The World Movement for Democracy is delighted to announce that Yevgeniy Zhovtis, a member of its Steering Committee and director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, has been granted an amnesty after serving more than two years in prison. According to Radio Free Europe, Mr. Zhovtis was sentenced to four years in jail for a road accident that killed a pedestrian in 2009.

On February 1, 2010, the World Movement Steering Committee released a statement, which indicated that Mr. Zhovtis’ punishment was the result of his human rights work: “Mr. Zhovtis was involved in a car accident, resulting in the tragic death of a pedestrian, Kanat Moldabayev. It is now clear that Kazakhstani authorities exploited this unfortunate accident to politicize the investigation and punish Mr. Zhovtis for his human rights work, evidenced by the fact that the investigation and the subsequent trial were rife with procedural violations. Mr. Zhovtis was convicted and sentenced to serve a four-year prison term on 3 September 2009.”

While he has been granted amnesty, Mr. Zhovtis will not be released for another 15 days. In a statement released by the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, Mr. Zhovtis compared his amnesty to “getting arrested for 15 days after being freed.”

For more information, go to:

http://www.rferl.org/content/jailed_kazakh_rights_defender_amnestied/244...
http://www.wmd.org/documents/SCStatementZhovtis020110.pdf
http://www.bureau.kz/data.php?page=&n_id=4054&l=ru (In Russian) http://www.omct.org/human-rights-defenders/urgent-interventions/kazakhstan/2012/02/d21614/

To view Mr. Zhovtis’ message to the 2010 Sixth Assembly in Jakarta, Indonesia, go to: http://www.wmd.org/assemblies/sixth-assembly/video#yz