Page 69 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2023

bne December 2023 Eurasia I 69
Kuandyk Bishimbayev and Saltanat Nukenova seen in an undated photograph. / social media
said, although without citing specific examples, that men found to have killed their wives are given light sentences. The Children's Rights Commissioner
for Almaty, Khalida Azhigulova, argued that Kazakhstan was the only country in the world where “a concussion, and fractured ribs, limbs, and jaws” are regarded as mere minor injuries for which a judge need only issue a written warning to the suspected perpetrator.
“This is a disgrace for our country,” Azhigulova wrote on Facebook. “[Our laws] are adopted only to please rapists and psychopaths ... so that they can continue to abuse their loved ones ... with impunity.”
Activists point among other things to
a development from 2017, when MPs struck domestic violence from the Criminal Code. The articles criminalising “deliberate infliction of minor harm to health” and “battery” were transferred to the Administrative Code.
In September, Amantay Zharkynbek, an MP from the ruling Amanat party, reportedly said that in cases where
a husband is found guilty of domestic violence and placed under arrest for 15 days, wives should be held accountable
News website Orda cited police sources as saying the former minister initially sought to cover his tracks. He reportedly called his brother and asked him to have the staff leave the premises of
the restaurant. Bishimbayev is then said to have had the CCTV footage deleted and to have asked his brother
to carry his wife’s phone to a gym she regularly frequented and then home
as the geolocation data would lend the impression she was still alive at the time.
Things turned out entirely differently, however. Bishimbayev’s brother called an ambulance, after which medics were able to confirm that Nukenova was dead.
Medical examiners have said they found bruising on Nukenova’s body and head. Investigators were able to recover the deleted CCTV footage. The working assumption is that she may have succumbed to a powerful blow to the head with a blunt object. Further investigations are ongoing.
KazTag news agency quoted its
law enforcement sources as saying Bishimbayev threatened to stab himself as he was being detained.
Bishimbayev has been behind bars before. A court in March 2018 found him guilty of accepting large bribes and
sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
He was, however, released on parole
the following year. Before his arrest, Bishimbayev, who holds an MBA from George Washington University, held a number of senior government positions and once served as an assistant to former president Nursultan Nazarbayev.
People close to the Bishimbayev family have alleged in the wake of
“The working assumption is that she may have succumbed to a powerful blow
to the head with a blunt object”
Nukenova’s death that her husband frequently abused his wife. Orda quoted Nukenova’s friend, Linara Smagulova, as saying she had often seen bruises and scars left by those assaults.
The death has reawakened public discussions around the problem of domestic violence – namely, how the police routinely fail to act to prevent it.
Well-known lawyer Zhanna Muhamadi wrote on her Facebook account that in Kazakhstan the police limit themselves, when receiving reports of spousal assault, to issuing warnings. She
for “provocation” and be kept in custody for a similar period.
In 2022, police in Kazakhstan received more than 115,000 calls reporting domestic violence. That was a marked drop on 2020, the year when COVID-19 lockdowns were being enforced, when the figure spiked to 180,000.
Almaz Kumenov is an Almaty-based journalist.
This article first appeared on Eurasianet.
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