The case on banning Ratel was taken appeal

On August 13, the first hearing of the Appeals Board of the Almaty City Court was held on the complaint of the editor-in-chief of the online edition of Ratel.kz Marat Asipov.

As it was informed, Medeu District Court ruled to ban the online edition of the Analytical Internet Portal Ratel.kz and  the use of the domain name Ratel.kz for one year, and prohibited Marat Asipov  personally prohibited to produce and distribute information materials on behalf of Ratel.kz anywhere. Defendants  strongly disagreed with such a decision.

The court of first instance relied on the arguments of the plaintiff - the prosecutor's office of Medeu district of Almaty. Their main arguments in favor of closing popular media were:

- the owner of the domain Ratel.kz Gennady Benditsky died in December last year, and the editorial staff continued to publish the materials without changing the registrant's credentials,

- the hardware-software complex of  Ratel.kz is located  outside of Kazakhstan, that  violates Kazakhstan's legislation .

The representative of the defendant, Larisa Dostavalova, provided the appellate board with a detailed refutation of the plaintiff's evidence, namely:

- printout of the speech of the representative of the Ministry of Information and Communications

in the court of first instance, where he confirmed that there was no analysis and monitoring;

- experts summoned to the court of first instance questioned the assertion that the hardware-software complex of Ratel.kz is located outside of Kazakhstan in violation of Kazakhstan's legislation . The fact  the internet resource was successfully blocked, proves that the complex is located on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Other assertions of the prosecutor's office were also challenged in court in details.

The appeal board took a time-out until September 10  to examine the documents presented in the appeal and the arguments of the defendants voiced in court.