Almaty | Police in Kazakhstan on Wednesday reported more than 200 arrests and dozens of its officers injured after protests against rising gas prices that rocked several cities in the central Asian country.
These protests, including that dispersed with stun grenades and tear gas on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday by police in Almaty, led to the dismissal of the government by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
A state of emergency was also declared until January 19 in several regions including Almaty, the economic capital, where a curfew will be in effect from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. local time.
“More than 200 people have been arrested for violations of public order,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
According to him, 95 police officers were injured during these demonstrations, which are rare in this authoritarian country rich in hydrocarbons.
The protesters “have indulged in provocations” by blocking roads and traffic and “disturbing public order”, justified in the Ministry of the Interior.
The anger began on Sunday, after a rise in the prices of liquefied natural gas (LNG), in the city of Janaozen, in the west of the country, before spreading to the large regional city of Aktau, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, then to Almaty.
The government had initially tried to calm, without success, the protesters by conceding a reduction in the price of LNG, fixing it at 50 tenges (0.1 euro) per liter in the region, against 120 at the beginning of the year. .
Kazakh television reported on Wednesday the arrest of the director of a gas processing plant and another official in the Mangystau region, where Janaozen is located.
They are accused of having “increased the price of gas for no reason”, which “led to massive protests across the country”, according to this source.