Trade Union Leader Faces Prison Time in Kazakhstan

Expand Erlan Baltabay, leader of the independent trade union “Decent Labor,” at his trial in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, April 16, 2019. © 2019 Dilara Isa/RFE/RL As pressure built against Kazakhstan at the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) conference in Geneva this month to address the country’s poor record on trade union rights, authorities back home are seeking to jail an independent trade union leader. Erlan Baltabay is the outspoken leader of a local trade union of oil workers in Shymkent, a city in southern Kazakhstan. He is on trial, facing charges of misappropriating approximately…

© Human Rights Watch - mercredi 26 juin 2019