The private visit and its "business purpose" of Alexander Gorokhovsky

Like everyone else "Adil Soz" is disappointed that on September 15 another very useful lesson in the School of Journalism in Uralsk was interrupted by the police. The special guest of the school, the editor of the Ukrainian website "Bez Brekhni" ("No lies") and the author of a number of popular fact-checking textbooks, Alexander Gorokhovsky, was accused of violating migration legislation. On September 17, he was committed for trial and fined. However, we can not fully share the indignation of the supporters of the "Urals Week" newspaper.

As you know, the law is harsh, but it is the law. Let's add: the law can be obsolete, ridiculous, draconian, but it still has to be observed.

The legal origin of Alexander's case, accusations against him, trials and punishments is absurdly simple. He filled in the migration card at the entrance to Kazakhstan. The journalist pointed out that the host party is the newspaper "Ural Week" and the purpose of the visit is private. And that contradiction was his administrative offense: a legal entity cannot be visited with private purposes.

The fact is that the form of the migration card and the Memo to fill in the migration cards werer approved by order No. 83 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan on January 27, 2016. The Memo says:

One of the following purposes can be indicated as the purpose of the visit:

private - when coming as a guest or for other personal purposes;

service - when traveling on business trips, on other business purposes;

work - when coming for work;

study - for students studying in higher and secondary special educational institutions of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as for persons coming for internship or practice;

medical treatment - for persons coming to be treated in medical organizations of the Republic of Kazakhstan;

tourism - for coming as tourists. "

Whatever you say, but participation in the event, paid or free of charge, conversations "for the exchange of experience" or a full-fledged training is an official purpose or, according to the Memo, it is a "a business purpose." And this is not the only invisible sticking point that organizers of seminars, trainings, etc. can stubmble at. Therefore, it is necessary to study all the requirements of the law when organizing events and to instruct foreign participants what documents they should take with them and  how to fill in migration cards, etc.  , the specialists of Adil Soz are ready to advcie if there are any uncertainties.

But there is another question: why the Ukrainian journalist who arrived to his Kazakhstan's colleagues, was so quickly tracked down and "suppressed". And this question gives rise to a series of joyless assumptions...