Kazakh activist known for protests dies in jail: police

A Kazakh activist who was repeatedly detained for participating in and calling for peaceful demonstrations has died in jail, police said Tuesday.

Dulat Agadil, 42, was detained at his home and taken to a jail in the capital Nur-Sultan Monday night on charges of disrespecting and insulting court officials, a police statement said, without providing further details of the charges.

Video footage shared on social media showed men in plainclothes apprehending a half-dressed Agadil before leading him out of his flat towards a black vehicle.

The police statement said Agadil was in a "drunken state" at the time and that there were "no injuries on the man's body".

The statement attributed Agadil's death to heart failure and said his cellmates had testified that Agadil had not been harmed while in the prison.

Agadil was most recently detained after opposition groups staged unsanctioned rallies on Saturday.

Police said 53 people were detained across the country as they tried to hold rallies without official permission, 10 of whom were held and charged with administrative offences.

An AFP correspondent saw more than a hundred detentions in Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty alone.

Activists also rallied on Tuesday in Nur-Sultan, not far from Agadil's village home, as a delegation from the European Parliament paid a visit to the country.

Agadil gained fame in November last year after he escaped from detention, only to be rearrested two days later.

He spent more than 60 days of last year in administrative detention.

In December, activists reported that he swallowed bolts and nails in protest at being sentenced to 15 days' detention for participating in an unsanctioned rally.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has styled himself as a moderate reformer since taking over as head of state from 79-year-old patron Nursultan Nazarbayev last year.

The former foreign minister has pledged to amend legislation on public assembly, which local rights groups describe as excessively restrictive, and to tackle torture in Kazakhstan's prisons.

However hardliner Nazarbayev, whose reign as president began before the former Soviet republic gained independence, is still widely believed to set policy in the oil-rich country of 18 million.