4 Kazakh activists arrested ahead of opposition demo: rights groups

Four Kazakh activists have been arrested and handed short sentences for violating laws on holding rallies ahead of an opposition demonstration next week, rights groups said Tuesday.

Activist Marat Musabayev was handed a 15-day jail sentence by a court in the capital Nur-Sultan Monday after he attended a small rights rally outside the European Union's office in the Central Asian country last month, the Qaharman rights movement said.

Two more activists, Gulmira Khalikova and Galia Tamabayeva, received 10 days each for the same offence.

Some protesters demonstrating outside the EU's office on November 27 called for Brussels to sanction oil-rich Kazakhstan over rights abuses.

The four activists will be unable to participate in a December 16 rally called by foreign-based regime opponent Mukhtar Ablyazov, whose Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan group was ruled extremist last year.

Another rights group, Atajurt, said that its member Zhumamurat Shamshi had also been held in Nur-Sultan in connection with the November protest but said it did not know the details of his sentence.

"I heard 15 days, but we have been unable to confirm," an Atajurt representative, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

A representative of the Qaharman rights movement, Daniyar Khassenov, said authorities were likely taking "preventative action" ahead of the planned protest that coincides with the country's Independence Day and the anniversary of a fatal crackdown on striking oil workers.

Kazakhstan's authoritarian regime has long faced criticism from rights groups over its hardline approach to dissent and stifling restrictions on freedom of assembly.

Authorities said over 4,000 people were detained during presidential elections in June.

The vote confirmed incumbent Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as long-ruling septuagenarian Nursultan Nazarbayev's successor, although Nazarbayev is still widely viewed as the ex-Soviet republic's main decision-maker.