Kazakhstan: Reject rights-violating petition, say UN experts

GENEVA – The Government of Kazakhstan should reject a petition it is considering that calls for legislation that would violate freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly and association based on sexual orientation and gender identity, five United Nations experts* said today.

“This petition should not have been entertained by the government in the first place and should be rejected now,” said the experts. “The petition itself is based on prejudice, and any legislation arising from it would inevitably and unlawfully trample on human rights.”

The petition calls for a “law to fully ban open and hidden propaganda of LGBT in Kazakhstan.” This runs contrary to Kazakhstan’s Administrative Procedural Code, under which the government is prohibited from considering petitions that may lead to violations of human rights and freedoms.

If the government were to act on the petition and pass legislation that prohibits the public expression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) identities, it would violate multiple human rights – including freedom of expression and equality before the law – guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Kazakhstan ratified in 2005 and requires authorities to protect human rights without discrimination based on any status.

UN experts have previously expressed concerns about similar draft legislation on so-called LGBT “propaganda”, as the petition calls for, in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Federation.

Russian authorities justified passage of the 2013 law on “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among children” by spuriously suggesting that it would protect minors from harmful influences, and in 2022 enacted a complete legal ban on free expression deemed to constitute “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships”.

Kyrgyzstan passed a similar law in 2023, effectively outlawing any public discussion of LGBT people, and mischaracterising information about “non-traditional sexual relationships’’ as harmful to children. The petition in Kazakhstan similarly states that the requested law aims to “protect teenagers and children”.

The experts said the effect of such laws is to cast the expression of identity in the public sphere as “propaganda” and spuriously suggest that LGBT people pose a risk to children.

“Authorities in Kazakhstan should reject this petition, which is based on a misleading and discriminatory premise and calls for a rights-violating law,” the experts said. “Such a vaguely worded law would have an inhibiting effect on civil society organisations and human rights defenders and contribute to a hostile environment in which discrimination and even violence occur.”

In 2020, Kazakhstan accepted a recommendation of UN member States to “guarantee an enabling environment for civil society activities, activist groups and human rights defenders on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons”, following a United Nations Human Rights Council review of its rights record. If Kazakhstan adopted a restrictive “propaganda” law arising from the petition, it would directly contradict the Government’s commitment and recognition of its binding human rights obligations, the experts warned.