Kazakhstan: another case against disgraced journalist
The police of the Turkestan region once again opened a criminal case against the well-known journalist, civil activist, editor of the Saryagash info newspaper Amangeldy Batyrbekov.
ASSA has already written about Amangeldy Batyrbekov several times. Recall that in 2015, the Adil Soz International Foundation for the Protection of Freedom of Expression called Batyrbekov a “prisoner of freedom of speech”. And the Open Dialogue Foundation (a 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 Kazakhstani political prisoners and persons who faced politically motivated persecution by Kazakhstan.
The journalist’s legal saga began in October 2015. That time, on charges of libel against the deputy prosecutor of the Saryagash region, Nurlan Saparov, published in the Adilet newspaper, 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 the stay at large was short. Literally, a year later, Amangeldy Batyrbekov was again brought to trial, and again for the same publication. But now on charges of libel against a judge, juror, prosecutor, person conducting a pre-trial investigation, an expert, an officer of the court, and a bailiff. The second court sentenced the journalist to two years of restriction of freedom.
In September 2019, another trial was held against the journalist. This time, the basis for initiating the case was the post “Idiocy in Keles” published by Batyrbekov on Facebook.
The hero of the post, the head of the education department of the Keles district, Bakhtiyar Abdiev, considered himself insulted and slandered. The court of the first instance supported the official, sentencing Batyrbekov to 2.3 years in prison. However, neither the convicted person nor his representatives agreed with this verdict and appealed to the Appeals Board.
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 other people, of libel and insult through posts on Facebook.
As Tamara Kaleyeva, head of the Adil Soz International Foundation for the Protection of Freedom of Expression, noted in an interview with ACCA then, human rights activists have a firm conviction that somebody wants to jail Batyrbekov at any cost.
However, a great public outcry, which aroused the journalist’s case, as well as numerous petitions in his defense from human rights organizations, still had an effect, since, on January 9, 2020, the appeal board of the Turkestan Regional Court found him innocent.
And so a new criminal case was opened against Batyrbekov and again on charges of libel. This time the case was instituted under the article “Libel against a judge, juror, prosecutor, person conducting the pre-trial investigation, expert, bailiff” on the complaint of three judges of the Turkestan Regional Court – Aidos Sultanov, Talgat Ongarbaev, and Burkit Baydullaev. At the moment, the journalist has been assigned the status of a witness with the right to defense. We would like to note that this status can be changed at any time to the status of the accused.
The fact is that the journalist himself filed a lawsuit against social media users Gulshan Artykbaeva and Leyla Darkhanbaeva, who, according to Batyrbekov, insulted him on social networks. The lawsuit of the disgraced journalist was considered by the aforementioned judges. And by their decision, they acquitted the defendants.
Batyrbekov, naturally, did not agree with this decision and wrote two posts on Facebook on July 13 and August 6, in which he expressed his surprise at what was happening. It was these posts that the judge considered defamatory.
