Violations of Freedom of Speech in Kazakhstan September 2022
The International Foundation for the Protection of Freedom of Speech "Adil Soz" conducted a study of the situation with the right to freedom of expression, receipt and dissemination of information in Kazakhstan in August 2022.
Itreports:
- The Prosecutor General's Office accused bloggers of spreading fakes for profit and urged citizens to trust only official sources of information.
On September 26, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan published “Appeal of the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Republic of Kazakhstan Zh.Umiraliyev to the citizens of Kazakhstan”.
“Cases of dissemination of deliberately false information on various topics have become more frequent in the domestic information space and various social media.
At the same time, they are accompanied by provocative statements by bloggers and user comments that have signs of inciting ethnic hatred.
False messages that discredit the honor and dignity of specific citizens, as well as false information about the detention and criminal prosecution of a number of well-known people are being published,” Zhandos Umiraliyev said.
The Deputy Prosecutor General believed that in most cases the dissemination of such false information is carried out by bloggers deliberately, "for money and in their own interests and in the interests of third parties" by extorting funds.
Zh. Umiraliyev warned of criminal liability for incitement to hatred, extortion and dissemination of deliberately false information and called on citizens, journalists and users of social networks "to strictly observe the law and not to commit any of the above offenses, not to rise to provocations and trust only official sources of information."
“Appeal (read - warning) of the Deputy Attorney General Zhandos Umiraliev raises many perplexing questions,” said Tamara Kaleyeva, President of the Adil Soz Foundation. “We wonder how many official sources are there? What is their main goal - to provide honest information or just to reassure? How quickly do these sources respond to the demands of the society? How do they react - humanly or by official statements, appeals, warnings?
- The court recovered 1 million tenge from a blogger as compensation for moral damages to the minister
On September 2, the Baikonyr District Court of the city of Nur-Sultan ruled on a lawsuit to protect the honor, dignity and business reputation of Sayasat Nurbek, ex-head of JSC Center for International Programs, now the Minister of Science and Higher Education of Kazakhstan, against blogger and journalist Gulban Abenova.
The trial began in March 2022 in connection with Gulbanu Abenova’s Facebook posts about possible corruption schemes within the Bolashak scholarship program when Sayasat Nurbek was the head of the Center for International Programs.
The court upheld the claim in part. According to the operative part of the judgment , the information disseminated in six fragments of posts dated November 28, November 30, 2020 and January 25, 2021 was recognized as untrue, discrediting the honor and dignity of S. Nurbek. In accordance with the court decision, the blogger must pay 1 million tenge in compensation for moral damages to the ex-head of the Center for International Programs JSC, as well as court costs in the amount of 11,532 tenge.
The decision of the court has not yet entered into force.
- Journalist Dinara Yegeubayeva reported a provocation attempt
Dinara Yegeubayva, blogger, journalist and the author of the DINARION YouTube channel reported that on September 16, unknown people created her fake Instagram account, that had more than 11,000 subscribers as of September 19. A call to come to rally on September 17 and give donations to a certain movement was posted on the fake account on her behalf.
“I don't believe in coincidences. Everything happens at the same time: mass attack of bots, summons to the police, creating a fake account with appeals for which I can be held liable. In general, they set me up. I consider these all to be an attempt to silence me, ”the journalist wrote on Facebook.
After complaints from Yegeubayeva's subscribers, the fake account was blocked.
- Yevgenia Baltatarova, a journalist from Buryatia (Russia), was detained in Astana in due to accusations of public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the exercise of power by state bodies of the Russian Federation.
On September 30, at around 6:00 pm, Yevgeniya Baltatarova, a journalist from Buryatia, , wrote on her Telegram channel: “I was detained in Astana due to an international wanted list under article 207.3 part 2. Discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.”
Later, she said that she was detained by the police near the office of the Kazakhstan Bureau for Human Rights, where she, her colleagues and human rights activists discussed the situation with the Russians who fled from the mobilization to Kazakhstan.
According to the journalist, police officers shouted at her, threatened to make her stay in a pre-trial detention center till morning if she did not sign the documents, tried to forcibly fingerprint her, took a picture of a police officer on her personal phone without her consent, and kept her lawyer away for two hours.
At 9:23 p.m., Evgenia Baltatarova wrote on her Telegram channel that she had been released. She said that she did not sign anything, but filed a complaint against the actions of the police officers who violated her rights.
