Kazakhstan rehabilitates names of over 650,000 victims of repressions
On the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repressions and Famine, Kazakhstan announced that more than 650,000 victims have had their names rehabilitated, a Qazinform News Agency correspondent reports.
According to historians, large-scale repressions began in 1925, under party secretary Filipp Goloshchyokin.
In the 1930s, 103,000 people were repressed, with 25,000 executed.
Among those executed were prominent figures such as Alikhan Bokeikhanov, Akhmet Baiturssynov, Magzhan Zhumabayev, Turar Ryskulov, Saken Seifullin, and others.
Across the USSR in 1930–1950, more than 40 million citizens faced repression, many imprisoned in camps located in Kazakhstan such as ALZHIR and Karlag.
Ethnic Germans, Crimean Tatars, and peoples of the Caucasus were deported to Kazakhstan.
In 1937 alone, thousands of Turks, Azerbaijanis, Koreans, and Kurds arrived in Kazakhstan.
During WWII, more than 1 million people were also forcibly resettled to Kazakhstan.
The 1993 Law on Rehabilitation of Victims of Mass Political Repressions initiated systematic restoration of justice.
By 2020, 340,000 people had been rehabilitated in Kazakhstan.
In 2020, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev established the State Commission for full rehabilitation of the victims of political repressions, which worked until 2023, rehabilitating 311,000 more victims.
The total number of those rehabilitated since independence reached over 650,000 people.
The Commission involved 425 scholars and experts, with over 260 conducting regional searches.
More than 2.5 million archival documents were declassified.
Findings were published in a 72-volume collection.
A Unified Database of Victims of Political Repressions (1920s–1950s) was created, allowing searches by name.
The rehabilitation law has been updated seven times, most recently in April 2023.