In Kazakhstan, the court acquitted the disgraced journalist
A Kazakh journalist, civil activist, editor of the newspaper “Saryagash info”, Amangeldy Batyrbekov, from Turkestan region, sentenced on September 23, 2019 to 2 years in prison on charges of defamation and insult, was acquitted by the board of appeal.
For four years, Batyrbekov’s name has been appearing in various Kazakh and foreign media, as well as on the websites of international human rights organizations.
In 2015, the International Foundation for the Protection of Speech Freedom “Adil Soz” called Batyrbekov “a prisoner of speech freedom”. And the Foundation “Open Dialog” (European organization dedicated to the protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law in post-Soviet countries, as well as in the EU countries) in 2017 included the journalist in the list of Kazakh political prisoners and people faced with politically motivated persecution by Kazakhstan.
The journalist’s epic began in October 2015. Then, on charges of defamation of the deputy prosecutor of Saryagash region, Nurlan Saparov, published in the newspaper “Adilet”, Batyrbekov was sentenced to one and a half years in prison.
However, three months later, at the end of January 2016, Batyrbekov was released, but he was not free for long time. A year later, Amangeldy Batyrbekov again appeared in court, and again for the same publication. That time it was on charges of defamation of judge, juror, prosecutor, pre-trial investigator, expert, and bailiff. The second court sentenced the journalist to two years in prison.
In September 2019, another lawsuit was held against the journalist. That time, the post “Idiocy in Keles”, published by Batyrbekov on the social network Facebook, served as the basis for initiating the case.
The hero of the post was the head of the education department of Keles district, Bakhtiyar Abdiev, who considered himself insulted and slandered. The trial court upheld the official, sentencing Batyrbekov to 2 years and 3 months in prison. However, neither the convict himself nor his representatives agreed with this verdict and appealed to the board of appeal.
On November 25, at the court of second instance, the author of the examination, who saw Batyrbekov’s post as signs of slander and insult, could not answer a number of significant questions of the judge. Based on this, the court sent the controversial text to a new examination.
It is noteworthy that on December 11, 2019, a new lawsuit was brought against Batyrbekov. This time according to the statement of the chairman of the public association “Zangar-Medet”, Leyla Darkhanbaeva. The plaintiff accused Batyrbekov and his wife Gulzada Baimuratova, as well as four more people of defamation and insult through publications on Facebook.
As Tamara Kaleeva, head of the International Foundation for the Protection of Speech Freedom “Adil Soz”, noted in the interview with ACCA, human rights defenders have a strong belief that they want to put Batyrbekov at any cost.
But, apparently, the great public outcry that caused the journalist’s case, as well as numerous petitions in his defense by human rights organizations, nevertheless gave effect. On January 9, 2020, the appeal board of the Regional court of Turkestan found him not guilty.
Concerning the second lawsuit, there is no news.
