On April 13, a court in Taldykorgan, Kazakhstan handed down a verdict in the case of 19 activists associated with the Atajurt movement, sentencing 11 to five-year prison terms. The group had staged a dramatic, but peaceful, protest in November 2025 drawing attention to the case of Alimnur Turganbay, an ethnic Kazakh detained last year in Xinjiang.

In protest of the Chinese government’s policies in Xinjiang, the activists burned a Chinese flag and a picture of Xi Jinping, China’s top leader.

Kazakh authorities charged the group with “inciting national hatred.”

Those sentenced to prison terms include Bekzat Maksutkhan, the leader of Atajurt. 

Founded by Serikzhan Bilash, Atajurt has worked for years to bring attention in Kazakhstan to those detained in Xinjiang by Chinese authorities. In 2019, Bilash himself faced incitement charges. He ultimately took a plea, paid a fine, and promised to end his activism. As the AFP reported at the time, Bilash explained his plea deal in simple terms: “I had to end my activism against China. It was that or seven years in jail. I had no choice.”

The following year, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that Kazakhstan’s detention of Serikzhan Bilash in 2019 was arbitrary and concluded that Astana “was targeting Mr. Bilash for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association.”

Bilash has since left Kazakhstan, while Atajurt continued its work under Bekzat Maksutkhan.

As journalist Chris Rickleton detailed in a December 2025 report for The Diplomat, Atajurt’s protest in November centered on the case of Alimnur Turganbay. Turganbay had been born in China but like many ethnic Kazakhs, moved to Kazakhstan. In 2017, he became a Kazakh passport holder but continued working as a truck driver, carrying goods across the Chinese-Kazakh frontier. 

As Rickleton wrote:

That status theoretically obligated Kazakh authorities to press Beijing for answers over his arrest on the Chinese side of the Kalzhat-Dulata border crossing on July 23, where he had traveled to load up with construction materials bound for Uzbekistan. 

But the Kazakh Foreign Ministry appears reluctant to press any further after China’s Ministry of Public Security informed its consulate in Urumchi in August that Alimnur “has not received permission to renounce Chinese citizenship and does not meet the conditions for automatic deprivation of Chinese citizenship under Chinese law.” 

Turganbay’s wife, Guldariya Sherizatkyzy, was sentenced in the recent verdict to a five-year prison term, too, albeit with the sentence deferred because she has minor children. Her husband is still detained in Xinjiang.

Others given prison terms included Tursynbek Kabi, an Atajurt activist and witness to the Xinjiang re-education camps; Margulan Nurdangazy, an online influencer and Atajurt supporter; Yerkinbek Nurakyn and Yerbol Nurlybaev, both Atajurt activists; Kuandyk Koszhanov and Bakytzhan Shugyl, described as Atajurt supporters; and Batylbek Baikazy, a nearly blind man who appears to have merely accepted a ride from Atajurt members the day of the protest. 

Gulnar Shaimurat, an Atajurt activist, was sentenced to five years but her sentence was also deferred on account of her having young children.

Eight other defendants – Nazigul Maksutkan, Asylkhan Kolkhaev, Bakhtynur Nurmakhan, Ayan Kalymbek, Bedelkhan Kabilashim, Nurgeldi Nursapa, Beisenali Akzhigit, and Kanat Turdybay – were given sentences of restricted freedom between four years and eight months and five years.

Nazigul Maksutkan, the sister of Atajurt leader Bekzat Maksutkhan, told The Diplomat, “The imposition of such severe sentences on innocent individuals, in our view, reflects direct pressure from the Chinese authorities on the government of Kazakhstan. In an apparent effort to maintain its authoritarian system and secure external support, the Kazakh authorities have issued an unjust and politically motivated verdict.”

The International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) and Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law (KIBHR) criticized the court’s verdict. In a press statement, IPHR Director Brigitte Dufour said, “The convictions in this case are a stark illustration of the misuse of criminal law to restrict the legitimate exercise of the freedoms of expression, association and assembly… Peaceful protest, even when perceived as politically sensitive or provocative, should not be treated as a criminal offence.”

IPHR and KIBHR noted that the the criminal charges “were initiated following a Chinese diplomatic note calling for ‘appropriate measures’ in response to the protest.”

The activists had initially been charged with an administrative offense, rather than a criminal one, and sentenced to short terms and fines for “petty hooliganism.”

In January, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director Marie Struthers stressed in a press statement: “Peaceful protest is not a crime simply because it makes those in power uncomfortable – even when that discomfort extends to displeasing a powerful geopolitical player such as China.”

While there remains space for appeals, the trajectory of the case casts a dark shadow, especially its transformation from an administrative offense to a criminal one in the wake of Chinese government comments. The protest itself, activists note, did not advocate for discrimination, violence, or hostility toward the Chinese people – it criticized the Chinese government and its leadership.