Jailed Kazakh activist Erzhan Elshibaev, recognized by rights groups as a political prisoner, has been handed an additional seven years in prison for "violating the penitentiary’s internal regulations and calls for disobedience to prison guards."

Elshibaev said the September 29 ruling by a court in the southern city of Qyzylorda was "lawless."

Elshibaev was expected to be released in October next year. He was initially sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 after a court in his native cityof Zhanaozen in the country's southwest found him guilty of hooliganism.

Elshibaev and his supporters have rejected the charges, saying they were politically motivated and aimed at ensuring he wouldn't lead any protests in the restive town.

Elshibaev was one of the leaders of several protest rallies in Zhanaozen in 2018 during which residents in the oil town demanded jobs.

Kazakh authorities have been very sensitive to any dissent or protests in the volatile city, where police fatally shot at least 16 people while repressing protests by oil workers in December 2011.

In January this year, a rally in Zhanaozen against abrupt fuel price hikes led to unprecedented anti-government protests across the nation that ended with violent dispersals in which at least 238 people, including 19 law enforcement officers were killed.

The European Parliament has urged Kazakh authorities to release Elshibaev and other political prisoners.

Kazakhstan’s government has denied that there are political prisoners in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.