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| - A Kazakh vlogger with more than two million followers on Instagram was fined for posting a video of a friend cutting his hair, violating lockdown rules, police said Thursday. Zhenis Omarov, whose Instagram persona Zheka Fatbelly amassed 2.3 million followers set a "dumb example" by filming his friend coming round to cut his hair during lockdown, police in Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty said in a statement. The overweight star was fined the equivalent of $65 for breaking confinement rules, in force in Almaty since mid-March when Kazakhstan recorded its first cases of the novel coronavirus infection. Such behaviour "risks becoming infectious," said Almaty police representative Manap Sattarov in a statement caried by local media. Omarov, who is also the face of a chain of local doner kebab restaurants and ice cream stores, made a public apology. "I never wanted to encourage violations through my actions. I acknowledge my guilt and ask everybody to keep in quarantine," he said in a video. The ex-Soviet Central Asian country has recorded over 2,200 COVID-19 cases, 20 of which have been fatal. In recent weeks Omarov and other comedy vloggers have focused their short videos on life stuck at home with their families and social distancing. Instagram is hugely popular in Kazakhstan and many local stars on the platform have branched out into business. cr/ma/cdw
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