Kazakhstan protesters face armed police after bloody clashes

[countryjake]

Source: The Guardian

Protests in Kazakhstan's oil-producing Mangistau region, unprecedented in the central Asian state's recent history, spread on Sunday to the regional capital, where hundreds of angry demonstrators faced armed riot police.

One person was killed and 11 people wounded in a clash with police in the village of Shetpe on Saturday, bringing the official death toll in the western region to 12 and the number of wounded to nearly 100.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the vast country since the Soviet era, declared a 20-day state of emergency on Saturday in the nearby oil city of Zhanaozen, after at least 11 people were killed in violence that broke out on Friday.

Public protests are rare in Kazakhstan, central Asia's largest economy and biggest oil producer, where Nazarbayev tolerates little dissent and puts stability before democratic freedoms.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/18/kazakhstan-protesters-armed-police-clashes

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Kazakh riot police in Zhanaozen. Photograph: Olga Yaroslavskaya/AP