Kazakhstan: State TV channel showed the torture victim by misrepresenting the facts
Deputy of the Parliament of Kazakhstan Yerlan Smailov criticized the actions of Daniyar Seisenbaev, a journalist from Zhetysu TV channel, who aired a story in which a victim of police torture admits that he regrets his actions.
We are talking about Azamat Batyrbayev, who was detained after the January riots. According to some reports, Batyrbayev participated in the demolition of the monument to Nazarbayev in Taldykorgan, but the relatives of the detainee deny this information.
During the rallies across Kazakhstan on January 5-6, the monument to the first President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was demolished in Taldykorgan. However, the protesters were not limited to the demolition. They first tied the demolished and halved statue to a car and dragged it several circles around the square, and then completely hung the upper half of the bronze Nazarbayev by the neck over the entrance to the city hall.
Meanwhile, just a few days after the arrest, photos of Batyrbayev with traces of beatings began to circulate on social networks. The captions for the picture also reported that Batyrbayev was tortured with a red-hot iron. A criminal case has been initiated on this fact, an investigation is underway.
On February 5, Batyrbayev, who is at a hospital in Taldykorgan, was visited by deputies – members of the parliamentary Committee on Legislation and Judicial-Legal Reform Berik Bekzhanov and Yerlan Smailov.
“Today in Taldykorgan, together with deputy Berik Bekzhanov, a member of the Committee on Legislation and Judicial-Legal Reform, we met with Azamat Batyrbayev, who is under investigation. Probably, all social networks circled videos with his torture. He is at the hospital, his condition is satisfactory, he speaks calmly. As he said, he receives medical care and treatment. There is access to defense and a lawyer. There are no complaints about the conditions. In the pre-trial detention center and the hospital, he is not beaten. We asked him about this more than once. When asked where and when he was beaten and tortured, he said that it was on January 10 at the police department. As is known, the Anti-Corruption Service initiated a criminal case on this fact and investigative measures are being carried out. Of course, the perpetrators must be identified and punished to the fullest extent of the law. Also, the investigation and the court must establish the degree of his guilt,” Smailov wrote on his Facebook page after visiting the detainee.
As it turned out, in addition to the deputies, the journalist of Zhetysu TV channel Daniyar Seisenbaev was also present at that meeting. It should be clarified that the regional TV channel “Zhetysu” is actually a state-owned one.
In the evening of the same day, the news of the TV channel showed a story about the visit to Batyrbayev. The video was made in such a way that as if the deputies Smailov and Bekzhanov asked Batyrbayev whether he repented of his deed, to which he answered in the affirmative.
On February 6, the lawyer Bauyrzhan Azanov, who represents Batyrbayev, wrote on Facebook that such interviews were illegal.
“By violating the rights of Azamat Batyrbayev, asking him questions about the case on camera without his lawyer, they also violated my rights as a lawyer. I perceive this as pressure on my client Azamat Batyrbayev,” Azanov said.
However, the story didn’t end there and was overgrown with new scandalous details. As Deputy Smailov wrote on Facebook, the questions about repentance to Batyrbayev were asked not by the deputies, but directly by the journalist of Zhetysu TV channel Daniyar Seisenbaev.
“When we came to Azamat, there were already people there. Since there were police officers on guard, I thought that these people were also from the police or from the city hall. I didn’t like their questions to Azamat; and I said about it. They replied that this is their actions for work. They were also filming. I thought that the video was being filmed to record the state of Azamat. I told them not to mix our visit with their questions. In the end, they still mixed it up. They edited it and gave it on the news as if their questions came from the deputies. I found out who asked the questions and filmed the video. It was Daniyar Seisenbaev, journalist, deputy director of Zhetysu TV channel. Now there are a lot of questions from journalists and on Facebook also. I am outraged that the journalist did this. I have worked and work a lot with colleagues from the media, I am used to professionalism and honesty. This has never happened in my practice. Why Daniyar Seisenbaev did this is a separate question. I demand explanations from the journalist and the TV channel. Establishing guilt, conducting an investigation is not our function. We reacted to the photos and information about torture, we came to check and prevent this,” Smailov said.
At the same time, he emphasized that their visit had only one purpose – to check the condition of Azamat Batyrbayev, that he is protected and not subjected to violence, has access to a lawyer and legal protection, that he is provided with medical services.
