Violations of freedom of speech in Kazakhstan. January 2020

The\r\nInternational Foundation for the Protection of Freedom of Speech \"Adil\r\nSoz\" conducted a study of the situation with the right to freedom of\r\nexpression, receipt and dissemination of information in Kazakhstan in January\r\n2020.

Itreports:

- Amangeldy Batyrbekov is acquitted. The court\r\nof appeal found the journalist not guilty of libel.

On January 9, the board of\r\nappeals of the Turkestan Regional Court announced its decision in the case of\r\njournalist Amangeldy Batyrbekov: INNOCENT.

Judge T. Kadyrbaev\r\nannounced the decision: “Amangeldy Batyrbekov was found not guilty under part 3\r\nof article 130 (“ Libel ”) and part 2 of article 131 (“ Insult ”) of the\r\ncriminal code and was acquitted due to the lack of corpus delicti. Release\r\nBatyrbekov from custody in the courtroom, ” . The judge said that the\r\njournalist had the right to file a claim for compensation for non-pecuniary\r\ndamage for unlawful prosecution.

After being released from\r\nthe courtroom, Amangeldy Batyrbekov gave a short interview to Radio Azattyk.

- I am glad that the court\r\ndecision was fair. I am grateful to everyone who supported me in Kazakhstan and\r\nabroad, the Adil Soz Foundation, Azattyk, who covered all the court hearings,\r\n”said Batyrbekov.

- “Adil soz” appealed to the President\r\nof the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokaev with a proposal to transfer\r\n“slander” to the Civil Code.

On December 20, 2019, at the meeting of the National Council of Public\r\nConfidence, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev\r\ninformed of his decision to decriminalize Article 130 of the Criminal Code of\r\nthe Republic of Kazakhstan - “Slander” and transfer it to the Administrative\r\nCode, while maintaining a “high measure of responsibility”.In this regard, the\r\nAdil Soz foundation addressed the president of the country, the chairman of the\r\nMazhilis (lower chamber of the Parliment) and the Senate of the parliament, the\r\nprosecutor general with an open letter.

 The Adil\r\nSoz Foundation strongly believes  that\r\ndefamation must be decriminalized, but this type of offense should be\r\ntransferred to the Civil Code.

«Defamation is currently categorized as private\r\nprosecution cases (Article 32 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic\r\nof Kazakhstan). This means that a case is initiated at the request of the\r\nvictim. There a victim does not want to initiate a case, does not feel\r\nhumiliated, there is no prosecution. In other words, there is no public\r\nfunction in a defamation offense. Sure a state body or an official has the\r\nright to defend themself against defamation, but these are interpersonal\r\nrelations, and not public ones, where one of the perties is a governmental\r\nagency.

Administrative\r\nlaw, on the other hand, is a system of legal norms that regulates social\r\nrelations in the field of managerial activity of state bodies and officials. It\r\nshouldn not give a fair trial to private relations», - the statement of the\r\nFoundation says.

Adil Soz\r\nbelieves that in fact defamation is the same as humiliation of honor, dignity\r\nand business reputation, that is regulated in accordance with Art. 143 of the\r\nCivil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and differs from the latter only in\r\nintent on humiliation. Besides the Civil Code gives a victim a right for  complete \r\nrecovery of finanical and non-pecuniary damage  that was caused by dissimination of\r\ndefamatory information. The state has absolutely nothing to do with it, and\r\nadministrative prosecution is redundant.

On January 28, Adil\r\nSoz received responses from the Mazhilis and the General Prosecutor\'s Office.\r\nThey said that the arguments of “Adil Soz” will be taken into account in the\r\nprocess of working on the draft law.

- The security of KazMediaOrtalygy\r\nattacked Vlast.kz journalist Tamara Vaal when she tried to record the comment\r\nof Deputy Prime Minister R. Sklyar. The Ministry of Information and Public\r\nDevelopment apologized for the incident. An internal investigation is underway.

The incident occurred on January 10.

“My colleagues and I tried to record a comment by Roman Sklyar after a\r\nbriefing on the official position Nurlan Zhumasultanov  at Bek Air and the reasons why he represents\r\nthe interests of the company. However, security guards blocked us, one of them\r\nwas a police officer in uniform, and the second one was wearing a suit. When I\r\ntried to get through, they grabbed me and began to twist my arms. While I was\r\ntrying to break free, my colleague was able to run for the deputy prime\r\nminister. And while they switched their attention to her, I managed to break\r\nfree,” the journalist says.

