On 7 August 2013, an Almaty court suspended Pravdivaya Gazeta newspaper for three months because of an alleged inconsistency it its data output.
On 7 August 2013, the judge of the Specialized Inter-district Administrative Court of Almaty suspended Pravdivaya Gazeta newspaper for three months.
The lawsuit was initiated by the Department of Internal Policy of Almaty, which accused the newspaper of committing an administrative offence under article 350 p.2 &nash; the “Violation of the Order of Pronouncement of Data Output.” The edition had printed 7000 issues instead of 8000, which is what it had declared in its data output.
During the trial, Korlan Kurmanbekova – a representative of the Department of Internal Policy of Akimat (the District Administration) of Almaty – explained that Kanat Bayzhanov, who is a resident of Almaty, did not find any issues of Pravdivaya Gazeta in city newsstands. He concluded that there existed a smaller number of printed newspapers than what had been declared.
The lawsuit lasted less than ten minutes and without the presence of media representatives. The editor-in-chief of Pravdivaya Gazeta, Aliya Ismagulova, was only informed of the lawsuit 15 minutes prior to it’s commence.
E. Malygina, the representative for Adil Soz, was only able to attend the trial after pleading with the chairman of the court, Azamat Abdraimov.
Before the trial began, Kurmanbekova said that only the editor-in-chief of Pravdivaya Gazeta was allowed in the courtroom, and that others should wait in corridor.
Malygina later spoke with Abdraimov. As it turns out, there was no record of a lawsuit against Pravdivaya Gazeta in the 7 August court files. He explained that the lawsuit was prepared rapidly, and thus there had not been enough time to register it in the computer.
