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Episode details

World Service,15 Aug 2013,24 mins

Kazakhstan’s Living Gulags

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Kazakhstan was once home to the infamous Soviet forced labour camps which formed part of the Gulag. Today’s prison regime seems to be stuck in the country’s Soviet past, as inmates and human rights groups say there is widespread practise of daily torture and humiliation. Despite its poor human rights record, many developed nations, including Britain, are rapidly strengthening relations with oil rich Kazakhstan. BBC Central Asia Correspondent Rayhan Demytrie investigates echoes of the Gulag system in prisons today and finds out why punishments from a bygone era still persist. (Image of prison rights campaigner Ruslan Asdoyev at the museum of political repression. BBC Copyright)

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