Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I urge the Government to continue to exert pressure in respect of the case of Vadim Kuramshin. He is a very heroic defender of human rights who has been hounded and persecuted by the authoritarian regime in Kazakhstan. He has courageously exposed the horrific regime of brutality which obtains in the country's prisons, in one of which he has suffered ill-treatment. This matter came to a head in 2010 when a number of prisoners mutilated themselves as a result of the horrific treatment to which they had been subjected.

I visited Kazakhstan as a Member of the European Parliament in August 2010. My first meeting was to be with Vadim Kuramshin but two days beforehand he was detained by the police, arrested and kept in preventative detention until after I left the country. This was so he could not meet me and inform me in detail about the terrible conditions which obtain in Kazakh prisons. Mr. Kuramshin is currently in prison on a trumped-up charge. It is an horrific situation and I urge the Government to ensure our ambassador presses this matter very strongly with the Kazakh authorities.

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