Hasen Qojahmetov

Hasen Káripjanuly Qojahmetov (; born 9 August 1949) is a Kazakh political activist, composer, journalist, member of the Writers Union of Kazakhstan, and a participant in the 1986 Jeltoqsan uprising. He is known to be a critical opponent of Nursultan Nazarbayev and attempted to be a candidate in the 1991 and 2015 Kazakh presidential elections. Early life, education Qojahmetov was born in a railway station in the village of Matay in the Aksu District and was one of ten children. His father, Karmijan Qojahmetov, was a railroad engineer, machinist and a disabled World War II veteran who was from Semey and happened to leave the town before the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb on 29 August 1949 there. His mother was half Polish and Ukrainian and was transferred to Zhetysu in 1910. In 1969, Qojahmetov was conscripted to the army while he was studying at the Tchaikovsky Musical College in the city of Alma-Ata. There, he faced terrible conditions at the training center which mostly had Russians, and constant physical and emotional abuse by his peers. Qojahmetov was accused of starting a nationalist sentiment and was punished by being isolated from others in a locked place for 2 ye