One year ago, Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin of Kazakhstan pledged to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) that his country would improve its human rights policies and practices, in order to conform to the standards expected of a future chair of the OSCE.
Kazakhstan is due to take over that chairmanship in 2010, so time is short. While Kazakhstan is not a country with frequent or dramatic government crackdowns on freedoms and human rights, when it comes to exercising fundamentals rights such as worship, speech, press freedom, and assembly, Kazakhstan's people live in an atmosphere that is far more circumscribed and fearful than in a country that meets its human rights obligations.