Freedom of Speech and Presidential Elections: Detention of Journalists
In Almaty, three members of the Rapid Deployment Task Force detained Azattyk reporter Peter Trotsenko in Astana Square.
The journalist was released an hour and a half after the protocol was drawn up, and the data were entered into the police base.
The correspondent of the Agency France Press (AFP) for Central Asia - British journalist Chris Rickleton - was detained in Astana Square when he wanted to interview a woman. Later the accreditation card and video equipment were returned to the journalist, but the policemen deleted all the recordings.
As police explained, Chris Rickleton got a bruise under his eye when that he fell on the knee of the officer who was detaining him: “I was not beaten. But the police officers were extremely rude”, said Rickleton.
Dmitry Tikhonov, journalist of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law was detained.
“No one bothered me until the provocation, when an unknown civilian attacked my colleague Andrei Grishin,” Dmitry Tikhonov told Informburo. - I had to defend the colleague, and after that police detained me, but not the provocateur. They held me in Turskib police station for about two hours, and then they released me. The policemen who detained me apologized, saying there was the order of the authorities to detain me.
Ainur Khalliollayeva, photojournalist of Holanews.kz, was detained while covering an unauthorized rally. The journalist had an editorial assignment and a journalist ID. On arrival in Auezov police station, the photojournalist was released, police apologized without explanation of reasons.
The director and the columnist for the Internet magazine Vlast Katya Suvorova and politologist Dimash Alzhanov were detained while approaching Astana Square in Almaty. Suvorova showed her journalist ID to the people who were detaining her, but they ignored it.
In Nur-Sultan, Azattyk reporter Sania Toyken was detained while covering citizens' speeches at the Zhastar Palace. The journalist, along with 25 other detainees, was taken to the Esil police station and was released after documents check.
In the evening of the same day, Saniya Toiken together with dozens of other detainees was taken to the Esilsky District Police Station for the second time. After about an hour and a half, the journalist was released from the police, without explanations of the detention.
JUNE 10TH
Asem Zhapisheva, a journalist working with Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting, CABAR (a project of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting) and a number of other media outlets, was detained on June 10 on Panfilov Street in Almaty near Astana Square.
The journalist was held for several hours in Auezov police station, and was released after the colleagues, human rights activists and civil activists came to the defence of her.
On the night of June 10th to 11th , Tengrinews.kz correspondent Shokan Alkhabayev covered police detention in the Sayran Lake area in Almaty. A policeman approached him and asked why he was making recording. Shokan replied that he was a journalist and then the policeman first told him to stop filming, then took away the phone from the journalist. Policemen approached him, grabed and pushed him to the ground. “They started kicking me on the face and on the stomach. I resisted, shouted that I am a journalist and asked to let me go. I had the journalist ID in my hand, when one of the policemen grabbed my hand and did not let me show my ID. Then he put my hand behind my back and took away my ID, ”says Tengrinews correspondent.
Shokan says he was left to lie on the ground. He called an ambulance, but it did not come. Doctors of the 7th city hospital, where the journalist and his chief arrived an hour later, documented a bruise of the soft tissues of the chest and anterior abdominal wall, abrasions in the area of the iliac wing on the right, sedimentation of the zygoma on both sides.
The editors of Tengrinews.kz appealed to the Almaty Police Department and the Ministry of the Interior Affairs. Almaty police began an official investigation.
12 JUNE
The correspondent of the newspaper “Omiray” Bakytzhan Kosbarmakov was detained in the evening near “Astana” square in Almaty. According to Bakytzhan, he presented his official ID to the police, but he was put on a bus where other detainees were.
The editor-in-chief of the newspaper Uralskaya Nedelya, Lukpan Akhmedyarov, and three of his colleagues, a journalist Raul Uporov and cameramen, were detained on Abay Square in the center of Uralsk. “When I began to photograph how the police and people in camouflage uniforms detained people, two police officers twisted my arms and led me into a police van. Then they let me go after three hours, ”says the journalist.
(Full monitoring of violations of freedom of speech during the presidential elections in Kazakhstan, is available at http://www.adilsoz.kz/politcor/show/id/254/parent/2)
