Karakalpak Activist Aqylbek Muratbai Leaves Kazakhstan for Western Country

Karakalpak activist Aqylbek Muratbai left Kazakhstan on the night of November 6 — just days before he could have been extradited to Uzbekistan, Orda.kz reports.

According to the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, Muratbai is now in a Western country that has agreed to grant him protection.

Muratbai had lived in Kazakhstan for more than ten years. During that time, he frequently criticized President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s policies toward Karakalpakstan and spoke publicly about the July 2022 protests in Nukus, where residents opposed constitutional amendments that threatened the region’s autonomy.

The demonstrations were violently dispersed, after which the Uzbek authorities withdrew the bill but launched widespread prosecutions of protesters and activists.

In February 2024, Muratbai was detained in Almaty and later arrested. Uzbekistan formally requested his extradition, accusing him of “publicly calling for mass unrest and violence.” Human rights organizations warned that if returned, he would likely face torture and imprisonment.

Kazakhstan's authorities have previously detained several activists at Tashkent’s request, and another Karakalpak activist still faces the risk of deportation.

Muratbai became known for documenting the mass detention of Central Asian migrant workers in Kazakhstan. He wrote that citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan were often rounded up at construction sites and markets, then held for months without family contact or consular access.

According to him, he personally helped dozens of detainees in an Almaty pre-trial detention center — bringing clothes, drafting petitions, and translating complaints — while the diplomats of their home countries “remained inactive.”

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court in Astana definitively rejected his request for asylum.

A few days before his departure, the activist said he had been warned that if deportation could not be stopped, his only option would be to leave for a third country immediately.

He described it as a choice between “prison or escape.”

Original Author: Ruslan Loginov