The defendant in Petropavlovsk claims that the journalists are to blame

On October 27 hearing on interfering with the the legal professional activities of journalists of Khabar 24 continued at the Petropavlovsk City Court. The head of the Dostyk mall security service Sultan Sagandykov is charged with Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Today he testified in court.

Sagandykov stated that the agreement procedure had been violated - the journalists did not agree on making video with the Dostyk Mall administration, and  did not show their ASHYQ (Covid ) status. According to him, the journalists behaved aggressively, and therefore he considered that their actions constituted a terrorist threat. For unknown reason, he reminded of the January riots, although the incident took place in August 2021. When asked by the prosecutor why he did not call the police, Sagandykov replied that the journalists had called the police themselves.

On October 18, the prosecutor's office charged Sagandykov with damage of property as well.

As for the administrative charges against the cameraman Tolegen Imanov on violating the requirements of the legislation in the field of sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population and the hygiene standards (for not presenting the ASHYQ status), the case was dropped due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for bringing to administrative responsibility.

The next hearing is scheduled for November 4th.

As it was reported, on August 2, 2021, Khabar 24 TV team was was covering the functioning of the ASHIQ program (that identifies COVID-19 status) in the Dostyk Mall. Security officers of the Dostyk Mall shopping center pushed them out of the building. Journalists Samat Dzhakupov, Natalya Volkova and cameraman Tolegen Imanov filed a complaint with the police. Since then, the criminal investigation was dropped for five times. Each time journalists insisted that the case was dropped illegally.

It should be noted that this is only the second case in the history of independent Kazakhstan, when the case under Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan came to tiral.