China's Diplomatic Pressure Looms Over Case Against Xinjiang Activists In Kazakhstan

Summary

China appears to have pressured Kazakhstan to prosecute 19 activists who protested Beijing’s mass detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.
Kazakh authorities used a Chinese diplomatic note as key evidence to charge the activists with “inciting ethnic discord,” a crime carrying up to 10 years in prison.
Rights groups call the case politically motivated and say it shows Kazakhstan’s growing crackdown on dissent and Beijing’s influence in the country.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Documents seen by RFE/RL highlight Chinese government pressure behind the prosecution of 19 activists in Kazakhstan who organized demonstrations against China's mass internment camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

RFE/RL obtained a diplomatic note sent by the Chinese Consulate General in Almaty to the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, which describes a November 13 protest organized by the activists as “an open provocation against the dignity of the People’s Republic of China and an insult to the image of the Communist Party of China and China’s leader," and calls for Kazakh authorities "to seriously investigate [the incident.]"

RFE/RL reviewed court materials brought against the activists -- who are part of Naghyz Atazhurt, an unregistered advocacy group that works with families who have relatives missing in Xinjiang -- that show that Kazakh government investigators cited the diplomatic note as a key justification for opening a criminal case under Article 174(2) of Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code, which criminalizes “inciting national, ethnic, or other social discord” when committed by a group.

The protest "negatively impacted the two nations' friendship," an Kazakh indictment seen by RFE/RL said. "The Chinese side has expressed serious concerns regarding the incident. [China's] Consulate General expressed hope that the action will be properly investigated."

The provision, widely criticized by rights groups as vague and prone to abuse, carries up to 10 years’ imprisonment .

The severe sentencing ahead of a January 21 trial at a court in the southeastern city of Taldyqorghan that has seen the prosecution escalate into one of the country’s most sweeping cases against activism on China's policies in Xinjiang , highlighting Beijing's growing influence in Kazakhstan and a sharp squeeze on dissent in the Central Asian country.

Erlan Zhetibaev, a spokesman from Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry, confirmed to RFE/RL that "the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan held a regular meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan" in November, but did not comment on the note sent by China's consulate.

"During the meeting, in addition to bilateral issues, the incident that occurred in the Uyghur district of the Almaty region on November 13, 2025, was discussed, and the Chinese side was informed of the measures taken by law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Kazakhstan in connection with this incident."

Currently, 13 activists remain in pretrial detention, while six others are under house arrest, including Nazigul Maqsutkhan, a pregnant activist whose welfare, and that of her unborn child, has become a focus for rights groups in the country following the prosecution.

The Government Case Against Atazhurt

The case brought against the 19 activists centers on a November 13 demonstration in the village of Qalzhat in eastern Kazakhstan, just a few kilometers from the Chinese border. The group gathered to protest China’s treatment of ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs in Xinjiang and to demand the release of Alimnur Turghanbai, a naturalized Kazakh citizen originally from Xinjiang, who has been detained in China since July.

Relatives say Turghanbai was detained while in China for work, and that his whereabouts have remained unknown ever since.

A screenshot of the diplomatic note sent by the Chinese general consulate in Almaty to Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry.

According to the indictment, the activists “premeditatively gathered” and used social media and other media to disseminate materials allegedly aimed at inciting interethnic hostility and insulting the “national dignity and honor” of Chinese nationals.

State-ordered forensic experts reportedly concluded that videos of the protest posted online showed “signs of incitement to interethnic discord or national enmity,” including “disrespect toward national symbols.”

In those videos of the protests , participants can be seen burning three small Chinese flags and a portrait of Chinese leader Xi Jinping while chanting, “Stop the pressure and injustice against Kazakh and Uyghur peoples,” and “Down with the Communist Party! Down with Xi Jinping!”

Police detained most protesters at the scene, and a local administrative court later convicted several of “petty hooliganism,” issuing fines or up to 15 days’ detention.

But following the Chinese diplomatic note sent to Kazakh authorities, the case against them escalated.

“Kazakh authorities should withdraw the criminal charges against the Atajurt activists and release those in detention immediately,” said Maya Wang, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of aiding China’s repression, the Kazakh government should press the Chinese government to stop its crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”

Since Beijing’s crackdown accelerated in 2017 in its northwestern Xinjiang province, more than 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Muslim minorities have been put into mass detention camps. Tens of thousands of Kazakh citizens have family or cultural ties to Xinjiang -- where many have relatives missing, detained, or under tight surveillance.

