A Kazakh activist has been fined for a YouTube clip questioning government plans for a nationwide referendum on the construction of a nuclear power plant.
Abzal Dostiyarov streamed the session of the Auezov district court in Almaty on September 10 at which he was found guilty of violating the law on public polling and ordered to pay a 55,350-tenge ($115) fine.
Dostiyarov insisted he is innocent, saying the video clip in question from a week earlier was not a poll.
"I reject the charge. There were opinions of our subscribers compiled under our video. It was not a poll for all the citizens of the country, it was just feedback," Dostiyarov said. He alleged that the court's ruling was politically motivated.
Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev last week announced plans for a nationwide referendum on October 6 to gauge public support for the construction of a nuclear power plant.
Many Kazakhs expect the referendum to succeed, given the country's tightly controlled political environment.
But the push to build a new nuclear facility has been met by significant opposition despite apparent efforts to silence dissent on the issue. In recent weeks, several activists known for their stance against such a project have been prevented from attending public debates on the matter.
Nuclear power-related projects have been a controversial issue in Kazakhstan, where the environment was severely impacted by operations at the Soviet-era Semipalatinsk nuclear test site from 1949 to 1991, and the Baikonur spaceport, which is still operated by Moscow.
Hours before his decree was made public on September 2, President Toqaev reiterated his support for the plant's construction.
There has been no official information about a proposed site, but a public debate was held last year in the village of Ulken on the shore of Lake Balkhash, in the southeastern region of Almaty, on the possibility of constructing a nuclear power station there.
Talk of a new nuclear power station in Kazakhstan has been circulating for years, leading to questions regarding what countries would be involved in the project.
Kazakh officials avoided answers, saying the decision would be made after a referendum.
Shortly before launching its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia proposed that its Rosatom nuclear agency be Kazakhstan's major partner in such a project.
Many Kazakhs publicly rejected the idea of Rosatom's involvement, citing the legacy of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and Russia's occupation of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine as examples of Moscow's attitude toward nuclear safety.
On September 3, the chairwoman of Kazakhstan's Central Commission on Referendums, Sabila Mustafina, said 15.5 billion tenges ($32.5 million) has been requested to conduct the referendum.
