21 Facts About Aron Atabek

Aron Atabek was a leader of an independent Alash National Freedom Party, and the president of the political council of the Kazak Memleketi, the Kazakhstan National Front.

Aron Atabek was an author of several poems and a book critical of the Kazakh government, for which he was imprisoned for fifteen years.

Aron Atabek was released in October 2021, and died a month later on 24 November, while being treated in a hospital in Almaty for COVID-19.

Aron Atabek's father lived during the Holodomor famine, and spent years in a Gulag camp before eventually becoming the chairman of a collective farm in the Astrakhan Oblast.

In 1971, Aron Atabek moved to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic when he was 18 years old.

Aron Atabek subsequently underwent an internship in the Department of Mongolian Studies and Turkology at Leningrad State University, and then worked as an editor in the State Film Agency and Mektep Publishing House.

In December 1989, Aron Atabek met with First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to voice demands that were written prior in a letter to Congress of People's Deputies.

Aron Atabek's case gained publicity as attempts were made to send him back to Kazakhstan.

From Moscow his family returned to Almaty, while Aron Atabek stayed in Russia, although visiting Kazakhstan several times illegally before moving there in December 1996.

Aron Atabek was denied Kazakhstani citizenship and instead he demanded a pardon from President Nursultan Nazarbayev, which was refused.

Aron Atabek resided in rented apartments and dachas and lived in the mountains for two years while renting a cottage with his family.

From 2003 to 2005, Aron Atabek worked as an editor in the literary magazine Amanat at the International Club of Poetry Lovers of Abai.

Aron Atabek, who headed the Shanyrak's Land and Dwelling Committee advocacy group at that time, sought medical care after being injured in the riot and was attacked by six policemen while staying in hospital; he was interrogated by the Almaty Department of Internal Affairs before his release at one o'clock in the morning.

Aron Atabek was summoned to the Department of Internal Affairs on 17 July 2006, and was arrested on the charges of organizing the riot, taking hostages, and attempted murder, the latter of which was changed to a murder charge shortly afterwards when the burned policeman died.

Aron Atabek was convicted of the death of the police officer who was burned.

In 2012, Aron Atabek published the book The Heart of Eurasia criticizing Nursultan Nazarbayev's regime.

In 2009, it was reported that Aron Atabek has been transferred to the prison in Arkalyk in the Kostanay Region.

Aron Atabek has described the conditions of his isolation as "a prison within a prison" or "a complete vacuum".

Between 1989 and 1992, Aron Atabek was the publisher of the newspapers Alash and HAK, which were prohibited in Kazakhstan.

Aron Atabek was married to Jainagul Aidarhan and has two children.

Aron Atabek died from COVID-19 while recovering at an Almaty hospital on 24 November 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Kazakhstan, just a month after being released from prison.