9 February 2026.
The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) has submitted a letter to the Constitutional Court of Kazakhstan in support of a case challenging the blocking, from approximately 5-10 January 2022, of access to telecommunications services, including the Internet, in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The blocking was upheld by three levels of courts in Kazakhstan before being challenged on constitutional grounds.
“CLD takes the position that no Internet shutdown can be legitimate” said Toby Mendel, Executive Director of CLD. “We hope the Constitutional Court will find the law which justifies these sorts of actions to represent an unconstitutional limitation on freedom of expression.”
At issue in the case is Article 41-1(1–2) of the Law on Communications, which allows the National Security Committee to suspend the operation of communication networks and Internet access unilaterally, without a court order, in situations which are deemed to be “urgent.” CLD takes the position that, since the regular courts in Kazakhstan held that the shutdown was properly authorised under this provision, the provision itself cannot be legitimate.
The CLD letter provides just a brief statement of the reasons for our position, given that it needed to be prepared quickly due to the short submission deadline. It sets out the main conditions for restrictions on freedom of expression and then argues that Internet shutdowns, by definition, cannot be legitimate because their overwhelming impact on the exercise of freedom of expression means that they will always be disproportionate. It also quotes some of the leading international statements in support of this position.
CLD worked with local experts to prepare the letter. We would like to draw readers attention to a local initiative against Internet shutdowns at https://shutdown.kz (in Russian).
The full submission is available here.
For further information, please contact:
Toby Mendel
Executive Director
Centre for Law and Democracy
Email: toby@law-democracy.org
+1 902 431-3686
www.law-democracy.org
X: @law_democracy
BlueSky: @law-democracy.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/centre-for-law-and-democracy
