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

The judicial examination of law suit of citizens Tatiev and Kreymer about protection of honor and dignity and compensation of moral damage in amount of 1000000 tenge from the editorial office of the newspaper “Karagandinsky vestnik” took place in Leninsky judicial precinct of Sovetsky district court in Karaganda city.

The judge S. Ukibasova prohibited to make an audio recording of the process to the head editor of the newspaper Oleg Serov and the other present journalists.

According to article 19 of code of civil procedure of the RK individuals participating in the case and present citizens have a right to note or make an audio recording of the judicial process from their seats in the court room during civil open judicial process. The court may limit the right only in terms of: film or photo shooting, video recording, direct TV or radio transmission.

During the conference on discussion of special tax regime for small business enterprises the Minister of state income Zeinulla Kakimzhanov insisted on stopping the filming by the shooting group of KTK and leaving the room. After work, during private conversation with the journalist of KTK Larisa Chernenko Z. Kakimzhanov motivated his actions by saying that, first of all, the working group has not achieved the expected results, which would need to be publicized, and second of all, the government is not informed about this conference and might be insulted by Kakimzhanov, if they would hear about it from mass media.

All first officials of the Committee of Tax Police with the head of the committee colonel of tax police S. M. Kuzmenkko and the leaders of tax police administrations in the regions participated in the meeting the Board of the Committee of Tax Police (CTP) of the Ministry of state income of the RK on the results of operational service activity of tax police subdivision for the 1 quarter of the year 2000 and the seminar meeting “About improvement of qualification of operational service activity of the tax police bodies”, which took place in Karaganda.

However, both meeting of the Board of the CTP and the seminar meeting were conducted behind the closed doors, despite of the fact that representatives of all regional mass media have received the invitations.

According to the words of the correspondent of the newspaper “Novyi vestnik” Vladimir Sergeyev (the author of the article “ The tax police has something to hide”), “…during the first day the tax police invited the journalists, but for the Board they have only let in the photocorrespondents and TV cameramen only for 5 minutes. On the next day they let in all of the journalists into the assembly hall. We listened to the speech of the Akim of the region from series “How wonderful that we have gathered here today”. However, as soon as the head of the tax police stepped on the stage, the journalists were asked to leave the hall. May be, so that the curious journalists would not overhear a state secret”.

In one week the press service of State Administration of the Committee of Tax Police in Karaganda region disseminated an official information, which reported about substantial achievements and outcomes in the work of the committee of tax police.

“Vechernyaya gazeta”

The journalist of “Vechernyaya gazeta” Tatyana Voyevod request to provide information about the demands of participants of sanctioned picket, which was organized by the entrance to the Agency of reorganization and enterprise liquidation in Karaganda region, was turned down. The chief of the Agency of reorganization and enterprise liquidation in Karaganda region Mr. Ahimbekov decided that “it is unnecessary to provide the information to the newspaper”.

The head of the Agency of migration and demography Altynshash Zhaganova at the request of the city administration agreed to give an interview to journalists during the celebration of Motherland day, so called Day of oralman, in Talgarsky district. But the very first question about the quantity of emigrants in the republic, who received citizenship and was provided with housing, provoked her indignation. In Zhaganova’s opinion, she does not have to talk on republican topics during local district event. Later on, having seen the shooting group of KTK including the journalist Larisa Chernenko and the cameraman Vitaliy Dermel, the head of the Agency replied that she refuses to answer the questions of such despicable channel as KTK. Chernenko reminded the official that this kind of position towards mass media is the violation of law about mass media. But Zhaganova continued to ignore her during the entire improvised press conference.

The chief of mechanization department of Kustanaisky regional agriculture department S. Galiyev turned down the journalist Igor Nidereru’s request to provide the information regarding the state of technical base of agricultural technical equipment, which was supposed to be bought up on the target loan of AO “Kendala”.

“Prikaspiyskaya kommuna”

The correspondent of Atyrau regional newspaper “Prikaspiyskaya kommuna” Svetlana Novak was engaged in the complaint of Z. Doskalieva, citizen of Atyrau city, according to her words, she was illegally evicted from her flat by the employee of local administrative police. In the process of journalist investigation a necessity to examine the privatization documents for the flat of Z. Doskalieva, which were in the archives of the housing department of the city administration, appeared. But its employees refused to provide the file with documents to the journalists, justifying it the following way: “This case should be investigated by the law enforcement organs, and you should do your own business”.

The correspondent of the newspaper “Ak zhayik” Oksana Martynyuk made a written request to the department of relations with the government and the public of SP “Tengizshevroil” on facts of accidents, which took place on April 22 and 29 of the year 2000. In the received reply there were only explanations on accident of April 22, but the incident of April 29 remained without comments.

The chief editor of informational agency “Eurasia sport” of TV channel NTK Marat Isabayev attempted to ask a question on the phone from the vice-president of the team “Access golden gray” (Petropavlovsk) E. Veretnov regarding one of the players, who was invited into the team on contract basis. The response was uncensored bad language and threats to his address. Verenov’s reply was recorded on Dictaphone. Isabayev is going to file a lawsuit of honor and dignity protection.

The deputy chief of Kustanaisky regional administration of emergency cases Baimuhametov refused to provide the information regarding the number of calls with false information regarding planted bomb to the correspondent of TRK “Alau” Igor Niderer.

