Political activist Ermek Narymbai, who returned to Kazakhstan from Ukraine after six years, was detained at Almaty airport. This is reported Radio Azattyk.
Narymbai left for Ukraine in the summer of 2016. He announced his return to Kazakhstan in advance. The police took Narymbay away before he entered the waiting room.
Narymbay was taken to the Almaty police department. About 50 people came to meet him at the airport. When it became clear that the activist had been detained, people shouted, demanding his release.
Narymbai wrote about his intention to return to his family in social networks. "I will be in Almaty soon. I believe that there will be a dialogue between the government and society. I hold the white flag of dialogue. I don't know if there will be an opportunity to meet the children or not," he wrote. Before his departure from Kyiv, he also went live.
The 51-year-old political emigrant admitted that he could be detained immediately at the airport. Narymbai also wrote that he was ready for beatings and torture in prison. He is confident that his voice will sound stronger in Kazakhstan than when he spoke while in Ukraine. He intends to write appeals even from the colony.
In October 2015, civil activists Ermek Narymbai and Serikzhan Mambetalyn were convicted for reposting an excerpt from the book "Wind from the Streets", the authorship of which is attributed to Murat Telybekov. Narymbay was sentenced to three years in prison for "inciting discord", Mambetalin - to two. Kazakh human rights activists included both prisoners in the "list of political prisoners". Both activists later published letters of remorse. The Court of Appeal replaced Narymbayev's real term of imprisonment with three years of restriction of freedom. In 2016, Narymbai left Kazakhstan, despite the ban.
The Almaty police department reported that Narymbai was sent to a pretrial detention center for violating probation control in 2016.
