Kazakhstanis linked to Daesh 'will lose citizenship'

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA

Kazakhstanis convicted of Daesh membership will be stripped of their citizenship, local media reported the Central Asian country’s leader as saying on Tuesday.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev was quoted by national news agency Kazinform as saying those who left Kazakhstan to join an “extremist organization” would not be able to return.

The loss of Kazakh citizenship would be automatic, he added.

Nazarbayev said about 500-600 people from Kazakhstan and around 5,000 people from the former Soviet Union countries had joined Daesh.

"We tried to conduct preventive work with those who returned from Daesh, but this did not work," said Nazarbayev.

Nationals from several Central Asian states, including Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, have been implicated in terror attacks carried out in Turkey and Europe.

Other countries have already looked at axing citizenship from nationals linked to Daesh or fighting in Syria.

In March last year, France’s two houses of parliament failed to reach agreement on a controversial constitutional bill of sweeping emergency measures, including stripping French nationals of citizenship if convicted of terrorist charges.