NGOs to the Minister: who will take responsibility for violations?
On June 29, three non-governmental organizations - the Charter for Human Rights, the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law and the International Foundation for the Protection of Freedom of Speech Adil Soz - appealed to the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan K.Kasymov with an open letter on violations of the legitimate rights of citizens and journalists by law enforcement officials. The letter says:
The letter, in particular, says:
"In recent times, the rights of peacefully assembled citizens are violated with peculiar impudence and rudeness. For example, mass arrests of civilians and taking them to the police departments on May 10 and June 23 of this year, can not be explained rationally neither from the standpoint of international standards and international obligations of our country, nor from the point of view of the current national legislation.
According to our preliminary data, on June 23 more than 70 people were taken to the police department of Medeu district about 30 people were taken to Almalinsky district police department in Almaty. In Astana police detained 29 people. On the same day similar detentions took place in the Atyrau, Aktobe, Uralsk, Pavlodar and other cities of the country. Police did not make any distinction between the "alleged" participants of the almost unsuccessful rallies, observers, journalists and bystanders.
It should be specially noted that, for example, on June 23, none of the detainees even participated in an unauthorized "event" - citizens had no posters, megaphones, there were no rallying cries , i.e. there were no actions that could potentially threaten national security, public order, health or rights and freedoms of others .
Peaceful people were detained without any grounds, without warning, with the use of brute physical force (audio and video evidences are in public access), without clarifying their rights. Elderly people, disabled people, pregnant women and women with children were among the detainees. The majority of civilians were kept in the premises and in the territory of law enforcement bodies for more than 6-7 hours, with no water, no food and in insufficient sanitary arrangements.
Many detainees’ cell phones were seized without issuing appropriate rulings and protocols. Fingerprinting the detainees, photographing them in profile and full face and other actions of police officers that should be viewed as procedural actions, were not based on any norms of criminal procedure or administrative procedure legislation. Their actions constituted obvious official misconduct of law enforcement officers and were interpreted by the civilians as a violation of their constitutional rights and civil liberties.
Moreover, it is not for the first time that we have to report outrage on journalists' right to "attend in disaster area, in rallies and demonstrations, as well as upon other forms of expression of public, group and personal interests and protest upon presentation of journalist certificate" (article 20 of the Law of RK "On Mass Media"). So, on that day, they were unreasonably detained while performing professional duties and presenting relevant documents: journalist of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law Andrei Sviridov was detained in Almaty, correspondent of Azattyk Radio Madi Bekmaganbet was detained in Astana. In Aktobe, the journalist of the newspaper "Diapazon" Bagdat Asylbek was detained, taken to the Ilek police department and was forced to write an explanatory report.
In Uralsk police took devious methods violating article 209 of criminal procedure code in order to prevent the collection and dissemination of information on the unauthorized rally expected to be conducted on June 23. Policemen waylaid journalists of the newspaper "Uralskaya Nedelya" Nana Iksanova, Maria Melnikova, Lukpan Akhmedyarov, Lyudmila Kalashnikova at hte foot to the square and served summons for summons for interrogation as witnesses. Immediately after policemen served summons to correspondent of Radio Azattyk Sanat Uraliev, they grabbed the journalist, seized his mobile phone and crammed the guy into a minibus.
The interrogations were scheduled for the same time as the alleged rally was supposed to begin, in spite of the fact that according to the official Commentary to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, "interrogation should be conducted on working days, and only on the basis of exigent circumstances, interrogation is permissible on non-working and holidays. Exigent circumstances shuold be understood as the sudden occurrence of such circumstances, when delay in interrogation can lead to the loss of traces of a crime, the abscond of persons who committed it, the inability to compensate for the damage caused by the crime (paragraph 15 of the Regulatory Resolution of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan of April 20, 2006 No. 4 "On Some Issues of Evaluating Evidence in Criminal Cases").
Since the journalists of the Uralsk Week, as well as the correspondent of Radio Azattyk Sanat Urnaliev, were interrogated on Saturday, June 23, on cases that had no "exigent circumstances ", it is obvious that the purpose of these unscheduled interrogations was to prevent journalists from covering the failed unauthorized rally.
We declare that measures taken against citizens and journalists were not based on law, infringe on the dignity of citizens, violate their rights and freedoms, guaranteed by international human rights treaties ratified by the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the Constitution of our country, including the right to freedom of speech and expression of opinion, the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, the right to freedom and personal inviolability. We believe that those actions should lead to holding the guilty police officers to disciplinary and criminal liability. "
An open letter to the Minister of the Interior was presented by the executive director of the Charter for Human Rights, Zhemis Turmagambetova.
