An Activist Celebrates Her Birthday Behind Bars in Kazakhstan

Осы мақаланың қазақша нұсқасын оқыңыз.

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Shekerkhan Myrzakhanova will turn 70 this year. She lives in the city of Semey, in north-east Kazakhstan, and traveled to Almaty to visit her daughter in a prison colony. Aigerim Tleuzhan was sentenced to four years imprisonment in 2023 for “seizing Almaty airport during the January events.” The journalist-turned-activist still has a year left on her sentence, during which time her mother will keep traveling back and forth on visits.

We traveled to Aigerim’s colony alongside Shekerkhan and learned about her experience. While visiting, Shekerkhan stayed with her daughter’s fellow activists: a couple who requested their names be hidden.

At the agreed upon time, activist and journalist Abzal Dostiyar pulls up. Since Aigerim’s imprisonment, he has helped Shekerkhan with all the necessary preparations for her visits. They greet each other warmly, before the journalist helps the elderly woman put her things into his car. “This is from my family,” says Abzal, as he hands her a bunch of roses and a cake, on which is written in Kazakh: “Aigerim, we love you.” 

Photo provided by Abzal Dostiyar.

At 8am we leave for the village of Zhaugashty, 40km from Almaty, which houses a women’s correctional colony. According to the latest data, this facility houses over 500 women.

Visitors can attend for two hours (a short-term visit) or else for two days, spent on-site at the facility. As a reward for good behavior, Tleuzhan was permitted to receive two day visits every two months. Before this, she only saw her mother once every six months.

Shekerkhan usually carefully prepares care packages for her daughter, bringing them on the train from Semey. I asked her what she had brought on this occasion:

“All of her favourites: samsa, kuyrdak, and some manty all which we made yesterday. I also brought some fruit. Aigerim will pick up everything else herself. The main thing is that the package doesn’t weigh over 20kg,” says Shekerkhan, noting the weight limit.

Aigerim’s mother notes that this is not a lot for food for two months. She also mentions that there is only one year left before Aigerim is released, minus the three years already served as well as time on house arrest: “This is already her third birthday we have celebrated together in prison. Tomorrow (12 December) she will turn 40, an important birthday. I will be like a gift for her.”

Shekerkhan remembers how Aigerim first became an activist as she took part in gatherings led by the poet and politician Mukhtar Shakhanov in the 2010s. Aigerim also took part in the 2016 anti-land reform protests. According to her mother, Aigerim’s path into politics started then.

From 2019 to November 2022 she was an activist of the unregistered Democratic party of Kazakhstan. Together with other activists, she was harassed by special security forces for over 10 hours when they demonstrated after the 2021 parliamentary elections. 

Don’t Let Them Eat Cake

Shekerkhan says that she supports her daughter’s every step unconditionally and does not blame her for anything: “When Aigerim was arrested for the first time, she was imprisoned for 15 days. I felt awful, I couldn’t accept it. And then I just got used to it. Her being in prison just became another thing.”

Dostiyar and Shekerkhan are sent to a Kazpost branch, in order to pay the fee for the two-day stay, which costs 6,400 tenge (around $12). While they wait, a sizable group of people arrive for the two-hour visiting session. One of the guards collected completed application forms from everyone.

Shekerkhan goes to meet her daughter in a different building, laden with supplies for Aigerim. There is a queue in front of her: a man and a woman, about 60 years old. They are also bearing gifts and food in bags. They exchange a few words between them, and, finding out that they are both waiting for their daughters, the two mothers wish each other luck.

Shekerkhan then places her things on the scanner and the guard informs her that she is not allowed to enter with the cake. They only allow one kind of cake inside, he adds: Medovik, a honey cake popular in the former Soviet Union. When asked why this is the case, he recommends asking the prison higher-ups.

She hurries away immediately to write a request to the colony’s warden, allowing her to bring in a different variety of cake for her daughter’s birthday. The warden recognizes her and gives her permission when she finds out that it is Aigerim’s 40th birthday. 

A photo of Aigerim Tleuzhan on Shekerkhan’s phone screen.

The elderly woman asks for help unlocking her phone, a picture of Aigerim fills the lock screen. At 11am she finally gets to see her, gifts in hand. On our way back, I ask Abzal whether helping the parents of convicted activists takes a toll on him, and he nods. He says he does it because nobody else would.