Those connections across the border at one point made Kazakhstan an unlikely hotbed for anti-Chinese activism in Central Asia, but Astana, which shares a long border and deep economic interdependence with Beijing, has gone after activists and groups raising awareness about abuses in Xinjiang and calling for the release of their relatives.

The activists awaiting trial are nearly all that's left of what was once a small but influential advocacy movement inside the country.

Rights Groups Call The Case 'Politically Motivated'

Human rights lawyers and several prominent government critics have taken note of the case and said that it lacks any legal basis.

One of the activists' lawyers, Shynquat Baizhanov, told RFE/RL that his clients targeted Chinese government policies, not the Chinese people as an ethnic group. He says the group denounced the detention of a Kazakh citizen, called for an end to pressure on ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang, and demanded the cancelation of a visa-free regime they fear could increase Chinese migration -- positions he describes as political, not xenophobic.

According to Baizhanov, nothing in the protest meets the threshold for “inciting ethnic discord” under international standards because the slogans and actions were directed at state authorities and policies.

Tursynbek Kabi, one of the members of Naghyz Atazhurt detained after the November 13 protest. (file photo)

He said that treating the protest as a criminal offense effectively equates harsh criticism of a foreign government with hate speech, opening the door to further prosecutions of dissenting voices.

Almaty-based human rights defender Bakhytzhan Toreghozhina told RFE/RL that the move from administrative penalties to criminal prosecution as “another example” of Kazakhstan’s tightening clampdown on dissent, in a political environment where opposition has largely been removed from the public sphere.

Ermurat Bapi, an independent Kazakh lawmaker, called the charges against the group “too harsh."

"Such actions have nothing to do with state-related ties or policies, they are just examples of civic activities, social protests," Bapi said to RFE/RL, adding that the maximum punishment for the action could be just administrative fines, not criminal charges.

In a joint statement , the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) and the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law (KIBHR) also condemned the case as “politically motivated” and incompatible with Kazakhstan’s international human rights commitments.

The groups also highlighted broader concerns about Article 174, which carries the charge for “inciting ethnic discord.”

That charge was also brought against Atazhurt founder Serikzhan Bilash in a 2019 case. In 2020, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Kazakhstan unlawfully targeted Bilash.

The activist has since left Kazakhstan under what he called government pressure and now lives in the United States.

Bilash told RFE/RL that he sees the current case brought forward as China’s attempt to “turn Kazakhstan into a second Xinjiang" and that they are an example of Chinese “transnational repression" to shut down the movement and silence witnesses to abuses in Xinjiang.

Government Pressure Against Xinjiang Activism

Atazhurt, which for years has documented abuses in Xinjaing, has been under growing pressure in recent years.

The movement has repeatedly struggled to obtain official registration as a public association, and its members have faced fines, detention, and surveillance over their activism.

On January 15, a court in Kazakhstan’s southern Turkistan region sentenced Atazhurt activist Baghdat Toghyspaev to five days in jail after he refused to pay a fine imposed for a protest demanding the release of the 19 defendants.

In recent months, several other activists tied to Atazhurt have been detained or fined for participating in demonstrations or sharing footage of the November 13 protest on social media.

Activists told RFE/RL that they have faced increased police monitoring and claimed growing pressure on people providing financial support to the group.

Kazakh authorities have also restricted access for foreign researchers focusing on Xinjiang-related issues.

In 2025, Danish anthropologist Rune Steenberg, who studies Uyghur communities, was denied entry to Kazakhstan and Russian-American scholar Gene Bunin, the founder of the Xinjiang Victims Database, was barred from entering the country for several years in 2021.

China has been accused of systemic human rights violations in Xinjiang, and in 2022, a UN report found China was committing " serious human rights violations " in Xinjiang that may amount to crimes against humanity.

A growing body of evidence -- including firsthand testimony and leaked official Chinese government documents -- support the accusations, which range from forced labor to sexual abuse, forced sterilization, and erasing Uyghur cultural and religious identity, including the tearing down of mosques and other religious sites.

China has denied any human rights abuses in the region and says that its policies in Xinjiang are designed to counter extremism and terrorism.