“The police of Kazakhstan don’t know such terms as humor and satire. They don’t even know the Constitution of the country, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of creativity.” This statement was made by the International Foundation of Kazakhstan for the protection of freedom of speech “Adil Soz” in response to the interrogation of the author of the satirical public Qaznews24 Temirlan Ensebek by the police.
“The publications of Temirlan Ensebek were posted on the Internet with notes, “Fake news with humor, satirical context. Any coincidence with people and events is an absolute coincidence.” But the police, apparently, don’t know such concepts as humor and satire,” the Foundation “Adil Soz” wrote in its statement.
Instagram public Qaznews24 has 5553 subscribers. On May 15, police came to Temirlan Ensebek’s house and made a search. They confiscated two telephones and a laptop from the author of the public, and Ensebek himself was taken to the police station for interrogation. He received the status of a “witness with the right to defense” (recall, this status can be changed to the status of a “suspect” at any time) as part of a pre-trial investigation under article 274 of the Criminal Code “On dissemination of knowingly false information”.
On the same day, a message appeared on the website of the media center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, which explained why the police took the satirical blogger in hand.
“During the monitoring of social networks, the internal affairs bodies revealed the account of Qaznews24 on Instagram, where fake messages were published on a regular basis. The information, which was posted on this account, caused an ambiguous reaction from the public, as it misinformed the population and misled citizens. A great response, for example, was caused by publications with the following headlines: “Once a year, residents of Kazakhstan will be restricted from traveling abroad”, “The Minister of Culture and Sports Aktoty Raimkulova proposed to legalize mephedrone…”, “Instead of the deputies, the voters, who voted for them, would bear criminal responsibility”, “Articles for rape and sexual harassment will be transferred from the Criminal Code to the Administrative one”, “Now, residents of Kazakhstan need to get an exit visa from the migration police to go abroad” and others. More than 5.5 thousand subscribers were deliberately receiving inadequate information. Despite the absurdity of these messages, users actively reposted, sent fake news to each other through messengers, made screenshots and duplicated them on other information resources. Upon publication of false information, a pre-trial investigation is carried out under part 2 of article 274 of the Criminal Code “Dissemination of knowingly false information that creates the danger of causing significant harm to the rights and legitimate interests of citizens or the legally protected interests of society or the state using the media and telecommunication networks”. The internal affairs bodies again remind citizens of the inadmissibility of disseminating false information, the need to trust only the official information of state bodies, as well as criminal liability for the dissemination of false messages,” the media center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.
Meanwhile, to date, all publications on Qaznews24 public have been deleted. As the wife of Temirlan Ensebek told the Kazakh media, the account was cleared before the searches, as Ensebek received threats because of it. In addition, she suggested that the searches and interrogations were the result of the publication of satirical news about the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
It should be clarified that one of these “news” reported that the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kazakhstan proposed “to assign Nursultan Nazarbayev the status of a god and to fix it in the Constitution”. However, in the text of the news itself, it was emphasized that this was a joke.
The well-known Kazakh blogger and poet Samat Dzhamayev reacted to the news of the interrogation of Ensebek with a sharp critical post.
“I would like to sneer at the authorities about the detention and investigation of Temirlan Ensebek. We are poor satirists and network humorists. What’s the point in our trying to go against the union of strength and stupidity?
Only questions, and the most harmless ones! Otherwise, God forbid, the leader of the nation… will be upset again. Why do fictional news in a public with 5,000 subscribers harm the interests of citizens, and fictional promises of numerous Development Concepts, Roadmaps, Programs 2010, 2020, 2030, 2050… 3070 don’t harm the interests of 19 million residents of the country? Why did the joke about conferring the status of God to the first President arouse the discontent of the security officials, but not conferring the status of the leader of the nation? Why is the inexorable speed of the work of the Kazakh Themis demonstrated on satirists, activists and bloggers, and not on murderers, pedophiles, robbers and corrupt officials?” Dzhamayev wrote on social networks.
Meanwhile, the Foundation “Adil Soz” reminds that article 274 of the Criminal Code has nothing to do with satire and humor.
“One gets the impression that the police are poorly aware of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which guarantees freedom of speech and creativity (Article 20). Freedom of creativity is an integral part of freedom of speech. It’s the natural right of the author to choose the themes of his/her works, artistic methods, techniques and principles. International human rights covenants identify freedom of expression as one of the main aspects of cultural rights. This means the freedom to seek, receive and disseminate any information and ideas in artistic form, the right to enjoy the art and creativity of others, as well as the obligation of states to respect the freedom which is necessary for creative activity,” Adil Soz summarized.
Meanwhile, the editors of the Kazakh fact-checking resource Factcheck.kz appealed on behalf of journalists and media of Kazakhstan to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and personally to the Minister of Internal Affairs Erlan Turgumbaev, demanding a thorough open examination of the case and taking into account all evidence proving that there was no malicious intent in the actions of Temirlan Ensebek, as well as the composition of article 274 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the subsequent removal of all charges against the author of the satirical public.
“Satire is not a crime. All over the world, satire and criticism, including against the top officials of the state, is considered the norm and, conversely, a sign of the development of society and the observance of the right to freedom of expression. The author of the satirical account Qaznews24 has posted all the proper notices, and this has all the necessary evidence that we are ready to provide. Ensebek cannot be held responsible for the anonymous leading regional publics who spread Ensebek’s satire under the guise of real news (there is also evidence for that). Accusation of Temirlan Ensebek under article 274 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan is completely unacceptable. It will only emphasize the impunity of the network disinformers, who have launched a vigorous activity, and will also make it possible to apply article 274 for repressive purposes, which is unacceptable in a modern democratic state,” was stated the text of the open appeal.
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