Online news portal Radiotochka.kz is shut down

On April 12 online news portal Radiotochka.kz was shut down. The director of Radiotochka Bigeldy Gabdullin told Adil soz that the shutdown was caused by financial problems.

«Properly speaking, Radiotochka is shut down because of financial problems. Nevertheless in order to save the brand we decided to do the following: newspaper Central Asia monitor has its website, that we will shut down and make Radiotochka.kz to be the newspaper’s official website.  Surely, we would like to preserve the online news portal,  we put a lot of efforts and resources into it and it was a good project.  If somebody would like to purchase it, we may sell it», - Gabdullin said.

He also informed that the staff will be reduced for 1 person only and that person will get all required compensations.  

«There will be no problems with journalists. After I came back from pre-trial detention, we left only 8 employees, including 2 journalists. Now 1 of those journalists will continue working and the other will have to go but we will pay off all required compensations », - assured Gabdullin.

January 24 the sentence was pronounced -for the chief editor of the newspaper Central Asia Monitor and director of site Radiotochka.kz Bigeldy Gabdullin. The court found B.Gabdullin guilty of extortion (art.194 part 4 paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code), sentenced him to 5 years of restriction of liberty, and put him under probation supervision for 5 years. Besides B.Gabdullin not allowed to hold positions in local government, management positions related to organizational, distribution and logistics responsible functions in the public service and commercial organizations up to 10 years.