“Liquefied gas blew up Kazakhstan”, dozens of protesters shot dead

During the night of January 5 to January 6, Kazakhstan experienced the most serious clashes since the start of the protests that erupted on January 2 following the announcement of the increase in the price of fuel gas. According to the Russian press, these events might lead to regime change in the country.

“Liquefied gas blew up Kazakhstan ”, headline the daily Kommersant (For two days the Kazakh news sites have been inaccessible, only Russian sources are providing information for the time being). The Russian newspaper’s pun accurately reflects the situation: the massive protests once morest the doubling of the price of gas fuel for cars (from 12 euro cents to 24 euro cents per liter) on the night of January 1 sparked off riots the next day.

And the toll is heavy: according to Kommersant, dozens of demonstrators were shot dead, 13 police officers killed (two were beheaded), a thousand people injured, administrative buildings were ransacked and the town hall of Almaty was set on fire.

It is first in the city of Janaozen, in the oil region of Manguistau in the west of the country, then in Almaty (three million inhabitants), the former capital and “capital [historique] protests ”, that the protests escalated into a violent uprising note Kommersant. The cities of Aktau, Aktobe, Shymkent, Taraz, Taldykorgan and Karaganda also set ablaze.

The population demands the real departure of Nazarbayev

“The gas price problem was only a trigger, the demands are political ”, to analyse Kommersant. parallel to the “Demand for social justice”, the demonstrators demanded “That an end to the policy of Nursultan Nazarbaev”. Officially “Life leader of the nation”, the 81-year-old former head of state is still President of the Security Council, which allowed him, following leaving the country in 2019, to “Keep important levers of power”.

“State social policy has long been a source of discontent ”, estimates the Moscow newspaper online Vzgliad. For the Russian specialist in

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Alda Engoian