Barylk Mendygaziyev, a Kazakhstani and US-based businessman, eco-activist and human rights advocate, has been subjected to transnational repression.
In the report, the Open Dialogue Foundation, a WLC partner, together with human rights experts from the #ActivistsNoExtremists coalition, provides details of how Chevron Corporation, one of the world’s largest energy companies based in the United States, was used by Kazakhstan to target Barlyk Mendygaziev for environmental activism, financing legal defense costs, and supporting the families of the politically repressed in Kazakhstan.
The Mendygaziyev case was mentioned in resolutions of the European Parliament, written declarations of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and in the US State Department’s annual reports on the human rights situation in Kazakhstan for 2021-2023 as an example of selective justice and transnational repression. Kazakhstan employed multiple methods of repression against Mendygaziyev, including:
– Abuse of AML/CFT laws that caused financial exclusion, seizure of business;
– Took family members and associates as political hostages, used torture on them, including leading Kalyk Mendygaziyev, Barlyk’s brother, to his death, and
– Abuse of the INTERPOL’s international wanted list, etc.
WLC calls on Kazakhstan to cease transnational repression of Barlyk Mendygazyev, release his brother Bekizhan and his associates from prison.
We urge also the U.S. Congress and Senate to conduct an investigation, including public hearing on this topic with the participation of victims of transnational repression from Kazakhstan, as well as representatives of Interpol, FATF and Chevron Corporation.
ODF report: https://en.odfoundation.eu/a/726307,transnational-repression-against-barlyk-mendygaziyev/
