Kazakhstan has been agitated for several days by protests in the south-east of the country, due to increases in gas prices. There were more than 200 arrests Tuesday during the demonstrations which also left dozens injured, official sources. In response to protesters, the president sacked the government on Wednesday.
Set of musical chairs in Kazakhstan. It is the Deputy Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov who takes the post of Prime Minister replacing Askar Mamin, who resigned, until the formation of a new cabinet, indicates a decree published on the presidential website.
Yesterday Tuesday, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a state of emergency, from Wednesday January 5 until January 19, in the oil region of Mangystau and in Almaty (south-east), the economic capital , concerned by the troubles. A curfew will be in place from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.
Yesterday in Almaty, the police used stun grenades and tear gas to disperse a demonstration against the rise in gas prices which had brought together several thousand people. The police also dispersed the demonstrators by shooting, report AFP journalists on the spot. From official sources, there have been more than 200 arrests and dozens of injured. WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal messengers were inaccessible overnight.
These demonstrations are rare in this authoritarian country. Yet the inhabitants of oil towns in western Kazakhstan, Janaozen and Aktau, have been demonstrating since Sunday January 2 against the rise in the prices of liquefied gas, used for vehicles, reported our regional correspondent Régis Genté. The population fears in particular that the rise in gas prices will lead to food prices in the same way when the country is already suffering from high inflation and a bad sharing of the oil and mining manna. Kazakhstan has a quarter of the planetary uranium reserves and is among the top 20 oil producers in the world.
There are ten years, in Janaozen, demonstrations related to the living conditions of the inhabitants had spread over weeks before the power fired on the crowd, killing 14 people, recalled our correspondent.
and with AFP