On September 7, the Saryagash District Court will begin considering another lawsuit against the well-known opposition journalist Amangeldy Batyrbekov on libel charges and damage to the honor and dignity of business reputation.
An application to the court against the journalist was filed by the longtime heroine of his publications, who had already met with him more than once in court – the chairman of the Zangar-Medet public association Leyla Darkhanbayeva.
Ms. Darkhanbayeva was dissatisfied with an article in the S-Inform newspaper (edited by Amangeldy Batyrbekov) published in January 2021, which Darkhanbayeva considered offensive.
As ACCA has already reported, Amangeldy Batyrbekov has been subjected to lawsuits and imprisonment more than once. In 2015, the Adil Soz International Foundation for the Defense of Freedom of Speech called Batyrbekov a “prisoner of freedom of speech.” And the Open Dialog Foundation (a European organization dedicated to protecting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the post-Soviet countries, as well as in the EU countries) 2017 included the journalist in the list of Kazakhstani political prisoners and persons who faced politically motivated persecution by Kazakhstan.
Batyrbekov first met Leyla Darkhanbayeva in court in December 2019. The plaintiff accused Batyrbekov and his wife Gulzada Baimuratova, as well as four other people, of defamation and insult through Facebook posts. As Tamara Kaleyeva, head of the Adil Soz International Freedom of Speech Foundation, noted in an interview with ACCA, human rights activists are firmly convinced that they want to imprison Batyrbekov at any cost.
It should also be noted that in addition to the Batyrbekov family, Gulshan Artykbaeva, who reposted Batyrbekov’s post on Facebook, was among the defendants in the suit of Darkhanbayeva.
However, on January 9, 2020, the appeal board of the Turkestan Regional Court found him not guilty.
In 2021, Batyrbekov himself initiated a lawsuit against Leyla Darkhanbaeva and Gulshan Artykbaeva, accusing them of insulting them on social networks. However, judges of the Turkestan Regional Court Aidos Sultanov, Talgat Ongarbaev, and Burkit Baidullaev did not find anything offensive in the comments of the defendants and acquitted them. Batyrbekov, surprised at such generosity, wrote two posts about this on social networks, after reading which the judges themselves felt insulted. As a result, a criminal case was opened against Batyrbekov under the article “Slander against a judge, juror, prosecutor, person conducting the pre-trial investigation, expert, bailiff” on the complaint of the above-mentioned judges. The case was subsequently dropped.
And now a lawsuit is filed against Batyrbekov by Leyla Darkhanbayeva. At the same time, Gulshan Artykbaeva is also among the plaintiffs. In addition to Batyrbekov, among the defendants is the author of that same publication, a correspondent from the city of Zhetysai Lazat Tulemisova. Now the controversial publication is being evaluated at the Forensic Science Center in Shymkent: experts must determine whether it contains insults and slander against the plaintiffs or other information that harms the business reputation. The trial date for the case has been set for September 7.
It should be noted here that at the moment Amangeldy Batyrbekov is participating in another trial, which is being held behind closed doors. Not as the accused, but as the victim. According to the international foundation for the protection of freedom of speech “Adil soz”, at the end of July, a trial on the case of attempted murder of Batyrbekov began in the specialized inter-district court for criminal cases of the Turkestan region.
Recall, as ACCA reported, the attempt was made on the night of January 3-4: unknown people fired at the journalist’s house. As a result of the shooting, the son of Amangeldy Dinmukhamed Batyrbekov was wounded. He was hospitalized in serious condition in the Saryagash district hospital. The Police Department of the Turkestan region than reported that the version that the assassination attempt was related to Batyrbekov’s professional activities was fully confirmed. Investigators established that Batyrbekov’s murder was ordered by a local official – the head of the education department of the Saryagash district of the Turkestan region Bauyrzhan Mayrikhov. He instructed his subordinate, the psychologist Sabyrkhodzhe Moldakhodzhaev, to find the killer. The official estimated the journalist’s life at $11.5 thousand. Moldakhodzhaev, through an intermediary, found two perpetrators, who fired at the journalist’s house. After completing the order, and trying to cover their tracks, they left for Shymkent. On January 21, the police of the Turkestan region announced the arrest of all suspects in the assassination attempt on Batyrbekov. In addition to the above-mentioned Mayrikhov and Moldakhodzhaev, there are three more people in the dock – Abdukhamid Kuandykov, Meirzhan Dosbolov, and Nurgali Kydyraliev (they are charged with the execution of the attempt).
