Convicted opposition activist Kozlov transferred to penal colony in Northern Kazakhstan
ALMATY. Nov 30 (Interfax) - Vladimir Kozlov, leader of the Kazakh opposition party Alga!, who was convicted for fanning social enmity, will be transferred to a penal colony in Northern Kazakhstan.
"On November 30, it became known that Vladimir Kozlov, who was sentenced by the Aktau City Court to 7.5 years in prison, will be transferred to a correction colony in Northern Kazakhstan," the organizational committee for the creation of the republic's public association Committee to Protect Political Prisoners in Kazakhstan, said in an address to Kazakh Interior Minister Kulmukhanbet Kasymov issued on Friday.
The authors of the document said that Article 68 of the Kazakh Code of Criminal Enforcement Procedure provides that convicts are to serve their sentences in their home cities.
"Vladimir Kozlov's home city is Almaty, where he is registered to live and where he has lived for the past ten years," the report says.
In this regard, the organizational committee insists that the administration of the Interior Ministry, which comprises the criminal enforcement system committee, has ordered that Kozlov's transfer be abolished.
"We see the attempt to send Vladimir Kozlov to one of the most remote regions of Kazakhstan in breach of the Code of Criminal Enforcement Procedure as political persecution of the opposition leader and moral and psychological pressure on his relatives and loved ones," the document says.
Kozlov was found guilty of creating a criminal organization, making calls for a possible change of the country's constitutional system, and fanning social enmity in Zhanaozen, Mangistau region, where riots in which 15 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded occurred in December 2011.
Kozlov was sentenced to 7.5 years in a penal colony and property seizure.