United Nations General Assembly A/HRC/43/46/Add.1 Distr.: General 22 January 2020 Original: English Human Rights Council Forty-third session 24 February–20 March 2020 Agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development Visit to Kazakhstan Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism*, ** Summary The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, conducted an official visit to Kazakhstan from 10 to 17 May 2019. Kazakhstan has made major economic and social strides in recent decades with positively identified national priorities, including youth policy, employment and education in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. Kazakhstan is a leader on security issues in the region and was the first Central Asian country to be elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council (2017–2018). The Special Rapporteur commends Kazakhstan for returning 516 persons, mostly women and children, from conflict sites in the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq, with several repatriation operations in January and May 2019. She affirms that, not only is this the positive implementation of its international obligations under Security Council resolution 2178 (2014), it constitutes a welcome humanitarian response to the plight of those women, men and children who are detained in overcrowded camps in the north-east of the Syrian Arab Republic in inhuman conditions. The Special Rapporteur identifies a number of significant human rights challenges resulting from the security, counter-terrorism and extremism frameworks that are operational in Kazakhstan. She finds that significant aspects of the criminal law concerning terrorism and extremism are broad and vaguely defined, impinging directly on fundamental human rights protected by international law, including but not limited to the rights to expression, movement, family life, and freedom of religion and belief. She is seriously concerned about the use of the term “extremism” in national law and practice. She highlights the use of article 174 of the Criminal Code and its application to the activities of * The summary of the report is being circulated in all official languages. The report itself, which is annexed to the summary, is being circulated in the language of submission and Russian only. ** Agreement was reached to publish the present report after the standard publication date owing to circumstances beyond the submitter’s control. GE.20-00931(E) 