Atyrau, 30 October. The National Security Committee, coordinating with the prosecutor’s office, detained 10 people in Atyrau on suspicion of creating an extremist group, leading it and taking part in it, as well as promoting terrorism and inciting religious hatred, the committee said.
According to investigators, the group’s members wanted to change the foundations of the constitutional order by force in western Kazakhstan. Searches of their homes turned up firearms, drugs, religious items, literature and other evidence. The committee also reported that the activity of three underground educational centres for children and teenagers created by the group’s members was stopped. Some of the detainees had previously been convicted of terrorist and ordinary crimes, the agency specified. The detention, as the statement implies, took place simultaneously on 30 October 2026; it became known on 2 November.
What we know now: This is the investigators’ version and a suspicion: there is no verdict. The committee’s statement does not give the detainees’ names, ages, the group’s name, a list of charges by article, preventive measures or the number of children who attended the “educational centres”; it does not say where they were located. Nor does it say what was taught in these centres.
Background: 30 October 2026 was a Friday; the committee reported the detention on Monday, 2 November, three days later.
