Violations of Freedom of Speech in Kazakhstan August 2022

The International Foundation for the Protection of\r\nFreedom of Speech \"Adil Soz\" conducted a study of the situation with\r\nthe right to freedom of expression, receipt and dissemination of information in\r\nKazakhstan in August 2022.

Itreports:

- The Petropavlovsk\r\npolice once again dropped the investigation into the case of interfering with\r\nlegal professional activity of journalists of the Khabar-24 TV. The\r\ninvestigation was dropped and restarted for six times throughout the year.

 “Well, a year has passed ... A year of quiet\r\ninvestigation. Not a murder, not a burglary, but when just journalists thrown\r\nout of a mall. And it seems that there it should be punished in accordance\r\nwith  an article of a law. And it seems\r\nthat the law is the same for everyone. (...) But it happens to me even though I\r\nam under protecton of hte lawyer of the \r\nInternational Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech \"Adil\r\nSoz\".  Throughout this year I was\r\ngetting threats and bribe offers  (…) The\r\ncase was dropped  thrice by the police\r\nand twice by the prosecutor\'s office. They dropped it and resumed it, lost the\r\nvideo that I attached to the claim.(…)

Aidyn Kabduldinov, on\r\nthe anniversary of such a petty incident, I tried to find out from your\r\nsubordinates about the fate of this case, because the next deadline for the\r\ninvestigation was on August 31. But no matter whom I tried to contact today -\r\ninterrogators, police officers of the city department -  they declined my calls,” Tolegen Imanov,  Khabar 24 TV cameraman, wrote on Facebook on\r\nSeptember 3.

A year later, the\r\nvictims do not know whether the case of interfering with legal professional\r\nactivity of journalistswas passed to court or dropped for the sixth time.

As it was\r\nreported,  journalists of the North\r\nKazakhstan branch of  Khabar24 TV  Samat Dzhakupov, Natalya Volkova and\r\ncameraman Tolegen Imanov lodged a complaint with the police. On August 2, 2021,\r\nsecurity officers of the Dostyk Mall shopping center forcibly escorted them out\r\nof the building. The TV team was covering functioning  ASHIQ (Covid prevention system) program in\r\nthe Dostyk Mall.

On August 19, Tolegen\r\nImanov received a notification from acting investigator of the  of Petropavlovsk Police department, police\r\ncaptain A.K. Omarova.

\"We hererby inform\r\nyou that it was decided to drop the \r\ncriminal case No. 215910031001471, recorded in the Unified Register of\r\nPre-trial Investigations under Art. 158 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the\r\nRepublic of Kazakhstan,  on the basis of\r\nArticle 35 part 1, paragraph 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the\r\nRepublic of Kazakhstan,” the document says.

The acting investigator\r\nadvised to apply to the prosecutor\'s office of Petropavlovsk in case of\r\ndisagreement with the sixth in a row drop of the case.

- Journalist Ardak\r\nYerubayeva was detained for attempted photo of the motorcade of the Prime\r\nMinister of Kazakhstan. She was charged with disobedience to police officers.

NUR.kz reporter Ardak\r\nYerubayeva tried to take a photo of the \r\nmotorcade of Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov arriving to the building of\r\nthe Aktobe region akimat (mayor\'s office). According to the journalist\'s\r\ncolleagues, representatives of law enforcement agencies forbade the journalist\r\nto take a photo, then they rounded her up \r\nand took her to the police.

“The two men who took\r\nme away with brute force and put me in a police car were wearing civilian\r\nclothes. They took my smartphone away from me. I have a bruise on my arm. All\r\nthis happened at the regional akimat,” Ardak tells an RFE/RL reporter.

The journalist was\r\ntaken to the Zavodskoy Police Department, where she was kept for about three\r\nhours.

The police department\r\nof the Aktobe region confirmed Ardak Yerubayeva\'s detention to RFE/RL and\r\nstated that she refused to comply with the lawful demand of the police\r\nofficers. Ardak in her turn denies the police\'s allegations that she \"ran\r\nout to meet the motorcade.\"

She told Radio Azattyk\r\nthat she filed a complaint against police officers on interfering with the\r\nlegal professional activities of a journalist.

- Akimat of\r\nTaldykorgan does not comply with the court decision to provide information to\r\nPravo.kz online media.

It is the case of legal\r\nclaim of the editor-in-chief to the Akimat of the city of Taldykorgan and the\r\ndepartment of housing and communal services on providing access to the\r\ndecisions of the housing committee on housing \r\nofficials and providing a copy of the decisions of the committee\r\n(journalists have been trying to get these documents since June 2021).

On November 17, 2021,\r\nthe Specialized Interdistrict Administrative Court of the Almaty Region\r\nsatisfied the claim of Sabyr Makazhanov in full. On February 28 this year, the\r\ndecision of the administrative court entered into legal force.

The defendants appealed\r\nthe legal acts in the Supreme Court, and on July 12 the cassation instance\r\nupheld the decisions of the administrative court and the Almaty Regional Court.

The deadline expired on\r\nAugust 12, but the journalists never received the documents.

“The editors filed a\r\ncomplaint, and the court fined  the head\r\nof the housing and communal services of Taldykorgan for 50 MCI, which is more\r\nthan 153,000 tenge. But even after that, the decision of the court was not\r\nfulfilled. The editors  filed another\r\ncomplaint. This time, the head of housing and communal services the  was fined for 60 MCI, and the lawyer of the\r\nakimat, who defended the interests of the akimat in all courts, was fined 50\r\nMCI. In total, employees of the akimat and housing and communal services were\r\nfined 160 MCI.

- The Orda.kz website\r\nresumed its work after DDoS attacks.

As it was reported,\r\nthe Orda.kz website has been experiencing heavy \r\nDDoS attacks since July 21 .

“The site was hacked by\r\na DDoS attack, the CMS is not working, so there is no  updates. The mail was hacked and our email\r\naddress is signed on thousands of third-party sites,” said Gulnar Bazhkenova,\r\nthe founder of the website.

On July 24 Orda.kz\r\nwebsite had to temporarily stop functioning due to the ongoing attacks.

The information\r\nsecurity department of the National Security Committee  (ISD) run a check on the attacks and promised\r\nto study the problem.

On August 20, Gulnar\r\nBazhkenova wrote on Facebook that Hoster.KZ with the support of the state\r\ntechnical service managed to repel the hacker attacks .

\"On August 12,\r\nwithin 10 hours, Hoster.KZ transferred us to their own servers, connected us to\r\nthe attack protection system and restarted the website, put it into operation,\"\r\nBazhkenova wrote on social networks.

The following charges were filed in connection with the exercise of the\r\nright to freedom of expression in August 2022:

- 2 criminal charge (1 in court)

- 5 civil claims and lawsuits (all of them for protection of honor,\r\ndignity and business reputation).

- 1 administrative charge

The following charges were filed since the beginning of the year:

- 19 criminal charges (6 in court).

- 33 claims and suits in civil procedure (29 of them for protection of\r\nhonor, dignity and business reputation).

Claims for compensation for non-pecuniary damage amounted to 14 million\r\n850 thousand  tenge. The courts collected\r\n550 thousand tenge.

- 17 administrative charges, including 7 related to January riots

The monitoring is based on the information of the Adil Soz Foundation\'s\r\nreporters and publicly available information

Head of monitoring service of Adil Soz Foundation

Elena Tsoi e-mail: lena@adilsoz.kz

For all monitoring questions, you can also contact info@adilsoz.kz