(Adil Soz/IFEX) – Court proceedings against two opposition newspapers took place in the Almaty Inter-district Administrative Court on 22 October 2005. The court delivered a ruling obliging Gulzhan Yergaliyeva, editor-in-chief of “Svoboda Slova” newspaper, to pay 50 “monthly calculated indexes” (approx. US$360). Yergaliyeva and her attorney left the courtroom in the middle of the session […]
(Adil Soz/IFEX) – Court proceedings against two opposition newspapers took place in the Almaty Inter-district Administrative Court on 22 October 2005. The court delivered a ruling obliging Gulzhan Yergaliyeva, editor-in-chief of “Svoboda Slova” newspaper, to pay 50 “monthly calculated indexes” (approx. US$360). Yergaliyeva and her attorney left the courtroom in the middle of the session in protest against the court, which according to Yergalieva, had violated the law.
The lawsuit against Yergaliyeva and the paper was filed by Daulet Baideldinov, chairman of the Almaty City Election Committee. He argued that an article published in the paper had insulted the honour and dignity of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is running for another term.
Yergaliyeva was found guilty of “distributing information about candidates and political parties known to be false”, under Article 100 of the Administrative Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. All copies of the offending edition were ordered confiscated and burned.
Yergaliyeva said she had received a formal summons to appear in court only the evening before the hearing was due to start. The editor and her attorney were prevented from studying the case documents and from speaking in court. According to a press release issued by the paper, the court hearings were marked by violations of legal procedure as well as of Yergaliyeva’s constitutional rights.
The day before the court ruling, Almaty police seized 50,000 copies of the paper on Baideldinov’s orders.
Also on 22 October, an Almaty court fined another opposition newspaper, “Juma Times”, 40 “monthly calculated indexes” (approx. US$290) for “insulting the honour and dignity of the President” under the same article, in another lawsuit brought by Baideldinov. The ruling was made following a 30-minute trial at which no attorney or witnesses were present. The lawsuit was based on a 13 October “Juma Times” article entitled, “Kazakhgate: Chronicles of a single crime”, reprinted in the Russian newspaper “Nezavisimaya gazeta”.