The editorial board of the online media outlet regarded the attack to\r\nbe an obstruction to the legitimate professional activities of the journalist:\r\n“We consider the actions of the KazMediaCenter guard aimed to impede the\r\nactivities of the journalist, and use of brute force against   the journalist is unacceptable. We demand\r\nthat the management of KazMediaCenter apologize to our journalist Tamara Vaal\r\nand offer it to remind the  employees\r\nabout the methods they can use in their work and what they cannot do . ”

On the same  evening, Tamara Vaal\r\nwrote on her Facebook page: “Guys, first of all, everything is fine with me.\r\n(...) Secondly, the problem is that the speaker was ready to answer questions\r\nand answered after all these had happened. Thirdly, I had a phone call from the\r\nministry, apologized and informed me that an official investigation was\r\nunderway. The key phrase was that no one has the right to attack a journalist.\r\n”

On January 17, the editors of Vlast.kz reported that security officers\r\nwho had attacked Vaal were reprimanded by order of the general director of\r\nKazMediaCenter \"for improper performance of their official duties by violating\r\nthe norms of business ethics, work obligations and labor discipline.\" The\r\nattackers were is a specialist of the regime control service Zharas Akishev and\r\nthe main specialist of the regime control service Zharas Akishev and the chief\r\nspecailist of the regime control service Nurlan Sadykov. As the Ministry of\r\nInformation and Public Development informed the editorial board, the decision\r\non the employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who also twisted the\r\njournalist’s hands, should be made by the Ministry of Internal Affairs .

- The\r\nchiefs of the information and social development department of the Pavlodar\r\nregion (the former department of internal politics) offered  local reporters of the republican media to\r\ncontact them and not the relevant departments on all urgent issues.

The\r\ninitiative of the officials aroused indignation of Pavlodar journalists.\r\nSalauat Iglikov, the Khabar TV channel’s own correspondent, wrote on his\r\nFacebook account on January 29: “Several colleagues were informed that since today\r\nall requests for information on sensitive topics should be sent strictly\r\nthrough domestic politics  department. I\r\nguess we\'ve hit rock-bottom. We guess that such type of marhing orders can\r\noriginate only from the offices of the new administration of the region. It was\r\nnot like this even at the times of the ex-mayor Bakauov, who is in jail\r\nalready. No one in Pavlodar ever dared to shut \r\njournalists\' mouths. Andherearethenewtrends”.

Meanwhile,\r\nthe head of the information and social development department, Baurzhan\r\nKapenov, said in a telephone conversation with a reporter of KazTAG news agency\r\nthat the Pavlodar journalists did not understand the initiative. According to\r\nthe official, the department proposed to contact them only when the media need\r\ninformation regarding spread of the coronovirus. He said that journalists\r\nmistakenly seek the necessary information from the health department, while the\r\ndepartment of consumer protection (that includes the Sanitary Inspection\r\nService) is responsible for the epidemiological situation in the region. The\r\ndepartment heads did no ask journalists to agree other social, economic or\r\npolitical issues with them.

Между тем, отмечают павлодарские журналисты, они в своих\r\nзапросах темы короновируса не касались вообще и интересовались абсолютно\r\nдругими проблемами.

- Uralsk Week freelance reporter,\r\nblogger Alibek Moldin, was acquitted of insult.

On January 9, judge of the Aktobe city court No. 2 T. Aldanov found\r\nblogger Alibek Moldin not guilty under Part 2 of Art. 131 of the Criminal\r\nCode of the Republic of Kazakhstan - “Insult using the media or\r\ntelecommunication networks” and acquitted him for the absence of corpus delicti.

As it was reported, in November 2019 Aktobe residents M. Segizbaeva, G.\r\nBimaganbetova and K. Suinbaeva accused the blogger of insult . The three\r\ncomplaints were consolidate into a single case . On September 6, 2019, the\r\nthree women, among other mothers with many children, gathered at the\r\nakimat  (governor\'s office) of Aktobe\r\nregion to express their demands.

- Then Alibek Moldin came up to us and began to make a video recording\r\non his smartphone. Later, we learned that he was broadcasting live on a page on\r\nFacebook. On live Moldin said that \"you will remain cattle, all these\r\nshows that the people is just  a\r\ncrowd.\" I was very angry for comparing us with cattle and a crowd,\r\n”Gulmira Bimaganbetova said in court.

Alibek Moldin repudiated all charges.

7  judicial acts were issued against media and\r\ncitizens in connection with the exercise of the right to freedom of expression\r\n, the receipt and dissemination of information on cases of protection of honor,\r\ndignity and business reputation in January\r\n2020. Three of them\r\nwere in favor of the media, journalists and citizens.

The following charges were\r\nfiled  in January 2020

- 2 criminal charges, including 4  in court.

- 6 claims\r\nand suits in civil procedure. All of them - claims for protection of honor,\r\ndignity and business reputation.

Claims for compensation for non-pecuniary damage in December 2019 amounted to 23 mln 3 tenge  tenge. The courts collected 200\r\nthosuand 993 tenge.

The monitoring was done\r\naccording to reports of the Adil Soz Foundation\'s correspondents  and\r\ninformation from open sources.

Head of monitoring\r\nservice of Adil Soz Foundation Elena Tsoi
\r\ne-mail: lena@adilsoz.kz