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

The press service of the parliament of the RK refused to present text of law to the correspondent of the channel KTK Raushan Kazhibayeva, after adoption of law on the first President of the RK.

The Minister of defense of the RK Sat Tokpanbayev, during press conference regarding his trip to Turkey, confined himself to reading of report in Kazakh and Russian languages, each for 5 minutes; whereupon, having ignored journalists’ questions, he left the hall.

KTK, Olga Hodayeva (Almaty)

The successor of “Almaty Power consolidated” the company “Kaz Trans Gas” appealed to the Premier-Minister of the RK Kasymzhomart Tokayev with letter, where it complained on severe attitude of Akim of Almaty Victor Hrapunov towards the company. Deputies of Akim refused to answer the questions of the journalist of the channel KTK Olga Hodayeva regarding the letter, referring to absence of permission from leadership. Hrapunov himself was on vacation.

“Vechernyaya gazeta”, Tatyana Voyevod (Karaganda)

The request of the journalist of the weekly “Vechernyaya gazeta” Tatyana Voyevod to attend the regular session of Coordination council attached to Akim of Karagandinsky region was turned down. The session of the council was planning to discuss the issues connected with spreading in the region of diseases: HIV, AIDS, and STD.

KTK, Sholpan Zharmuhametova (Almaty)

The administration of the dormitory of the Ministry of defense simply refused to answer the questions of the correspondent of the program “Vecherniye novosti” of the channel KTK Sholpan Zharmuhametova, who came for shooting after complaint of the dormitory inhabitants regarding illegal disconnection of electricity. Unintroduced employee of the administration was covering the lens by hand and rudely pushing the camera.

“Ak-Zhayik” (Atyrau)

The traditional “Criminal chronicle”, composed based on report of the administration of internal affairs, has not been published for more than one and a half month now (beginning from 08.06.2000). All this time the employees of the administration of internal affairs refer to absence of the press service inspector, who, according to their words: “is absent at the moment”. And without him, according to the employees, nobody in the administration of internal affairs has a right to grant access to the reports or at least prepare the summary.

“Ak-Zhayik” (Atyrau)

The head of the regional department of healthcare Halel Sagyn, without any explanations, refused to comment to the correspondent of the newspaper “Ak-Zhayik” Azamat Maitanov on “High mortality in Tengiz” - frequent cases of sudden death among personnel of the enterprise “Tengiz Chevron OIL”, which are now being examined by the office of regional prosecutor and the regional department of healthcare.

Alma Manasova, “Ak-Zhayik” (Atyrau)

The journalist Alma Manasova appealed to the deputy of senior doctor of the regional hospital S. Bahtiyarova with request to give permission on preparation of the article on work of the reanimation department. S. Bahtiyarova agreed with the condition that text would be shown to her prior to its publication. When the journalist refused, S. Bahtiyarova said the following: “In this case I will not let our doctors talk to you and I will order not to let you in”.

“Vzglyad”, television company “ADAN”

During tobacco show of the company “Phillip Morris” the photo correspondent of the newspaper “Vzglyad” V. Maisky and the film crew of the television company “ADAN” were not admitted. Organizers of the show did not explain the reasons behind restrictions in access of “shooting journalists” to the show.

Refusal to present information to a journalist in the aforementioned cases is not lawful. Right of a citizen to receive any, unrestricted in dissemination by law, information is guaranteed by the article 20 of law of the RK “On mass media”, a journalist has a right to research, receive and disseminate information. In this connection he also has a right to visit state agencies and organizations of all types of property and be admitted by its official individuals. The rights, attached to a journalist by law, entail corresponding obligations for officials. Moreover, an official person of state agency, who refuses to present information important to the public to a journalist or a citizen, directly violates his main responsibility, attached by the article 9 (paragraph 3) of law of the RK “On state service: guarantee of observation and protection of rights, freedoms and legal interests of citizens and legal entities.

On April 14 of the year 2000 R. Baiterekov appealed to the district court of Almaty with suit on protection of honor and dignity and recovery of moral damage to the amount 19 million tenge from the editorial office of the newspaper “Express K” and the author of the articles “Afghan war veteran is imposter” and “Agony” Vladimir Severnyi, where the journalist questions “Afghani” past of Baiterekov. The plaintiff demanded refutation of information, published in the newspaper, which, in his opinion, was false.

On April 17 of the year 2000 during open judicial session, conducted without representative of editorial office due to the fact that the editorial office was not notified about this, the judge I. Nizamedinova rendered definition of measures to be taken in order to secure the suit, which reads:

1. to arrest the account of the newspaper “Express K” within the limits of the compensation amount, i.e. 10 million tenge;

2. to ban publications of the newspaper “Express K” in regard to Baiterekov until settlement of the present lawsuit.

