In Kazakhstan, mind your language

Officials say they want less swearing in public. Many suspect it is criticism of the authorities that really worries them.

Alexander Merkul.

All it took for Alexander Merkul to become a folk hero was a few swearwords.

In a case that has generated widespread indignation, a court in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, last week sentenced the stand-up comedian to 10 days in jail on charges of “petty hooliganism.”

The offence? Too many profanities.

“On June 7, 2024, [Merkul] published a video of a performance in a restaurant in which he used obscene language. Through his actions, he has shown disrespect to others and violated public order,” a court document read.

At first blush, this looks to be a part of the Kazakh government’s broader turn to primness. 

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev set the tone in a speech in March in which he insisted that Kazakhstan needed to “firmly and consistently cultivate traditional family values.”

But many suspect that what really landed Merkul in trouble was the political thrust of his bit. He is just one of several performers to be slapped with hooliganism charges for using spicy language while criticizing the conduct of the authorities. 

In his routine, Merkuly pours scorn on the idea of “New Kazakhstan” – a mantra routinely deployed by Tokayev and his proxies to describe the government’s political and economic reforms agenda. Cynics deride the slogan as window-dressing and argue that little has changed for ordinary Kazakhs.

Nuraskhan Baskhozhayev, another stand-up comedian, got a 15-day stretch in jail in May, also for using offensive language during a performance in which he accused corrupt officials of swanning off to Dubai while Kazakhstan was struggling with cataclysmic flooding. The formal motivation for the prosecution was a complaint from social media influencer Madina Mamadaliyeva, who claimed that Baskhozhayev had alluded to her in a libellous and misogynistic manner in his act. 

Journalist Raul Uporov was fined in April for swearing in a video posted to his Facebook account in which he criticized a decision by the authorities to ban journalists from working in flood-stricken areas. Uporov complained that it was unfair to punish him for swearing in public since the footage in question was posted on a personal social media account.

Anybody thinking of insulting Russians needs to be careful too these days.

Maria Kochneva, an activist from Almaty, was summoned to a local police station earlier this month after performing “Йоу, орыстар” (Yo, Russians), a Kazakh-language rap song that rode the surge of anti-Russian sentiment following the start to the invasion of Ukraine. The song features multiple less-than-complimentary references to Russians. Last week, she was sentenced to 10 days in jail.

A TikToker called Maral Zhalelova went a bit further in her videos, describing Russians as “weeds” that needed uprooting from Kazakhstan. She added, to make her views clearer, that she thought Adolf Hitler was a “good lad.” Such remarks typically generate swift prosecutions on grounds of inciting ethnic hatred, but Zhalelova was also hit with charges of using obscene language for good measure. 

The ongoing effort to combat swearing has been developing for years. In March 2023, the law was amended to significantly increase the penalties for using foul language in public. The fine was raised to 69,000 tenge ($145), and the maximum jail time was set at 15 days.

Merkul’s jailing is fuelling a backlash against this puritanism, even among typically straight-laced commentators. 

While lamenting the coarse delivery of modern comedians, political analyst Gaziz Abishev described the punishment as “harsh.”

“What if the rough language used by popular comedians might be a release of hidden tension accumulated in the public consciousness?” he wrote.

Social media users were less restrained and praised Merkul for saying out loud — and in public — what many people believe.

“How are you supposed to say anything about New Kazakhstan without swearing?” wrote one, adding a laughing-crying emoji.

In an interview with the HyperBorei YouTube channel, Rahimbek Abdrakhmanov, a co-founder of the School of Applied Politics, a think tank, described the treatment of Merkul and fellow swearers as the perpetuation of a long-established pattern of political repression.

“The authorities are ill-prepared to listen to criticism addressed at them. And to achieve that, they are willing to resort to repressive means,” Abdrakhmanov said.