Our appeal (dated 10 February 2021), calling for a thorough and transparent investigation into the actions of MEPs Thierry Mariani, Fulvio Martusciello, Andris Ameriks and the EU delegation to Kazakhstan, and for appropriate measures to be taken, addressed to the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, have been signed by 822 people (excluding 8 human rights organisations that initiated the appeal) from dozens of cities.

The lists of signatories include human rights activists, opposition politicians, journalists, lawyers, family members of political prisoners and victims of political killings.

We thank all signatories and everyone who helped to spread our appeal. The collection of signatures is now closed.

It should be reminded that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan exerted pressure on three MEPs and diplomats of the EU Delegation to Kazakhstan to pass propaganda information to MEPs in the course of drafting the text of the resolution on the human rights situation in Kazakhstan (adopted on 11 February 2021).

This information was to be presented as the opinion of the EU Delegation and three MEPs. The actions were intended to exclude the names of political prisoners, politically persecuted activists, human rights activists, ethnic Kazakhs, opposition politicians and victims of political killings from the resolution.

We thank MEPs for passing an urgent resolution on the human rights situation in Kazakhstan, including a broad list of names, calling for the closure of all politically motivated cases, the release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners, and for considering personal sanctions against individuals involved in human rights abuses in Kazakhstan.

We confirm that there are at least 26 political prisoners and 99 persons prosecuted in Kazakhstan on politically motivated criminal charges.

We will keep MEPs informed of developments in the human rights situation in Kazakhstan in order to establish further steps to respond to human rights violations.