The editorial office learnt about this definition of the court only on May 2, when the bank account of the newspaper was arrested.

On May 3 the editorial office appealed to the court of Medeusky district with request on cancellation of definition from April 17, due to the fact that arrest of the bank account of the newspaper to the amount 10 million tenge – is like actual suspension of the newspaper’s activity. According to the newspaper’s opinion the point, which bans publication of materials about Baiterekov is illegal, due to the fact that, first of all, it violates the rights of readers for reception of information, and second of all, the judge broadly interprets the suit statement: the plaintiff requests not to publish two specific articles, while the court’s definition reads: “ban publication of articles in regard to Baiterekov”. On May 3 the judge Nizamedinova cancelled her own definition from April 17 in regard to the arrest of the bank account of the editorial office, but left the ban on publication of articles in regard to Baiterekov in power.

On July 16 the council on civil cases of Almaty city court left the last definition of the court without changes, meaning that the arrest from the bank account was withdrawn, but the ban on publication of materials about Baiterekov remained in power. On July 25 the session of the court of Medeusky district, which was supposed to include first interview of the parties, was conducted. Despite the fact that the session was supposed to be open, the judge Nizamedinova expelled all journalists from the hall without explanation of reasons. The interview did not take place due to the absence of the plaintiff Baiterekov.

According to the opinion of the journalist of “Express K” T. Simahina the case appears to have the following violations of procedure:

1. All of the open sessions were conducted without preliminary notification of the editorial office of the newspaper “Express K” and participation of its representatives.

2. Copies of the rendered decisions were not sent to the editorial office, thus, the editorial office learnt about them untimely.

3. During arrest of the newspaper’s bank account activity of the editorial office was actually suspended, which violates law of the RK “On mass media”.

4. The judge N. Nizamedinova exceeded her authority and on personal initiative used such measure, as ban on publication of materials, which deprived the newspaper of the right to disseminate and readers to receive information.

5. Based on incomprehensible reasons examination of the case in essence is been delayed, and due to the fact that the ban in regard to Baiterekov continues to be valid, the newspaper for 3 months already cannot give readers information on course of the judicial procedure.

6. Copies of documents attached to the suit statement were not presented to the editorial office as defendant. Numerous requests of the newspaper’s lawyer to present the copies were simply ignored by the judge.

“Aigak” (Shymkent)

Some time ago the citizen of Baitybeksky district of Shymkentsky region E. Turysov appealed to Shymkent city court with lawsuit on protection of honor, dignity and compensation of moral and material damage. On the demand of Turysov the author of number of published articles in “Aigak”, authenticity of which is disputed by the plaintiff, offered him public apologies, which were published in the newspaper three times. However, Turysov appealed to the court again with demand to recover compensation of moral and material damage to the amount 10 million tenge from the newspaper “Aigak”.

Although the judge of Shymkent city court S. Kadirsizov did not conduct prejudicial preparation or invite the defendant for conversation, on July 5, he examined the civil case on the suit of E. Turysov. He defined: to arrest movable and immovable property of the newspaper, including building, automobile means of transportation, bank accounts and other property.

There are two more lawsuits on the newspaper “Aigak” in Shymkent City court. The first one belongs to the enterprise “Kazbaspasoz”, which was sharply criticized by the newspaper for unscrupulous competition. The enterprise’s suit constitutes 5 million tenge. The second suit was submitted by descendents of the famous politician Yernazarov, who was repressed in the thirties, in response to the article in the newspaper of the famous writer M. Shahanov. The descendents of the politician filed the suit to the amount 4 million tenge.

The definition of the court to arrest the property in securing of the suit on compensation of moral damage, in our opinion, is illegal. Honor, dignity and business reputation, refer to the category of non-property rights (articles 141-143 of the civil code of the RK). Likewise moral damage is recognized as non-property damage (paragraph 2 of the plenum of the Supreme court of the RK from 22.12.95 # 10). Consequently, suit on protection of honor and dignity and compensation of moral damage is non-property suit. It is not accidental that state tax from this suit is raised not in percentage to the amount of the suit, but in amount of half of minimal calculation index, as from non-property suit. At the same time, the articles 158-165 in its essence and meaning - arrest of property is property measure, consequently may be applied only to property suits. Thus, this measure cannot be applied to suits on protection of honor and dignity.

The definition of the court in regard to ban of next publications on the disputed issue is also illegal. Neither the article 143, nor the article 154 of the Code of civil procedure of the RK, contains similar bans. In any case, similar ban cannot be referred to such measures of securing lawsuit as prohibition to defendant to carry out specific actions, due to the fact that this measure was intended to prevent possible material (non-moral) damages of the plaintiff in the future.

