Finding a decapitated dog with a note saying “You’re next” was not sufficient to stop Irina Petrushova from continuing to publish a newspaper that claims to expose government corruption in Kazakhstan.

As soon as the newspaper started to support the movement called Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan2002, the threats also started.

“The Mass Media Ministry withdrew our licence. In March I received a funeral wreath and in May I found a beheaded dog hung on the window with a note saying I was going to be the next. I found its head near my front door,” the editor-in-chief of Respublika said.

“A few days later our newspaper premises were burnt down. Two criminal cases were opened against me and I received threats that my son would be kidnapped.”

Dissident theatre director Bolat Atabayev.

Ms Petrushova fled to Russia that same year and was given a CPJ International Press Freedom Award. She was speaking to The Sunday Times of Malta after testifying – together with broadcasting editor Bakhyt Ketebaev and theatre director Bolat Atabayev – that millionaire Rakhat Aliyev would not have a fair trial if he was extradited to Kazakhstan.

The former son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev fell out with the dictator just before he was appointed ambassador to Austria. When two former executives of a Kazakh bank, part-owned by Mr Aliyev, were found dead, he was found guilty in absentia of their murder.

Kazakhstan failed in its bid to have him extradited from Austria and he sought refuge in Malta. In 2011, Vienna opened its own investigation and recently charged him with the murder.

He is voluntarily collaborating with the authorities.

“I’m not a fan of Mr Aliyev, but he shouldn’t be persecuted just because he opposes the government. He has the right to a fair trial which is impossible in Kazakhstan,” said Mr Ketebaev, a former director of the independent broadcasting company Tan.

When they come and say they know you have a sister who comes home late and she could be raped, you have two options. Most give in but we chose to continue

Mr Ketebaev claimed Kazakh authorities would initially simply provide financial support to convince journalists to publish what they want, bribe employees, then start the threats.

“When they come up to you and say they know you have a sister who comes home late from dance classes and that she could be raped, you have two options. Most give in, but we chose to continue. Our equipment was targeted by the KNB and I had to flee in 2005.”

That was when he opened a satellite TV station called K+ which would buy raw footage from an independent company based in Kazakhstan and then broadcast from London.

However, the signal was shot down in 2013. It was difficult to find people brave enough to open again or speak out, he explained.

Luckily for Ms Petrushova, who had to change the name of the paper seven times, it went online in 2007, before the print version was closed following an oil workers’ strike in 2011. The online version is officially blocked in Kazakhstan but people still manage to get around firewalls to read it.

“We were threatened but we’re not afraid. Truth is on our side and we continue to do what we do because it’s our mission to bring the truth to the people.”

For theatre director Mr Atabayev, politics has not always been his focal point.

“I stayed out of politics and was a very happy man doing what I liked best. Theatre was my child and my livelihood.”

Engrossed in theatre, he would occasionally criticise the government when he compared the lack of freedom in Kazakhstan to other countries. He was concerned about his grandchildren’s future, but he was waiting for others to speak up. However, the Zhanaozen massacre, which followed the uprising of the oil workers in 2011 and during which the police reportedly killed at least 14 people, was his wake-up call.

He took a stand and addressed the strikers in Zhanaozen. He was charged with overthrowing the constitutional government and being a member of an organised criminal group. “The Kazakh constitution is similar to a bad menu in a restaurant, where they will tell you they ran out of whatever you ask for,” he said.

In 2012, he directed a play called Avalanche about a village in the mountains where people have to speak softly for nine months.

One day in the nine months, a woman has to give birth and it is decided that she has to be killed as she is a threat to the whole village.

Exclaiming that he does not want to live this way anymore, her husband fires a shot in the air.

“He shoots a second time and still no avalanche... because the avalanche was here,” he says, pointing at his forehead.

“I love my people but they cannot let the authorities do this to them anymore.”

Mr Atabayev spent 21 days in prison after he was beaten and arrested near his house in June 2012. He spent one night at Almaty and was then taken 4,500km away on a train intended to transport animals. When he was released he left for Germany where he still lectures at a theatre academy.

As an activist, he wants to show, through his experience, that anyone who threatens the authorities will be persecuted.