THIS APPEAL IS SHARED ON BEHALF OF THE LGBTI MOVEMENT OF KAZAKHSTAN.
For questions contact the email below.
Appeal of the Kazakhstan LGBTI Movement to the Global LGBTI community
We, LGBTI activists and allies in Kazakhstan, call upon the global LGBTI community to support us by spreading information about the situation in our country and region. There are attempts to introduce draconian measures aimed at further restricting the
LGBTI movement and threatening the right to freedom of expression for LGBTI people in Kazakhstan. Since the beginning of 2024, the LGBTI movement in Kazakhstan has faced unprecedented attacks from the authorities and anti-LGBTI groups.
In February, a website aimed at informing LGBTI children and teens was blocked. In March, Almaty authorities banned feminists from organizing a women's rally, justifying their decision with LGBTI-phobic statements from the population. In April, several members of the Kazakh Parliament attempted to introduce a legislative ban on mentioning LGBTI in the media. Additionally, two other members proposed criminal liability for the same “propaganda” of LGBTI people, with punishments of up to seven years in prison. These attempts were followed by a series of raids conducted by law enforcement targeting LGBTI clubs and parties in major cities, during which hundreds of LGBTI people were illegally detained. In June, the Kazakhstan Union of Parents, an anti-gender organization, initiated a petition on a special state platform calling for measures to ban the so-called LGBTI “propaganda” in Kazakhstan.
As stipulated by the law, authorities are required to consider petitions that receive more than 50,000 signatures at the government level. To ensure the petition gained the required number of signatures, various government agencies allegedly forced their employees, and school principals pressured teachers, to support the anti-LGBTI petition. As a result of this extensive use of administrative resources, the petition received the necessary signatures, and the Ministry of Culture and Information has begun the process of reviewing it.
We believe that the state's registration of this petition was illegal. The law governing petitions prohibits the state from accepting petitions that restrict human rights of people. The Ministry of Culture and Information of Kazakhstan should have rejected it initially, but instead, they accepted it for consideration.
This indicates that the Kazakh authorities are interested in further restricting the rights of LGBTI people in Kazakhstan. In our country, it is impossible to register LGBTI organizations, organize pride marches, and the right to transgender transition is not accessible. Legal gender recognition involves discriminatory norms. At the beginning of 2024, the President of Kazakhstan signed a law prohibiting LGBTI people from mentoring and adopting orphans. Additionally, the right to equal marriage for LGBTI people is prohibited by the Code on Marriage and Family, which explicitly states that “marriage between persons of the same sex is not allowed” (Clause 1, Article 11).
At the national level, we are taking all possible measures to oppose any attempts to prohibit the so-called “propaganda” of LGBTI people, which, as a phenomenon, is absurd and does not exist. We hope that Kazakhstan, as a country that values and is highly concerned about its international image, will abandon this initiative under the influence of international criticism. We hope that the more foreign and international media write about these issues in Kazakhstan, the more effective our collective advocacy will be.
In this regard, we appeal to all of you to help spread information about the alarming situation in Kazakhstan. To do this, we ask the following:
• Connect us with journalists/reporters in your countries, who we are ready to talk with and share more on the situation regarding LGBTI rights in Kazakhstan.
• If you are in touch with members of parliament in your countries who are on international affairs committees, inform them about the situation with LGBTI rights in Kazakhstan and ask them to express concerns to the Parliament of Kazakhstan within the framework of international inter-parliamentary relations.
• If you are in touch with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of your country, also inform them and ask them to send an appropriate diplomatic note of concern to the government of Kazakhstan.
• Organize protests in front of Kazakhstan embassies and consulates in your cities, if it is safe and possible in your country. If you decide to help us in this way, please first coordinate the text of the calls and banners with us.
Kazakhstan is currently the only country in Central Asia where the LGBTI movement can still openly conduct advocacy work. We aim to at least maintain this space, and ideally, expand it. In this effort, we hope for your support.
If you have any questions or need further information, please contact us at the following email: gbrhrkz@gmail.com