Kazakhstan’s “Democratic Choice,” led by government-critical banker and exiled Muhtar Ablyazov, said protests on Wednesday in major cities near local government buildings.
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A Kazakh court has declared Ablyazov’s organization extremist.
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Almaty police said they were conducting a “counter-terrorism operation”.
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The oil-rich Central Asian country has been shaken this month by unprecedented protests and riots that have claimed 225 lives, according to official estimates, mostly in Almaty.
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Protests against the sharp rise in liquefied gas prices reportedly began on January 2 in Zhanaozen, in the southwest of the country.
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In the following days, however, protests took over the whole of Kazakhstan, and political demands began to emerge alongside economic ones. The protesters demanded, among other things, the complete departure of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his clan.
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On the evening of January 5, when government forces had effectively lost control of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, Kazakh President Kasim Zhomart Tokayev demanded the deployment of a Russian-led military alliance, or Collective Security Treaty Organization (ODKB) contingent.
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Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that the ODKB’s withdrawal of “peacekeepers” from Kazakhstan had ended after the order was restored.
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