[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 208 (Thursday, December 2, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1300]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HUMAN RIGHTS IN KAZAKHSTAN

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, December 2, 2021

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, the global competition for 
ideas between the community of democracies and the People's Republic of 
China (PRC) is nowhere more apparent than in Kazakhstan, where the PRC 
has steadily increased its influence in the country since the collapse 
of the Soviet Union. The PRC wants Kazakh oil, cheap Kazakh labor, and 
most importantly, Kazakh government help silencing predominantly-Muslim 
Central Asian peoples, whose reports of genocide on their kinsmen in 
Xinjiang are inconvenient and embarrassing to the PRC.
  While pursuing their goals in Kazakhstan, the PRC pushes its 
authoritarian governance model, a growing contempt for human rights, 
and assistance with mass surveillance tools. And too many Kazakh 
leaders have proven to be all-too-willing accomplices.
  Perhaps most troubling is the PRC's pressure on Kazakhstan to keep 
Kazakhs, Uyghurs, Kyrgyz and other Central Asians silent about the 
genocide and other gross violations of human rights in Xinjiang. On 
July 13, 2021, Gulzira Auelkhan, an ethnic Kazakh from the PRC who had 
emigrated to Kazakhstan but returned to China, gave heartbreaking 
testimony at the hearing I chaired at the Tom Lantos Human Rights 
Commission about her experience as a survivor of China's concentration 
camps.
  Ms. Auelkhan testified that while she was in the camp, Chinese 
authorities subjected her to physical, mental, and spiritual torture. 
One particularly disturbing story was that Chinese authorities inserted 
needles under her fingernails for attempting to cheat on a Chinese 
language exam. She also testified that the Chinese Communist Party 
(CCP) runs a forced prostitution system inside these camps, where 
Chinese men routinely rape the female prisoners.
  While Chinese authorities released her due to pressure from a Radio 
Free Asia story that revealed her plight, Gulzira's troubles only 
increased upon her return to Kazakhstan. Instead of sympathy, Kazakh 
officials intimidated her, and pressured her family to stop speaking 
out about the horrors she experienced in Xinjiang. Her refusal to stay 
silent resulted in her having to flee to the United States in search of 
a place where she could speak freely about the Chinese concentration 
camps, and how Kazakhstan rejected her.
  The fact that Kazakhstan enables China's genocide in Xinjiang arises 
from Kazakhstan's dependence upon PRC's massive monetary investments, 
including in the Belt and Road Initiative, and the malfeasance of 
kleptocratic Kazakh officials.
  Some of these corrupt officials reportedly have ties with the 
Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), a Kazakh-based company 
that three billionaire Kazakh businessmen and the Kazakh government 
founded. ENRC shares ties with members of the former president's 
family, particularly Timur Kulibayev, who was part of a questionable 
pipeline deal brokered with Chinese entities. The company has also been 
investigated by the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
  Sadly the record of gross human rights violations by government 
officials acting with impunity is not new in Kazakhstan. In 2012, at a 
hearing I chaired, entitled: ``Kazakhstan: As Stable As It's Government 
Claims?'', our witnesses provided expert testimony questioning the 
stability of the country and exposing statewide corruption and massive 
human rights abuses sanctioned by the Kazakhstan government--including 
torture and abuse by government security forces.
  At the time, the government of Kazakhstan was headed by the former 
authoritarian ``President for Life'' Nazarbayev, who ruled with an iron 
fist, snuffing out dissent and fighting hard to obscure the serious 
human rights and democracy deficiencies that marked his reign.
  Today, unfortunately, his oldest daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva 
reportedly carries on the family legacy of corruption as a member of 
the Kazakh Congress.
  According to the Eurasia Democracy Initiative, Dariga Nazarbayeva 
used an illegal passport to open multiple Austrian bank accounts 
containing millions of dollars, tapping her position and her father's 
to launder ill-gotten wealth out of the country. A Times of London 
article recently revealed that she and her son owned over 
140 million of property, including the fictional home of 
Sherlock Holmes, located on 221b Baker Street.
  There is little hope that these oligarchs, rich with money stolen 
from their own people with the assistance the genocidal foreign regime 
of the PRC, will even-handedly administer justice or respect human 
rights when they so readily abuse the rule of law, jeopardizing the 
rights and security of their fellow Kazakh citizens at the apparent 
behest of the CCP and for their own financial interests.
  The Biden Administration must engage the government of Kazakhstan 
more forcefully, including the use of sanctions under the Global 
Magnitsky Act. I urge my colleagues to join me in pressing the Biden 
Administration to elevate and combat the human rights abuses in 
Kazakhstan, address corruption in this strategic part of the world, and 
do everything it can to counter the CCP's baneful influence in 
Kazakhstan.

                          ____________________