Four members of the Tabligh Jamaat movement in southeastern Kazakhstan were sentenced in January 2015 to 20-months’ imprisonment each. Participation in the Tabligh Jamaat is banned in Kazakhstan. Like a similar December 2014 Tabligh Jamaat–related criminal trial, this trial was largely held in secret.
Bakyt Nurmanbetov, Aykhan Kurmangaliyev, Sagyndyk Tatubayev and Kairat Esmukhambetov – were sentenced on 14 January to 20-months’ imprisonment each. A fifth brother was sentenced to 18 months. The 20 months’ imprisonment will be meted out in a labour camp.
Another Tabligh Jamaat member Mamurzhan Turashov, a 41-year-old father of five, was given a three-year prison term on 2 December 2014 in the South Kazakhstan Region. He was punished under a criminal code article that banned the creation or leadership of a banned group. Neither the court, the prosecutor, the Judicial Expertise Institute who conducted “expert analyses” of religious books seized from him, or even his defense lawyer were willing to make public the verdict or the “expert analyses”. All were also unwilling to tell Forum 18, a Norwegian-Danish-Swedish Christian initiative, what Turashov had done wrong, apart from Tabligh Jamaat membership.