Refusal to provide information which is important to the public violates the rights of citizens, journalists and mass media for freedom of receiving and disseminating, which are guaranteed by article 20 of the Constitution of the RK, articles 2 and 20 of Law of RK “About mass media”.

The illegal refusal to provide information may be appealed in the court with order of articles 278-282 Code of Civil Procedure.

The consortium OKIOK, which is carrying out an exploratory drilling on the sea structure of West Kashagan, prohibits the TV journalists to shoot the drilling platform “Sunkar” from the helicopter. The OKIOK employees insist that the cameraman of Atyrau bureau of “Habar” Serik Bahmetov puts away his camcorder into the baggage compartment before the helicopter leaves Atyrau for sea (there were several flights like this for the last two months). And they continue “to control the situation” during the flight to “Sunkar”.

On May 18 the shooting group of TV Company “Otyrar” was shooting a plot regarding the increase of prices on fuel in Shymkent City. On the petrol station, which was owned by the firm “Gulder”, the owner of the firm Mr. Lifshits and his bodyguard came up to the cameraman and the journalist and demanded to stop the shooting on the territory of their private ownership, they threatened to take away the camcorders otherwise.

The employees of the industrial complex withheld the TV operator of MTRK of Petropavlovsk Tulegen Imanov on the territory of the industrial complex “Orbita”, which belongs to the branch “Reserv”, during the shooting of the story about the fire on fuel oil marsh.

The shooting group of KTK including the journalist Z. Zhumaliyeva and the cameraman V. Miroshnichenko was withheld near the entrance check-point of the administrative building of the industrial complex “Orbita” during the shooting of the story on ecological emergency case on the industrial complex. The security did not allow to shoot the building, stating that the office of the industrial complex is a secret object and kept the group in the adjoining territory to the industrial complex for more than one hour until the arrival of the director of DGP “Orbita”.

Both removal of a journalist from the private territory and selective limitation of the shooting object are illegal.

According to article 48 of the Land Code of the RK in order to limit the number of visit of the private territory it has to be enclosed and must have corresponding tables. Visit of territory, which is designated, for usage of an unlimited number of people (such as clients of the petrol station) can not be limited for somebody selectively. Likewise, nobody has a right to prohibit the journalist the object of shooting or selectively limit it, unless this object is guarded specially by law (state secrets, official, commercial and private secrets). Moreover, this sort of limitation is impermissible in regard to information, which is important to the public, such as the information about ecological catastrophe.

“I am the customer and the owner”

The editorial office of the newspaper “I am the customer and the owner” publicized an appeal to the Akim of Almaty City in the form of an open letter. The letter talks about general liquidation of temporary kiosks in Almaty City, including kiosks and newsstands, which disseminate newspapers and magazines. These are mainly small-scale private publications, which have insufficient funding for maintenance of their own shops. The newspaper “ I am the customer and the owner”, which has to do with this sort of publications, thinks that these poorly thought-out actions of district officials put 85 % of Kazakhstani publications on the verge of bankruptcy.

Any actions of the authorities in terms of demolition, liquidation, limitation of trade and etc. of legal shops are illegal in its essence. If the state administration organ created fixed civil law relations, than to change these relations in one-way order with presence of dispute would only be possible through court with obligatory compensation of damages made.

Such actions are even more illegal in terms of dissemination of periodical printing production, which is information of mass. The freedom of its dissemination is guaranteed by article 20 of the Constitution of the RK, and according to article 14 of Law of the RK “About mass media”, may be limited only by the court.

The leadership of the newspaper learnt that large lawsuit about protection of honor and dignity of the head of the Union of veterans of Afghanistan Rustem Baiterekov was filed only in the bank, where the account of the editorial office of the newspaper “Express-K” was arrested. The judge of Medeusky district court of Almaty City, did not inform the editorial office about the existence of such lawsuit and the plaintiff’s claims.

The court’s determination of arresting the property to secure the lawsuit about compensation of moral damage, in our opinion, is not based on law.

Honor, dignity and business reputation has to do with the category of non-property rights (articles 141-143 of civil code of the RK). Likewise, moral damage is acknowledged as non-property damage (point 12 of the decree of Plenum of the Supreme Court of the RK from 22.12.1995 #10). Consequently, both lawsuits about protection of honor and dignity and compensation of moral damage are non-property lawsuits. It is not accidental that the State duty is collected not in percentage to the amount of the lawsuit, but half of the monthly calculation indicator, as non-profit lawsuit. Meanwhile, in its essence and meaning article 158-165 of code of civil procedure of the RK arrest of property is property measure, consequently, may be used only in property lawsuits. Thus, this measure cannot be applied to lawsuits about protection of honor and dignity.

On May 2 the request of the correspondent of the newspaper “Kazakhstanskaya pravda” Aigul Aspandiyarova to arrange an interview with the minister N. Radostovets in the press service of the Ministry of social protection was turned down. The cause of refusal was that couple of days ago N. Radostovets gave a press conference in the National Press Club and answered all questions of the journalists.

The freedom of speech and creation is guaranteed not only to the journalist, but also to any citizen. If the minister does not want to give an interview, nobody can force him to do so. The other matter is that it cannot somehow affect his reputation.