Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a controversial set of amendments into law banning “LGBT propaganda.” Kazakh and international rights activists caution the amendments will institutionalise discrimination against LGBT people while giving authorities an additional tool to chill and suppress free speech.

One of the nine amendments signed by the president on December 30 modifies a 2002 children’s rights law to ban the “dissemination of information about non-traditional sexual orientation,” and specifically information “with the goal of forming a positive societal opinion” of it. Other amendments extend bans on LGBT propaganda to legislation regulating culture, education, advertising, mass media and cinema.

Supporters of the amendments argue the restrictions are necessary to protect children from content featuring LGBT people. “The most important thing is that the ban is on the internet and social media. … We know ourselves that children don’t have fully developed minds,” Maksutbek Aitmaganbet, a member of the Union of Fathers civil society group, told Kazakh television station 24KZ on December 19.

Critics deride the amendments as repressive and reactionary. “Any attempt to ban visibility, discussion or support of LGBT people is not the defence of traditional values, it’s a rejection of elementary human rights,” Abdel Mukhtarov, a gay rights activist, said at an Almaty press conference in late 2025. 

Others describe the Kazakh legislation as a copycat version of a 2013 Russian law. “This is too much of a coincidence, it seems, to be accidental,” Kazakh human rights lawyer Tatiana Chernobil told Current Time TV in November.

Rights activists say they will fight the new ban in court.

Those found in violation of the prohibitions face a fine of about $150; repeat offenders risk larger fines and/or up to 10 days of administrative detention, Vice Minister of Culture Yevgeniy Kochetov said, according to Kazinform news agency.

The definition of propaganda is vague in Kazakh law. The amendments’ critics contend LGBT propaganda does not exist and argue the amendments will eliminate any positive or neutral representations of LGBT people while making advocacy for the community extremely difficult.

An official from the Ministry of Health told a parliamentary working group in October that “LGBT strongly influences the formation of non-traditional values among minors,” and could have a “negative influence on the demographic situation.” 

The ban passed the Majilis, the lower house of parliament, in early November and cleared the Senate in December with little opposition.

Tokayev has not publicly commented on the amendments, but in a speech last March to the National Kurultai, a gathering of Kazakh civil society and traditional leaders, he was critical of homosexuality. “For decades many countries have had so-called democratic moral values foisted on them, including LGBT,” Tokayev said.

The ban’s backers in parliament and civil society have pointed to few examples of messaging they are seeking to stamp out. One government-aligned civil society group told lawmakers it had found 1,559 social media videos “on the theme of LGBT … with propaganda of LGBT values,” while at the same meeting an MP from the Amanat Party showed a video of Kazakh activists who had made a large representation of a vagina for a public event, the Kazakh publication Vlast reported.

“This here is an indecent photo,” deputy Edil Zhanbyrshin said. “How can you put this on social media?”

The amendments originated with a 2024 citizens’ petition that called for an end to “open and hidden LGBT propaganda” and garnered more than 50,000 signatures.

Around the same time, an expert committee from the Ministry of Health studied the impact of the LGBT community’s activities on young people, but it found no evidence of negative influence.

“Rather, according to our research, the influence of the LGBT movement on the sexual identity of minors has a positive character. Teenagers belonging to [sexual] minorities can learn about their rights, receive support and avoid isolation,” stated a report prepared by the committee. The report was deleted from the ministry’s website soon after its publication last spring around the same time the LGBT propaganda ban bill was initiated. 

UN and EU officials strongly criticised the ban, and the Senate vote on the amendments was delayed so it would not fall during EU Council President Antonio Costa’s visit to Astana in early December.

Kazakh human rights defenders have also raised alarm over a separate bill Tokayev signed on December 30 that empowers citizen volunteers to enforce public order and introduces the concept of “anti-societal actions” that “violate generally accepted standards of behaviour and morality.” The Interior Ministry has stated the law will help clarify citizens’ role, while lawyers and journalists have slammed its vague language and said it could lead to vigilantism, especially against LGBT people, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

“Any guesswork or any complaint, we’re turning it into a government denunciation,” Zhanar Sekerbayeva, a leader of the queer-feminist initiative Feminita, told Current Time TV, an affiliate of RFE/RL.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.

Alexander Thompson is a journalist based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, reporting on current events across Central Asia. He previously worked for American newspapers, including the Charleston, S.C., Post and Courier and The Boston Globe.