Kazakhstan's Democratic Forces Forum

Trial of SolDat newspaper is over

Trial against Ermurat Bapi - Editor-in-Chief of SolDat newspaper, and Karishal Asanov - a Kazakh dissident, was scheduled to resume today, April 3, at 11:00 (local time). But Judge of Almaty's Zhetysu District Court - Bakhytzhan Shoshyqbayev, announced about his decision to postpone the trial for later today.

Karishal Asanov's article criticizing President Nursultan Nazarbayev was printed in SolDat newspaper last summer, right on the eve of President Nazarbayev's 60th anniversary. That article has never reached the newspaper's readers. Kazakh Customs officers on the Russo-Kazakh border confiscated the newspaper's that issue and destroyed it. The newspaper was printed in Russia's Rubtsovsk town then, due to refusal of all the publishing houses in Kazakhstan to print the paper. At the trial session held yesterday, April 2, both Ermurat Bapi and Karishal Asanov refused to accept that they were guilty.

At the trial session held at 3:00 PM (Almaty time) today, at Zhetysu District Court, Judge Bakhytzhan Shoshyqbayev found Karishal Asanov as "NOT GUILTY". According to Judge Shoshyqbayev, Karishal Asanov has written his article critisizing Kazakh President, not for SolDat newspaper, but for some web-pages in Internet, while Editor-in-Chief of SolDat newspaper Ermurat Bapi has taken that article of Mr. Asanov from Internet for printing. Mr. Bapi was found "GUILTY" for, as it was shown in the verdict, "printing the article hurting Kazakh President's dignity and honor". He was sentenced to one year of prison, but due to Presidential Decree on Amnesty, he was released from the Court Room. But Ermurat Bapi told correspondents of RFE/RL that he did not agree with the verdict adding that he was going to appeal Almaty City Court and then Supreme Court of the country.

RFE/RL, 3 April 2001