Kazakhstan’s LGBT Coalition REQUEST Ends Independent Operations
On October 20, 2026, Kazakhstan’s LGBT human rights initiative REQUEST announced the end of its work as an independent coalition. Its statement said the founding organizations would move to operating separately and that the participants had agreed on the decision.
Existing obligations, ongoing legal cases and agreements with partners remain in place. Responsible contact persons will oversee them going forward, the statement said.
The statement was REQUEST’s final official publication. The initiative is also ending its own public communications, while its pages and information channels will remain as an archive of previous materials. BES.media reported these arrangements on October 20.
REQUEST was established on August 8, 2024, to coordinate the protection of LGBT rights in Kazakhstan and jointly represent their interests nationally and internationally. Its closure was also recorded in the monitoring report by freedom of expression foundation Adil Soz, published on October 27.
The initiative had previously tried to register a foundation. In June 2026, an administrative court in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, dismissed its lawsuit against the city’s justice department challenging the refusal to register it. BES.media covered the proceedings.
The department cited deficiencies in the founding documents concerning the wording of the foundation’s aims, scope of activities and rules for acting on its behalf. REQUEST representatives said this was the seventh refusal and that the grounds kept changing despite the team amending its charter in response to the department’s comments. The court found the department’s position lawful.
Uránia previously reported on the blocking of lgbtpropaganda.kz, a website created by the REQUEST team, and the attempt to challenge it in court. The site was intended to monitor the application of “LGBT propaganda” provisions and provide legal analysis and public education.
