4 years after the bloody attack of the forces of repression fo Kazakhstan on striking workers in the city of Zhanaozen, the Kazakhstan have outlawed the CP. A delegation of the KKE headed by Kostas Papadakis, member of the CC and MEP of the KKE, on 14/12/2015 carried out a protest at the embassy of Kazakhstan in Athens and handed over the following letter of protest:

This December marks 4 years since Kazakhstan’s forces of repression opened fire against a demonstration of striking workers in the city of Zhanaozen. Workers who for many months had been conducting a tough strike struggle for their rights. This attack resulted in the death and injury of dozens of strikers and a pogrom of persecutions against dozens of other militants.

In 2011, the KKE denounced this specific anti-worker crime, which 20 years after the overthrow of socialism and the dissolution of the USSR demonstrated precisely the kind of “democracy” and “freedom” that was imposed on the peoples of the former USSR. It is the freedom and aggressiveness of big capital, which is accompanied by the exploitation and oppression of the working class, unemployment, poverty and the suppression of the people’s struggles.

Today, 4 years after this massacre, the Kazakhstan authorities have outlawed the CP of Kazakhstan, while they have also approved a number of laws that provide for the suffocating control of trade unions by the government, and the basis for new persecutions against the workers’ struggles on charges of “incitement of social hatred”, “incitement to strike” etc.

This demonstrates that measures to restrict and outlaw the activity of communists go hand in hand with the rest of the anti-worker legislation and the offensive against the rights and gains of the working class.

The KKE denounces these specific anti-worker, anti-people and anti-democratic acts on the part of the Kazakhstan authorities and demands their immediate repeal.

It expresses its solidarity with the communists and labour movement of Kazakhstan!

Hands off the communists!

Anti-communism and the repression of the labour movement shall not succeed!

International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE

14.12.2015