Monday, February 09, 2015

Nicely done

I mentioned before how Kazakhstan cracked down on peaceful demonstrations while a UN representative visited to explore how the country upheld the right to peaceable assembly and association. The UN representative has issued his report and, not surprisingly, it does not present Kazakhstan in a positive light. And now its bid for the Olympics and a seat on the UN security council might be in jeopardy.

I'm not sure why the Kazakhstani authorities didn't approach this like they did the 2010 OSCE summit, when they suddenly lifted restrictions on the internet just as the rest of the world started paying attention so they could pretend that's how things always were in the country.