Сөз бостандығын қорғау халықаралық қоры
Международный фонд защиты свободы слова
The International Foundation for Freedom of Speech Protection

Defamation in the period of the state of emergency

30 april 2020

The bill on liability for slander (Article 130 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan) and incitement to hatred (Article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan)was passed to the Majilis (the lower chamber of the parliament). The bill was initiated by the deputies.

Thanks to zakon.kz, the dossier on this project was published - https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=35086880#pos=79;138

The only amendment that was made to the widely criticized article 174, is that the word - “excitement” was replaced by “incitement”. Linguists say these words are synonyms. Oh yes, they also offer an alternative to imprisonment - a fine of up to 7 thousand MCI as if our country is inhabited by  millionaires. (7,000 MCI is 18,557,000 tenge  while the minimum salary is 42,500 tenge).

"Slander" was moved from the Criminal Code to  the Code of Administrative Offenses. But there is no bill on amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses that would legitimate inclusion of "Slander" to it. It's a mystery. In winter the bill was published on the official website of the electronic government  egov.kz. And it was widely criticized, and it was criticized by  Adil Soz as well (see http://www.adilsoz.kz/politcor/show/id/284). After that the bill disappeared from the website! But its February version was still available  on zakon.kz. It supposes huge fines to the budget but not a single tenge to the victim. According to the bill, cases of slander will be  investigated by specialists of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and it will be up to them to decide what is false, what is true, what is information and\or opinion  and what is slander ...

What laws will we get by the end of the state of emergency?

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