incidents were recorded. Violence against civilians is also increasing - while in 2019 there were 46 such episodes, in 2021 the figure has increased by 30 cases. Excluding the January 2022 riots, the country saw a peak of unrest in 2020 with 60 cases, which includes street riots and violent demonstrations that got out of hand.
If you look at the peak activity of protest actions by months, then June is the most month for rallies: in 2021 there was a surge of protests - 136 cases.
September is the second most active month, with rallies and protests of all kinds that have occurred steadily in recent years.
Further rounding out the top three is winter February with a figure of 104 protests in 2021. And compared to 2019, this figure has tripled, with 36 cases compared to 104.
April and December were the least active months in terms of protests, although these months also saw protests of various kinds.