On 24 July 1996, the Medeus District People’s Court judge closed the case against the Kazakh edition of the Russian newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda”. **Updates IFEX alert dated 31 May 1996** At a court hearing on 17 July, the paper was ordered to print an apology within a week for publishing a controversial 23 April article, […]
On 24 July 1996, the Medeus District People’s Court judge closed
the case against the Kazakh edition of the Russian newspaper
“Komsomolskaya Pravda”.
**Updates IFEX alert dated 31 May 1996**
At a court hearing on 17 July, the paper was ordered to print an
apology within a week for publishing a controversial 23 April
article, “Conversations with Alexander Solzhenitsyn.” On 18 July,
“Komsomolskaya Pravda” ran an editorial in which it expressed
regret at the distress caused by well-known Russian writer
Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s comments in the article, yet insisted
that it had not incited ethnic enmity. The editors did not share
Solzhenitsyn’s opinion but had published it for discussion
purposes. Although not a retraction, the expression of regret was
sufficient for the Prosecutor General to withdraw his suit against
the newspaper.
Background Information
According to “Izvestia”, on an 27 April visit to Almaty, Boris
Yeltsin reaffirmed Russia’s respect for Kazakhstan’s sovereignty
and disavowed Solzhenitsyn’s notion — expressed in the 23 April
“Komsomolskaya Pravda” article — of reuniting the northern areas
of Kazakhstan with Russia. On 29 April, Kazakhstan President
Nursultan Nazarbayev announced that “media who violate the
Constitution and shake our common home” would be closed down.
Soon afterward, a group of Kazakh writers appealed to the
Prosecutor General, claiming that “Komsomolskaya Pravda” was
advocating violation of Kazakhstan’s territorial integrity and
sowing enmity between Kazakhs and Russians. They urged that the
newspaper be prosecuted for violating the Constitution. On 2 May,
“Komsomolskaya Pravda” correspondent Yevgeniya Datsyuk was invited
to the Prosecutor General’s office and informed of the case opened
against the newspaper. (For further background, see CPJ alert on
IFEX of 31 May 1996.)
