Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2024
This chapter provides an overview of the innovative protesting techniques of the Kazakh Spring and the Oyan, Qazaqstan movement. The interplay between the repressive law-enforcement agencies and the creative protesting techniques and narratives protestors had to find is at the heart of this chapter. I argue that the evolution of the protestors’ movements led to slow but consistent adaptation on the part of the police and secret police, and all those involved in the physical and emotional harassment of the protestors. Through interviews, I focus on how the body of the protestor and the public square become the two prime spaces for aggressive coercion and resistance. This pushes protestors to stage bodiless performances with anonymous posters and anonymous online activism, on the one hand. And on the other hand, it pushes law-enforcement officers to find aggravated techniques of torture. They came up with the kettling strategy, whereby protestors are trapped for hours in the heat or severe cold without access to basic amenities, water, food, or shelter. Other techniques of torture included kidnapping, intimidation, and even sexual violence.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.