$ 90 thousand required in Kazakhstan from a blogger for moral damage

The lawsuit against the well-known Facebook blogger Asel Bayandarova was brought in an action by the man who knocked her mother down by a car.

 The confrontation between the cosmetologist of the plastic surgery clinic, the founder of the online school for doctors, the famous blogger Asel Bayandarova and former police colonel Serik Aishuakov began a year ago.

On April 11, 2018, Serik Aishuakov knocked down a 75-year-old woman at a pedestrian crossing in Almaty. She was the mother of the Kazakh Facebook’s star Asel Bayandarova.

According to Bayandarova, Aishuakov, instead of taking the injured woman to the hospital, took her home. There, with his friend Alia Korzhasova, he persuaded the victim not to write a statement to the police and promised $100 for silence.

While the persuasion was going on, the woman became worse and the culprit of the accident was forced to take her to the hospital. Doctors determined her concussion and multiple hematomas. These injuries were subsequently qualified as mean harm to health.

Bayandarova, learning about all this, wrote a post on Facebook. Literally immediately, Aishuakov phoned her and, as the blogger says, he began to threaten her.

Many people responded to Bayandarova’s posts and began to write many unpleasant stories about Aishuakov and Korzhasova, including the fact that he “beat his wife”, and “Korzhasova is his mistress”. Much information received from her subscribers, Bayandarova made public.

On August 9, 2018, a trial was held upon the pedestrian collision. Aishuakov was found guilty, deprived of his right to drive a car for a year, and was fined $132.

Meanwhile, according to Tair Nazkhanov, Aishuakov’s lawyer, despite the fact that the process was over, the attacks on his client by the blogger did not stop at all.

“She publishes on social media for everyone to see offensive and libelous information regarding Aishuakov and Karzhasova, periodically using their personal images without their consent,” the lawyer said.

He also emphasizes that if Bayandarova had claims to a court verdict, no one bothered her to challenge it.

“But there was no complaint about the verdict, so it entered into legal force. I understand when trouble happens with your loved ones, it is quite natural that you can be overwhelmed with emotions and have a desire to execute lynching on the offender. But if we strive for a civilized order in our society, then resolving disputes is the task of the court, which should be implemented in the spirit of the law,” Nazkhanov said.

As a result, Aishuakov and Korzhasova filed lawsuits against Bayandarova for defamation and insults. The total amount of moral damage that they want to recover from a blogger is 90.6 thousand US dollars.

According to Nazkhanov, calculation is simple. The moral damage in each post of Bayandarova, in which his client saw defamation or insult, was estimated at about 2.5 thousand US dollars. They counted 35 such posts.

“Bayandarova, in our opinion, has committed the said criminal offenses more than once, i.e. defamation and insults were published by her more than once, and a real persecution was organized on social networks, which continues to this day,” Nazhanov said. “Aishuakov, in a criminal case, is not only a victim, but also a civil claimant. A similar requirement is Aishuakov’s right provided by the law.”

Bayandarova herself is indignant at the behavior of her mother’s offenders:

“In May of this year, the first criminal case was brought against me for defamation, insulting honor and dignity,” she wrote on Facebook. “To date, 5 criminal cases have been brought against me. One from Aishuakov, two from Karzhasova and two from the lawyer Marat Omarov, who is also a former policeman, friend and Aishuakov’s partner in crime. The side of those who knocked down my mother is trying to accuse me not only of defamation and insult, but also of crimes against the Constitution. They say I have appropriated the functions of a court, of criminal revenge and recidivism, and only 35 million tenge (90.6 thousand US dollars), correctional work, a prison for at least a few days, a fine and my remorse and official apologies can compensate for all their sufferings. I continue to cover the events on my page, as this is the only legal and affordable way to at least somehow resist the police lawlessness.”

We also note that earlier Bayandarova in an interview with the media said that the accusations against her are unfounded:

“I am accused of insults, but I believe that I have not crossed the line anywhere. I am convinced that these are value judgments; I did not try to offend anyone. Of course, there will still be a linguistic examination, but, in my opinion, I have done nothing wrong. I used Aesopian language in my texts. And I insist that my posts are art’s works, they are written in a non-trivial language, and therefore attract readers,” she said. “If we want at least our children to live in a slightly safer country, then something needs to be done. I live by this principle. Here is the same story with my mother. I did an entire investigation, went through all the hospitals where she was taken, talked to doctors, found out all the details. The people who brought her did not worry at all that the elderly woman might die, that she had serious injuries, that she was in pain, finally. They were not interested. They only worried about avoiding responsibility. And should I swallow it? I believe that there is nothing to punish me for. But if they punish me somehow, I will take it as a new experience. Then I’ll write a post about it.”