The Monitoring of violation of freedom of speech in Kazakhstan in May 2000

On May 19 in the newspaper “Karavan” and in #64 of the newspaper “Kazakhstanskaya pravda”, a text, with reference to one of the “dirty” Internet cites, of supposedly an interview from political scientist Nurbulat Masanov to ITAR-TASS correspondent in RK Igor Cherepanov, was published.

According to N. Manasov’s, I. Cherepanov’s and the Board’s of ITAR-TASS statements, this sort of interview did not take place and could not be overall. Slanderous provocative text includes statements which are deeply insulting to Kazakhs’ dignity, directed as a whole towards kindling of interethnic disagreement, particularly towards discreditation of people, who supposedly participated in this pseudo interview. Possibly, one of the strategic goals of the initiators of this provocation - is to win over the public opinion in favor of censorship in Internet.

Simultaneously several Almaty newspapers and TV channels received packages from the unknown “well-wisher”. In these packages, according to the TV report from “channel 31”, there was a record of the scandalous interview from political scientist Manasov to ITAR-TASS correspondent in Kazakhstan Igor Cherepanov, which was placed on the Internet cite, the existence of which is denied by both. The unofficial examination of the sent audio record to mass media gives basis to suppose that it has been falsified.

Cherepanov appealed to court regarding both publications, demanding refutation from “Karavan”, and to the office of public prosecutor in order to investigate the reasons of appearance of forged record.

Due to the fact that global network Internet is not a legal entity, the responsibility for spreading not authentic information, in this case, undoubtedly, blackening honor and dignity of the aforementioned citizens, must be taken by those mass media, which have spead this information. However, this is not the only point, but in the absence of corresponding reaction from legal protection agency, which thus demonstrate lack of interest, when it comes to protection of rights of journalists and public figures.

“Nachnem s ponedelnika”

On May 25 judicial executors took out all property including phones, computers and the last edition of the coming issue from the office of the newspaper “Nachnem s ponedelnika”. This was done in order to execute judicial decision according to lawsuit from the Union of Judges to compensate 5 million tenge of moral damage for abasement of honor and dignity of number of judges.

According to the words of the head editor of the newspaper Valeria Marchenko the editorial office cannot issue next edition due to exception of editing property.

The judicial decisions, which follow from demands of compensation of moral damage and which lead to complete bankruptcy and actual closing of the enterprise, in our opinion, are illegal in its essence, because they carry elements of revenge and reprisal, which contradicts the principles of civil law relations. Moreover, they directly violate the requirements under point 4 of the normative decree of Plenum of the Supreme Court of RK from 22.12.1995 #10, which talks about what needs to be taken into account while making the decision of gravity of following consequences: the degree of guilt of the damager, his financial situation, other circumstances which require attention. The actions of the court executors in terms of arresting the next edition of the newspaper were also illegal, because a newspaper is not just a property, which may be sold by auction in order to liquidate the debt. But, first of all, it is mass media, and its suspension, cessation of issue or prohibition for dissemination according to articles 13 and 14 of Law of the RK “About mass media” must be an object to separate consideration in court.

“48 hours. Criminal chronicle.”

On May 10 the leadership of firm “Kartas-Sh” appealed to the public prosecutor’s office stating that the regional information and public consent administration is not taking action. The point is that this firm decided to register a newspaper under the following name “48 hours. Criminal chronicle” and handed over the corresponding documents to information and public consent administration for registration. In response the firm’s representative heard that it is unlikely that a positive answer on registration will be received, due to the fact that there is another newspaper in the city under the name “48 hours”. After the determined by law 2 weeks passed and the regional administration did not give either “yes” or “no”, the firm appealed to the public prosecutor’s office.

According to article 10 of Law of the RK “About mass media” an application for registration of mass media must be examined within 15 days. The registration might be refused in case of earlier certificate issue to another mass media with the same name and dissemination for the same area.

According to the report of correspondent of Radio Svoboda Sultankhan Zhusip, press service of the President did not accredit him in May, for two important occasions: the reception of “Phillip Morris” representatives by the President and the meeting of the President and the Head of Gazprom of Russia Rem Vyahirev. Meanwhile, all of the Kazakhstani mass media, ITAR-TASS and Interfax correspondents were invited to these meetings.

On May 8 the press service of the President turned down the accreditation to “Interfax-Kazakhstan” correspondent Gulsum Zhelyaletdinova to cover solemn reception of the war veterans by the head of the state. The reason of refusal was that the event was only for the state mass media. However, except the official mass media, KTK TV channel correspondents also attended the reception.

After the editor of the newspaper “Vremya po” Nurlan Ablyazov wrote and publicized in his newspaper an open letter about freedom of speech in Kazakhstan, he was not allowed to cover the Eurasian Summit in Almaty on April 26-28 by the initiative of the press service of the President. In addition, the special services had him shadowed. Nurlan Ablyazov reported about this in his publication “who needed to shadow me?”

The accreditation order of journalists is an important public act, and undoubtedly needs adjustment on the level of government as a minimum. The corresponding Rules, approved by the Ministry of Culture Information and Public Consent on 05.01.2000, will hardly be obligatory, due to the fact that in legal sense they are departmental legal acts. In our opinion, they are not impeccable in its basing as well. So, it is hardly possible to acknowledge based on law the right of the accrediting body to arbitrarily deprive a journalist of accreditation in case of dissemination of information, which discredit the honor and dignity of this body. The last, according to article 141-143 of state code of the RK, can be decided by court only. The presence of this gap in legislature is confirmed by practice as well, in which any official can easily chop off “not his” journalists with impunity.

Atyrau Regional TV Radio Company

On May 6 Atyrau branch of “Otan” party conducted its internal event. On May 10 the head of the regional information and public consent administration B. Kuzhiev called out S. Sagindykov, the employee of the regional TV radio company, and lashed regarding absence of coverage of the corresponding TV story on the air and threatened to fire the guilty.

On May 15 a report of the press service of the prosecutor’s office of West Kazakhstan region about the appointment of the new regional prosecutor S. Pairdinov was published in the newspaper “Ustinka plus”. At the end of this report the editor E. Cherkashin under pseudonym E. Edabi wrote three lines of comments: “One is appointed, the other one is fired. Is it logical? But the reason why now the ex prosecutor D. Baitukbayev was fired was not covered by the press center, however, we would like to know.” On May 16 the prosecutor himself called into the editorial office and lashed the editor for too free-style comments and called out to his office for May 18.

Any instructions and directions about production of a publication or its removal, as well as the character of the publication with force of article 20 of the Constitution of the RK and articles 2 and 17 of Law of the RK “About mass media” are illegal. The indicated norms prohibit censorship and give an editor a right to independently solve an issue about publication of a material.

On May 12 the provider, which provides access to Internet to the newspaper “XXI Century” reported that it has registered an attempt of illegal double connection to the server of the newspaper. This “somebody” hindered the connection of the newspaper with other servers, by creating external traffic, which had to be paid by “XXI Century”. The provider, according to the statements of the editorial office, also reported that it more likely that the password of the newspaper in the Internet was stolen.

The computer database of any enterprise is its property and its unauthorized access is illegal in any case.