Kazakhstan: Psychiatric Detention of Activist Priest

Click to expand Image Yakov Vorontsov. © Petr Trotsenko (RFE/RL) (Berlin, May 28, 2026) – Kazakhstan authorities on May 25, 2026, forcibly transferred a defrocked Russian Orthodox priest, Yakov Vorontsov, to a psychiatric facility outside Almaty, Human Rights Watch said today. A Kazakhstan court on May 18 had ordered his transfer there from pretrial detention, where he had been held since February on dubious drug-related criminal charges. “Kazakhstan’s record of politically motivated prosecution