The NPM is part of the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman and is therefore not independent of the government. In the first 10 months of the year, the PMCs made 340 inspection visits to prisons. Arbitrary Arrest: Prosecutors reported six cases of arbitrary arrest and detention in the first six months of the year.
Detainees have 15 days to submit complaints to the administration of the detention facility or to the local court. According to official statistics, during the first nine months of the year the authorities convicted two judges for corruption crimes. Human rights organizations have access to prisoners through the framework of the National Preventive Mechanism against Torture.
Respect for Civil Liberties, Including
Companies allegedly controlled by members of the president's family or associates owned much of the broadcast media that the government did not directly control. According to media observers, the government wholly or partially owned most of the country's television broadcasters. The government subjected to intimidation media outlets that criticized the president; such intimidation included law.
According to Freedom House's 2018 report Freedom on the Net, where the country is listed as "not free," "the government is centralizing Internet infrastructure in a way that allows for control over content and surveillance." Authorities, both national and local, monitored internet traffic and online communications. Freedom on the Net reported during the year that the country maintained a system of operative investigative measures for the government to use. The government has not released official data on the number of detained or punished demonstrators.
The government has no mechanism for the integration of migrants, with the exception of ethnic Kazakh repatriates (Oralman). Movement within the country: The government required foreigners who stayed in the country for more than five days to register with the migration police. The number of refugee applications and the approval rate by the government decreased significantly during the year compared to previous years.
Access to Asylum: The law provides for granting asylum or refugee status and the government has set up a system to protect refugees. Access to basic services: All government-recognized refugees are issued with a refugee certificate that allows them to legally reside in the country. The government has an agreement with China not to tolerate the presence of ethnic separatists from one country on the territory of another.
According to UNHCR, the law provides a range of rights to persons recognized by the government as stateless.
Freedom to Participate in the Political Process
In June 2017, 16 of the 47 members of the Senate were elected by members of maslikhats – local representative bodies – acting as electors to represent each region (administrative region) and the cities of Astana and Almaty. Four incumbent senators were re-elected and most of the newly elected senators were affiliated with the ruling Nur Otan Party. As a result of Mazhilis snap elections in 2016, the ruling Nur Otan Party won 84 seats, Ak Zhol won seven seats and the Communist People's Party of Kazakhstan won seven seats.
In June, the government changed the law on elections and reduced the independence of local representative bodies (maslihats). According to the amended law, citizens vote for parties, and parties choose who will sit in maslihats. Political parties and political participation: Political parties must register members' personal information, including date and place of birth, address and place of employment.
Six political parties were registered, including Ak Zhol, Birlik, and People's Patriotic Party "Auyl" (merged from the Party of Patriots of Kazakhstan and the Social Democratic Party of Kazakhstan). In order to be registered, a political party must have a constituent congress with at least 1,000 participants, including representatives of two-thirds of the regions and cities of Astana, Turkistan and Almaty. Parties must obtain at least 600 signatures from each region and the cities of Astana, Turkistan, and Almaty, registration with the Central Election Commission (CEC), and registration with each region-level election commission.
Participation of women and minorities: Traditional attitudes sometimes prevented women from holding high office or playing active roles in political life, although there were no legal restrictions on the participation of women or minorities in politics.
Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government
Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights
Government human rights bodies: The Presidential Commission on Human Rights is a consultative and advisory body that includes top officials and members of the public appointed by the president. The commission reviews and investigates complaints, issues recommendations, monitors compliance with international human rights conventions, and publishes reports on some human rights issues in close cooperation with various international organizations, such as UNHCR, the OSCE, the IOM and UNICEF. The commission does not have legal authority to correct human rights violations or implement its recommendations in the reports.
A recent constitutional amendment stipulates that the Human Rights Ombudsman must be elected by the Senate; however, the existing ombudsman was appointed by the president. He also chairs the coordinating board of the National Prevention Mechanism against Torture. The ombudsman did not have the power to investigate complaints about decisions made by the president, heads of government agencies, parliament, cabinet, constitutional council, attorney general, CEC or courts, although he can investigate complaints against individuals.
The Office of the Ombudsman has the authority to appeal to the President, Cabinet or Parliament to resolve citizens' complaints. During the year, the Ombudsman's office occasionally briefed the media and issued reports on complaints it had investigated. Domestic human rights observers indicated that the Office of the Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission were unable to stop human rights violations or punish perpetrators.
The commission and the ombudsman avoided addressing underlying structural problems that led to human rights violations, although they promoted human rights by publishing statistics and individual cases and helped citizens with less controversial social problems and issues involving lower levels of the bureaucracy.
Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
The law also allows for prohibiting offenders from living with the victim if the offender has another place to live, allows victims of domestic violence to receive appropriate care regardless of residence, and replaces financial penalties with administrative arrest if payment of fines was detrimental for the victims. as well as perpetrators. During the trial, Umida forgave her husband "for the sake of the children," she said. In 2016, the President issued a decree to establish the Office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights (the Children's Ombudsman) to improve the national system for the protection of children's rights.
The government registers all births upon receipt of the proper paperwork, which may come from the parents, other interested parties or the medical facility where the birth took place. According to UNICEF, 75 percent of the public supported the use of violent methods to discipline children, and children faced violence at home, schools, children's group homes and on the streets. Displaced children: Human rights observers have noted that the number of street children, mainly in large cities, is high.
The Committee for the Protection of Children's Rights reports that 1422 street children, 233 orphans, 21 delinquent children and 12 children from problematic families were referred to the Centers for Delinquent Children in the first quarter of the year. The law requires companies to set aside 3 percent of jobs for people with disabilities, and the government adopted high-level enforcement measures to increase economic opportunity as part of the president's 2050 strategy. Human rights observers noted numerous types of discrimination against disabled people: some airlines refused to sell tickets to disabled people who asked to travel alone and insisted that they be accompanied by assistants;.
MKPT members can visit mental hospitals to monitor conditions and signs of possible torture of patients, but any institution that holds children, including. They were reluctant to use mechanisms such as the national human rights commissioner to seek legal remedies for harm caused because they did not trust these mechanisms to protect their identity, especially in relation to employment.
Worker Rights
The law also allows the government to target labor organizers whose strikes are deemed illegal, including filing criminal charges and up to three years in prison for participating in court-declared illegal strikes. Foreign workers have the right to join unions, but the law prohibits the operation of foreign unions and the funding of unions by foreign entities, such as foreign nationals, governments and international organizations. Irregular immigrants and self-employed individuals residing in the country were not themselves exempt from the law.
The law prohibits all forms of forced or compulsory labor, except in cases where this is a consequence of a court decision or a condition of a state of emergency or martial law. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection is responsible for dealing with issues related to migrant work. The law prohibits minors from engaging in hazardous work and limits the length of the workday for workers younger than 18.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection is responsible for the implementation of child labor laws and for administrative offenses punishable by fines. The law provides for non-criminal penalties for violations of the law, including written warnings, suspensions, suspensions, revocation of licenses for specific types of activities, administrative penalties or fines, and administrative arrest (only by court decision and only up to 15 days for violations of the legislation in relation to minors). The law does not specifically prohibit discrimination in employment and occupation based on sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV positive status or other communicable diseases.
The law expressly gives workers the right to withdraw from situations that threaten their health or safety without suffering negative employment consequences. The company, which was supported by the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, argued that only workers who live and work in the Aral Sea area are entitled to the 50 percent bonus.
