Human rights advocates expressed alarm Friday after Kazakhstan’s president ordered security forces to “shoot to kill without warning” protesters engaged in ongoing demonstrations over high fuel prices, economic inequality, and corruption.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced he had given the order in a speech as he also accused media outlets of encouraging unrest and claimed without evidence that demonstrators have taken orders from a “single command post” and have “a clear plan of attacks on military, administrative, and social facilities in all areas.”
“They need to be destroyed and this will be done,” said Tokayev of the demonstrators, adding that suggestions of negotiating peacefully with the public were “just nonsense.”
Noting that authorities “have a duty to maintain order,” Amnesty International said on social media that “giving blanket approval for police officers and troops to fire without warning is unlawful and a recipe for disaster.”
The popular uprising began Sunday in
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