Kazakhstani Human Rights Lawyer Found Guilty of Spreading Disinformation

Human rights lawyer Bakhytzhan Toregozhina was found guilty of “spreading false information” in an Almaty court on July 31 because of social media posts calling attention to the deteriorating health of Kazakhstani political prisoner Marat Zhylanbaev. She faces a 78,000 tenge ($143) fine for her administrative offense.

Toregozhina has actively followed Zhylanbayev’s case and regularly posts about his deteriorating health. She has emphasized his “unnatural skin tone” and “fainting spells.” Zhylanbayev’s weight has dropped to 45 kilograms, she said.

She and her followers often tag President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in her posts about Zhylanbayev, because “the country is under manual control and only the president can decide Zhylanbayev's fate,” she wrote in a post.

On July 26, Toregozhina shared a post on Facebook once again calling attention to Zhylanbayev’s poor health.

“Instead of giving clear answers to questions about Zhylanbayev, they are once again writing lies! No one is examining Marat,” she wrote. “I am only asking you for the truth! I write constantly about Marat's hunger strikes and demands! Have you done anything? You just write, ‘He is starving himself, and we are watching.’”

Two days later, Toregozhina was summoned to a police station in Almaty. On July 30, she announced her trial on social media and shared that she had been accused of “spreading false information.”

Activist and ultra-marathon runner Marat Zhylanbayev was convicted in November 2024 to seven years in prison for “participation in a banned organization” and “financing an extremist organization.” The 61 year-old was a leader of the unregistered Alga, Kazakhstan! (Forward, Kazakhstan!) opposition party.

Since his 2024 sentence, he has gone on two hunger strikes. Both Kazakhstani and international human rights activists consider him a political prisoner.

On July 25, activists visited the prison where Zhylanbayev is being detained, demanding to have a video call with the prisoner. The detention center refused their request on the grounds that the activists were not members of Zhylanbayev’s family. A prison employee eventually showed the activists a phone recording of surveillance footage of Zhylanbayev.

“He looks like a living dead man,” one activist said about the video.

Reporting by Almas Kaisar.