After the Meeting

Two days later, Shekerkhan walked out of the colony carrying two bags, which she complained the guards had not let her leave behind due to being over the allowed weight. She was a little upset, and said that the two days had passed quickly. As we sat in the car, she shared her thoughts intermittently, while glancing at her phone.

“As soon as I walked in, we started to chat. I told her all about what I knew was going on on the outside, and had read on Facebook. She asked me how everyone was doing: how Duman Mukhammedkarim [a journalist imprisoned in 2023] was getting on, as well as Marat Zhylanbayev [the imprisoned founder of the Alga Kazakhstan party].”

On Aigerim’s birthday they waited until midnight, “so she could open her gifts and blow out her candles. Then we cut the cake and gave it out to all the other prisoners.”

Shekerkhan goes on to talk about Aigerim’s health, the state of the building where prisoners are allowed visitors and how cold it is there.

“I could tell her mood worsened as soon as I left,” she said. “She stayed behind, and I just walked out. She is in there for no real reason, it’s a disgrace.”

Shekerkhan was unhappy with the fact that her daughter had not received medical care for some time, and that they only hospitalized her following multiple requests. She worries that the doctors there do not understand what is causing the swelling Aigerim is experiencing: “Nobody could tell me anything about the cause of her problem. They ran tests and we are still waiting for the results. The main thing is that she comes out of there healthy.”

Last year, Aigerim was teaching English to her fellow inmates. Her mother says that the prison authorities have since stopped her courses, apparently due to a lack of students. According to Shekerkhan, this is what used to help her daughter distract herself from the bleak reality of her situation. 

Together with others, Shekerkhan suggested to her daughter to apply for parole, but she refused. Aigerim refused, because in her opinion applying for parole would require conceding to too much and even after her potential release she would not be completely free.

“She says that she will serve her sentence in full. She is principled like that,” Shekerkhan said.

Even on the day that Aigerim was sentenced, her mother did not think she would go to prison. Everyone believed that she would be given a suspended sentence: “She said: ‘Mom, even if I go to jail, don’t cry.’” remembers Shekerkhan. “How could I not cry, when they took my only daughter out of that courtroom? I would have never thought that she would go to prison.” 

Feeling Lonely

On 3 January 2022 Aigerim Tleuzhan alongside other activists attended a memorial in honor of Aron Atabek, a renowned activist and poet. Shekerkhan then found out that she had been arrested and held for 15 days. She did not know however, that Aigerim and others had been released early on January 5. Shekerkhan believes that this was done intentionally.

Together with other activists, they were later accused of hijacking the airport in Almaty, a highly controversial accusation that was followed by a trial considered controversial by several lawyers and activists.

“How could I not cry, when they took my only daughter out of that courtroom? I would have never thought that she would go to prison.” 

From the day her daughter was first sent to prison, Shekerkhan’s life has changed completely. She stayed with Aigerim in Almaty while she was under house arrest, and for four months after her sentencing, Shekerkhan came to visit her every day. It was only after the activist was transferred to Zhaugashty that her mother returned to Semey.

“In films convicts always beat each other up, and I thought that everyone there would beat her, humiliate her. I don’t have anyone else apart from her–she is my only daughter,” she says.

Despite her asthma, Shekerkhan wakes up early every morning, exercises, reads books, and checks the news on Telegram and Facebook. In the evenings she goes for walks or goes to the theater or to the fitness studio. She used to attend memorial services, but after Aigerim’s sentencing she stopped going.

“Aigerim says: ‘Mom, you should go.’ But if I go, it upsets me. I see the children there and I start to think about Aigerim. Plus, I don’t go because I have to save money for the next prison visit. I save up my pension and use it to buy everything she needs.”

She is allowed to call Aigerim twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, for 15 minutes at a time.

Every day, Shekerkhan waits by the telephone with a pen and paper in case Aigerim asks for something important.

“I don’t tell her that I’m unwell,” she says. “She is in prison, and I’m free. If she found out, she would be upset. We worry about each other constantly. I feel very lonely. I would want to go and do something, but I need to wait to see if she needs to talk. Now she has only a year left, I have until then before I have to worry about my own health.”

Shekerkhan says that the day her daughter leaves prison, they will celebrate it with all of their loved ones. We say goodbye to her, as she has to go to the doctor to hear about Aigerim’s test results and buy her a new dress. She later gave it to her as a New Year’s present. 

An edited version of this article was translated by William Stringer.