Gulbadar Musinova took her fight for justice for her daughter to social media, despite the perceptions of a social stigma.
The suspects in an alleged gang rape last month in southeastern Kazakhstan are in custody and authorities there are on the defensive following a desperate social-media push by the victim's family to demand justice.
The 30-year-old victim's mother posted a video appeal after police in the rural town of Esik appeared to ignore the accusations of the brutal assault, in which she says the woman and a male relative were attacked leaving a karaoke cafe late one evening.
Shattering the silence that Kazakh activists say is far more common in the ethnically sprawling, mostly Muslim country of around 18 million, Gulbadar Musinova took to YouTube to detail the incident, accuse police of a cover-up, and counter a stigma.
"Why should I be ashamed?" the mother asks in the video (see below), fighting back tears. "Those men who raped my daughter should be ashamed, not us."
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