The official report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan indicated other charges as the grounds for detention - art. 207 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Knowingly false report about terrorism". A journalist can be deported to the Russian Federation under this article. Yevgenia Baltatarova assumes that she will be detained again and they will try to deport her.
- The editor-in-chief of Orda.kz reported threats and insults
Orda.kz editor-in-chief Gulnar Bazhkenova wrote on Facebook: “I live in a state of war declared against me and Orda.kz. Not having anyone to protect me, I consider publicity to be my only weapon.
Gulnar Bazhkenova reports that all the problems started after an investigation on Jusan Bank was published. After that massive DDoS attacks on Orda.kz website started, and still go on causing the website unavailability time to time.
“After the second series of articles, the attacks intensified, my photos with indecent ads and editorial phones began to be posted on the social network VKontakte. A week ago, a virus was used to disseminate the fake accounts of some Sonyas and Victorias with my phone numbers and offers of sexual services in the same social network. You can imagine what is happening to my phone,” Bazhkenova wrote.
Messages from an unknown person insulting the journalist and threatening to come to the address of the apartment the editor-in-chief rented in 2000-2002 come to the editorial chat-bot.
- The Ministry of Information and Social Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan published Regulatory Policy Advisory Document to the Draft Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Mass Media” for discussion at the Open regulatory legal act website.
The Adil Soz Foundation commented on the Regulatory Policy Advisory Document to the Draft Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Mass Media”.
"Adil Soz" believes that the name "On the Mass Media" proposed by the ministry without any discussion raises fundamental questions and objections.
Kazakh legislation does not contain such term as “mass media’. In fact, it is an inaccurate borrowing from a foreign language. In democratic countries this term means any producers and suppliers of content for a mass audience.
It is obvious that the new term is introduced into the legislation solely in order to somehow control the activists of social networks. This relates to the "Problem 2 - Determining the status of mass media".
The authors of the document insist that "the differentiation of new types of mass communications will allow regulating the activities of those distributing mass information."
The grounds for additional regulation of this activity are not clear. It is already regulated by a large block of current legislation - laws on combating terrorism, on national security, on entrepreneurial activity, on advertising, on the media, on communications, criminal, civil, administrative codes, etc. Some of them, perhaps, should be supplemented, for example, the law "On Advertising" can be supplemented with rules of Internet advertising, and that's would be enough!
Secondly, “those distributing mass information” are practically the entire population of the country (except of babies). Systematizing them all on the basis of their use of social networks is the same as measuring the volume of the sea with a nutshell. Maybe it is done to further introduce new amendments restricting the right of citizens to freedom of expression? It seems so.
Paragraph 8 of the table, entitled "Analysis of the current situation, international experience and proposed regulatory mechanisms", states:
“Today, mass media can not just report, but also form public opinion, and thus it is required to consider responsibility for the accuracy of the information they publish.”
Attempts to "curb" the public activity of citizens by special legislative norms have been made for more than a year. We believe that they are based on an atavistic post-Soviet fear of uncontrolled public opinion. Instead of improving the skills of public communication and participation in public discussions, officials prefer to introduce the draft law concept defining reliability of information and legal liability for its violation.
The question "what is reliable information?" is similar to the classic question "what is the truth?". There may be many correct answers, but in our realities, officials, of course, will argue that the only reliable information is the one based on reports from official sources. Thus, the constitutional right of citizens to freedom of expression is deemed an illegal opportunity to share opinions, hopes, fears, wishes.
The following charges were filed in connection with the exercise of the right to freedom of expression in September 2022:
- 1 criminal charge (1 in court)
- 5 civil claims and lawsuits (all of them for protection of honor, dignity and business reputation).
- 3 administrative charges
The following charges were filed since the beginning of the year:
- 19 criminal charges (7 in court).
- 39 claims and suits in civil procedure
33 of them for protection of honor, dignity and business reputation.
Claims for compensation for non-pecuniary damage amounted to 18 million 350 thousand tenge. The courts collected 1 million 800 thousand tenge.
Total of 19 court rulings have been issued on claims for the protection of honor, dignity and business reputation. 12 of them were in favor of the defendants).
- 20 administrative charges (including 7 related to January riots; 9 slander charges)
The monitoring is based on the information of the Adil Soz Foundation's reporters 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
