While in Britain, Ablyazov maintained close ties to opposition media in Kazakhstan. RFE/RL has noted that in 2011, the broadcaster K+ and the newspapers Vzglyad and Golos Respubliki, along with other private Kazakh media with ties to Ablyazov, “gave full-scale coverage to the bloody police crackdown on striking oil workers in the western city of Zhanaozen.” Not long after, Kazakh courts ordered these media outlets closed, along with the opposition Alga party, headed by Vladimir Kozlov, an Ablyazov ally, who was sentenced to a long prison term. The Nazarbaev government reportedly considered Ablyazov to be implicated in these media outlets' critical coverage.