Kazakhstan has a variety of ethnic minorities, including Uzbeks (2.9 per cent), Ukrainians (2.1 per cent), Uyghurs (1.4 per cent) and Tatars (1.3 per cent). The largest of these is the ethnic Russian minority, who make up almost a quarter (23.7 per cent) of the population. Under Kazakhstan's Constitution, while Kazakh is the state language, Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. However, nationalist groups are now pushing for a more aggressive promotion of the Kazakh language. Several municipalities have even taken down Russian-language public signs or refused to provide Russian translations for official communications, such as court proceedings. This concern was raised with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's High Commissioner for National Minorities in June 2014. However, in August 2014 President Nursultan Nazarbaev told state broadcaster Khabar Television that he wanted to ensure that any policies promoting the Kazakh language remained moderate to avoid encouraging the divisions evident in Ukraine.

There have been reports of Russians feeling sidelined from political decision making. Their representation at a senior level in politics reportedly remains limited, though Vladimir Shkolnik, an ethnic Russian, was reappointed as energy minister in August 2014 and their share of seats in Kazakhstan's lower legislative chamber, the Mazhilis, is roughly proportional to their demographic. This is not necessarily the case for many of Kazakhstan's non-Russian minorities, who together make up more than 13 per cent of the population. The UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) had expressed concern earlier in the year about the under-representation of non-Kazakh ethnic groups in general in political life and the civil service. One notable exception is Karim Massimov, an ethnic Uyghur, who was reappointed as prime minister in April 2014. However, some analysts have suggested that his appointment is due in part due to the fact that, as a member of an ethnic minority, he is not seen as a potential successor to the president and therefore does not threaten the balance of power among Kazakhstan's elite.

Kazakhstan has not suffered the large-scale ethnic violence that affected its neighbour Kyrgyzstan, most notably in 2010. Nevertheless, two people were hospitalized and four detained by police after clashes on 27 August in Qaramurat, a southern village where the majority of residents are ethnic Uzbeks. A group of ethnic Kazakhs from a nearby village reportedly stormed the community, attacking residents and breaking into shops. The interior minister stated that the incident was not ethnicity-related, but a news blackout in the area, including the blocking of mobile phone connections, indicated that the authorities feared a possible escalation. A second incident occurred in another village in southern Kazakhstan on 5 February 2015, between Kazakh and Tajik communities, after the alleged murder of a Kazakh man by a Tajik man in a dispute over a greenhouse. Severe security and internet restrictions were also imposed following this incident.

Kazakhstan is continuing its attempts to bring all publicly accessible mosques under the control of the state-backed Muslim Board, thereby limiting worshippers' right to exist as a religious community and exercise their freedom of religion or belief. All other Muslim communities and organizations – including Ahmadi Muslim congregations as well as mosques catering to specific ethnic communities such as Azerbaijanis, Chechens or Uyghurs – are banned. Permission to exist is gained via state registration. However, reportedly even religious communities who try to register or have registered are in some cases prevented by officials from exercising their freedom of religion or belief. According to the NGO Forum 18, by July 12 people had been jailed and 45 fined in relation to state restrictions on freedom of worship. These have been used repeatedly against individuals who have refused to fall in line with the government's policies. In January 2015, Forum 18 reported the case of one Baptist man in his thirties who, having already received three fines and a five-day sentence over the previous two years, now faced the prospect of his garage being seized.

Kazakhstan is an increasingly urbanized society, with more than half (55 per cent) of residents now based in urban areas. It has large minority urban populations, particularly ethnic Russians, and Russian is still commonly used as a lingua franca in most cities outside the south and west, including among many ethnic Kazakhs. All road infrastructure, public transport facilities, streets, avenues and other facilities in urban areas are legally required to be marked in both Russian and Kazakh.

Kazakhstan's policy of attracting Oralmans, or ethnic Kazakhs, to immigrate from outside the country has in part been intended to replace the outflow of non-Kazakhs from the country's cities since independence. By 2012, 860,000 Oralmans were registered in Kazakhstan, making up more than 5 per cent of the population. Many, having initially settled in remote rural areas with poorly paid jobs, have since migrated again to urban centres such as Almaty or Astana in search of better opportunities. Oralmans from countries such as China and Mongolia, who previously had no need to speak Russian, can find it difficult to integrate in the country's Russian-speaking cities. Reportedly some Kazakh-speaking immigrants consider that Russified urban Kazakhs are not genuine Kazakhs, while some of the urban population resent the privileges enjoyed by Oralmans that they do not enjoy themselves. However, there has been limited political opposition to the Oralman project as it has been seen as a part of the nation-building process for independent Kazakhstan.

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