The prosecutor's office of Kokshetau: pushing, insulting, knocking out a camera from a journalist's hands is not a criminal offense
On May 26, 2021 Kokshetau 716.kz news website reporter Oksana Matasova filed a claim to police under Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan "Interfering with legal professional activities of a journalist." Though criminal charges were dropрed. The journalists's lawyer appealed against that decision.
As we reported, One of the residents of Kokshetau told the news website "716.kz" that her 14-year-old son was hired for beautification of the city lake Kopa along with other minors. No contract was signed with them and the teenager were not paid for their work.
On May 26, 2021, 716.k reporter Oksana Matasova informed the inspector for juvenile affairs and went to the riverbank to check the information and to take employers' comments. When she arrived at the riverbank, she saw children on the beach, came to them and tried to talk. At this time, she started to make a video on her mobile phone as it is allowed in accordance with paragraph 3 of Art. 20 of the Law "On the Mass Media". The young workers were laconic and called someone they named Ruslan. A man came to Oksana and greeted her. But as soon as he learnt that she is a journalist, his behavior turned to be agressive. He knocked out the camera from the journalist's hands, pushed and cursed the journalist, forcing her to leave the place of works.
On the same day, the journalist reported the incident to the police, stating that the man violated paragraph 2 of Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan "Interfering with legal professional activity of a journalist" with the use of violence or threat, clause 2 of article 131 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan "Insult", and art. 434 of the Administrative Code "Petty hooliganism" (obscene language in public places). However, on June 7, the investigative authority dropped the criminal charges. He man was charged with art. 434 of the Administrative Code "Petty hooliganism" only and was fined for 14,500 tenge (about 35 USD)
On June 9, the prosecutor's office of the city of Kokshetau agreed with the decision to drop charges under Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the absence of corpus delicti.
“When a representative of the prosecutor’s office called me I asked him why there was no evidence of a crime in the case. He replied that the man was not aware that I am a journalist since I introdiced myself orally . On the same day, June 9, I was received by the head of the police department of Akmola region, General Armanbek Baimurzin. He accepted my claim and ordered to restart the investigation, ”O. Matasova explained.
On June 10, 2021 the journalist's lawyer also filed a petition with the Akmola region prosecutor's office. He asked to cancel the decision on dropping criminal charges and to resume the pre-trial investigation. He noted that operative part of the decision does not coincide with the content of the criminal case. In particular, the investigation papers contain the testimonies of underage witnesses, which indicate directly to the facts of violation of public order by Ruslan and prove that his actions constituted interfering with journalistic activities, and insult i.e. corpus delicti as it stated by Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Besides the investigative authority did not take video evidence from O.Matasova, thereby violating Art. 24 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan that demands a complete and objective study of all case materials.
