Court hearings on article that was published 9 years ago commenced in the Abay District Court of Shymkent on May 14 .

Court hearings on article that was published 9 years ago commenced in the Abay District Court of Shymkent on May 14 .The defendant is the online media outlet titus.kz. The plaintiff is Mr. Mekhti Mammadov. He believes that his name was improperly mentioned in the article published in  2011. A lot of comments that has been posted under the article for the last 9 years made him furious. Last year, M. Mammadov applied to  Anton Danilov, the chief editor of titus.kz, with a request to delete the article and comments. A.Danilov fulfilled the request, since the theme was no longer of interest at this time. But M.Mammadov filed a lawsuit against 11 Russian websites that mentioned him in their articles.  Most probably “Titus.kz” was one of defendants so that the plaintiff could file the suit in Shymkent - at the location of one of the defendants. It was the easiest way with no need to travel anywhere.

On May 14 the court rejected the plaintiff's request to enter      an independent linguist's findings upon the record, and commissioned another a psychological and linguistic expert evaluation. It will be conducted by the Center for Forensic Expertise of Shymkent.

Legal assistance to A.Danilov  is provided by  Adil Soz Foundation's lawyer Tamara Simakhina. The court hearing  was held in the form of a videoconference. We hope that in the future the court will find the opportunity to provide online broadcasting for journalists who want to cover this legal process in accordance with the principle of publicity of the trial.