Kazakhstan protesters face armed police after bloody clashes

[countryjake]

Source: The Guardian

Protests in Kazakhstan's oil-producing Mangistau region, unprecedented in the central Asian state's recent history, spread on Sunday to the regional capital, where hundreds of angry demonstrators faced armed riot police.

One person was killed and 11 people wounded in a clash with police in the village of Shetpe on Saturday, bringing the official death toll in the western region to 12 and the number of wounded to nearly 100.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the vast country since the Soviet era, declared a 20-day state of emergency on Saturday in the nearby oil city of Zhanaozen, after at least 11 people were killed in violence that broke out on Friday.

Public protests are rare in Kazakhstan, central Asia's largest economy and biggest oil producer, where Nazarbayev tolerates little dissent and puts stability before democratic freedoms.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/18/kazakhstan-protesters-armed-police-clashes

---

Kazakh riot police in Zhanaozen. Photograph: Olga Yaroslavskaya/AP

[countryjake]

1. more...

From that article:

One sacked oilman, who declined to be named, said: "People have been on strike for seven months and the authorities are saying that hooligans and alcoholics are causing this trouble. It's all lies."

The Guardian makes no mention that almost all of these "protesters" are actually oil workers, striking for their basic rights, a living wage, and union recognition.

Here is a much better explanation of why this is going down in Kazakhstan:

http://www.rferl.org/articleprintview/24328725.html


Here is video of what actually happened on Friday, a video that documents the shooting and gunfire, that was sent out right before the authorities shut down Internet access and cell phone use for the nation, declaring martial law.

http://youtu.be/IKUzG4Q8FS8


Journalists have been arrested, others denied entrance to the country, and no verifiable info on what is now happening is able to get out to the world. Conflicting details of the crackdown continue to be released by the MSM, downplaying this government attack on its citizens, but the oil workers do say that at least 70 are dead and 500 wounded. They have been on strike since May of this year.