The police detained a Kazakh journalist protesting in front of the Presidential Palace in Bratislava while Slovak head of state Ivan Gasparovic was speaking with his Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, reported the news channel TA3. The City Hall, however, permitted the demonstration. According to the Kazakh opposition journalist Balli Marzec, there is a totalitarian regime in Kazakhstan and despite the fact that the country is rich in deposits of oil and natural gas, people are starving and dying there. She wanted to tell Slovaks that President Nazarbayev is violating basic human rights. However, the police took her away the moment the presidential meeting started. The journalist tried to defend herself and the police therefore used force. According to unofficial information the journalist was detained due to violation of public order.
As long as the journalist did not promote extremism or display racism, the police acted at odds with the law, lawyer Andrej Sabik told the news channel. "She breached no legal regulations and thus action against her was not in compliance with the law," he specified.
TA3 showed Ms. Marzec standing at the fountain at Hodzovo Square with a loudspeaker and a banner demanding democracy for Kazakhstan. Then the footage showed how policemen carried her away into a police car.
In the summer, President Nazarbayev's Nur-Otan party won all seats in the new parliament, prompting opposition parties to cry foul play. Nazarbayev called the election two years ahead of schedule in order to amend the constitution, expand parliament and remove limits on presidential terms in office. Kazakhstan has never held an election that would have been deemed free and fair by the international community.
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