“Oral oniri”, Mayra Shuanshaliyeva (Uralsk)

The article “Will a daughter-in-law, who hurt her father-in-law, be lucky?” of the journalist Mayra Shuanshaliyeva was published on February 9 2000 in Kazakh-speaking newspaper of West Kazakhstani region “Oral oniri”. The article narrated the story of the old man living in the house for disabled people with disability of the first category, hurt by his own daughter, who deprived him of home. The author of the article did not specify either first name or surname of the old man’s daughter (he had two of them).

One of the daughters of the hero of the material – Gulfairaz Zhubangaliyeva, filed the lawsuit against the author and the newspaper on inflicted damage to her honor and dignity, because she recognized herself in the article. The editorial office proposed to Zhubangaliyeva (before she submitted the suit to court) to state her claim in written form with specification of the words in the text, which she considers to be discrediting to her honor and dignity. However, Zhubangaliyeva did not submit the written claim to the editorial office and appealed with lawsuit directly to the court.

The judge of Uralsk city court T. Urazova on April 4, 2000 satisfied the suit of Zhubangaliyeva and bound over the editorial office to publication of refutation and payment of compensation to the plaintiff to the amount 20000 tenge.

The judicial procedure was conducted in Russian language, which according to the opinion of the editorial office did not provide opportunity of full value defense.

The hero of the publication Zhubangaliyev Nygmet confirmed in written form his readiness to attend the judicial procedure and then confirmed his words during the trial. The editorial office presented document confirmations from village akimat (village Shoptikul, Karatobisky district) that Zhumangaliyev Nygmet was deceived and left by his children, and due to this fact local authority had to place him in the old people’s home. Nevertheless, cassational instance left the court’s decision valid.

The court did not observe the requirements of the paragraph 4 the article 143 of the civil code of the RK on obligatory procedure of prejudicial settlement by parties of informational dispute.

Almost two years the journalist Nurkasym Kazybekov and other employees of the newspaper “Turkestan” and other Kazakh-speaking newspapers have not been paid their salary.

The norms of labor legislation of the RK entirely refer to labor agreements of journalists with their employers without any exceptions, and particularly, to requirements of the article 76 of law “On labor in the RK” on payment of salary not rare than once a month.

The order of payment of author’s fee (honorary) is defined by author’s agreement. When such agreement is absent, obligation of mass media to payment of author’s fee arises from the fact of publication of author’s material. In practice the author’s fee is usually paid along with salary.

Russian-speaking mass media

There was no synchronous translation provided during the press conference of the head of mazhilis of the parliament Zharmahan Tuyakbay. Questions and answers, which were in Kazakh language, were not translated into Russian language.

Russian-speaking mass media

Seats of journalists near monitors were not provided with simultaneous translation during closing of parliament session.

Russian-speaking mass media

There was no synchronous translation provided during the press conference of the Minister of Economy Zhaksybek Kulekeyev. Questions and answers, which were in Kazakh language, were not translated into Russian language.

Russian-speaking mass media

There was no synchronous translation provided during the press conference of the general director of “Kazakhstan Railway” Ablai Myrzahmetov. Questions and answers, which were in Kazakh language, were not translated into Russian language.

Russian-speaking mass media

There was no synchronous translation provided during the briefing in mazhilis of the parliament, dedicated to the presentation of the book “Falcon, which flew up to the sun”, questions and answers, which were in Kazakh language, were not translated into Russian language afterwards. The entire briefing was conducted in Kazakh language, the press release was prepared only in Kazakh language.

Electronic mass media of Karagandinsky region

Electronic mass media of Karagandinsky region were subject to complex check. The ministry of culture, information and public consent of the RK, the regional department of the ministry, as well as the ministry of transport and communications of the RK initiated this check. The objective of the check was execution of the requirements of law of the RK “On languages” and presence of corresponding permits and licenses for television and radio broadcasting by electronic mass media of the region.

The article 7 of the Constitution of the RK and the article 5 of law “On languages in the RK” bind state organizations and organs of local self-administration to use Russian language on the equal footing with the state language, Kazakh. If we take into consideration that the article 26 of the aforementioned law lays obligations of personnel, material, technical, financial and training securing of provisions of this law on the government and other state organs; then non-securing of translation from Kazakh into Russian language on official forums may be interpreted as non-execution by the corresponding state organ of its direct obligations or as hidden form of concealment of important to the public information.

It is obvious that the obligations of securing equal functioning of the state and Russian languages also lay on the Ministry of culture, information and public consent, and consist not so much of checks, in accordance with the mentioned norm, as organization of state financing.