Radio Free Asia reported (March 27) that Kazakh authorities had detained at least 20 people for staging anti-China protests in towns and cities across Kazakhstan on March 27. The protesters rallied against China’s increasing influence and economic power in the former Soviet republic. They also denounced the mass incarceration of members of indigenous Turkic-speaking communities in China’s Xinjiang region, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs. Protests were held in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, and in the capital, Nur-Sultan, as well as Oral, Shymkent, and Aqtobe. In Almaty, several hundred people gathered in a square to denounce what they said was “Chinese expansion” in Kazakhstan. The protests were called by the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) and the unregistered Democratic Party of Kazakhstan (DPK).
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