Police detained dozens in Kazakhstan's two largest cities on Saturday
as they took part in the latest protest against China's influence in
the Central Asian republic. To get more china breaking news, you can visit shine news official website.
Neighboring China is already one of Kazakhstan's largest investors and
trade partners and a plan to relocate a number of Chinese plants and
factories to the former Soviet republic has faced public opposition.
The latest round of protests on Saturday was organized by supporters of
Mukhtar Ablyazov, a fugitive banker living in France who has been the
fiercest critic of Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Nazarbayev resigned last March after running the oil-rich nation for
almost thirty years, but retains sweeping powers as the head of the
security council and the ruling Nur Otan party.
Kazakh authorities consider Ablyazov's political movement extremist and
involvement in its activities a crime. Authorities have detained 57
people and may be charged, the interior ministry said.
"You know that as of today's date at 2 p.m. the banned DCK in Kazakhsan
was called upon to gather... we (the police) asked people to disperse,
and those who didn't, were taken to the district offices for
questioning," Bakytzhan Malybayev, first deputy chief of Nur-Sultan
police, told reporters. "We will carry out questioning and then the
people will be released."
Reuters reporters witnessed several arrests in Nur-Sultan and Almaty.
In Kazakhstan's capital Nur-Sultan, police detained a man with a banner
reading: "Let's not give way to Chinese expansion" and "The old man is
the enemy," an anti-Nazarbayev slogan. Several people chanted:"Freedom
to political prisoners."
Some protesters tried to escape as police moved in and smashed the windows of a police bus.
In Almaty, protesters were quickly taken away to police buses as they
began chanting slogans against Chinese expansion and "Old man, go
away!"
China is a major investor in Kazakhstan's energy sector and
buys oil and gas from the mostly Muslim nation of 18 million, but
critics accuse some Chinese companies - as well as Western ones - of
hiring too few local staff and paying them less than foreign workers.
