Kazakhstan's Democratic Forces Forum

Trial of Soldat newspaper's editor-in-chief postponed again

Ermurat Bapi - Editor-in-Chief of SolDat newspaper, and Karishal Assanov, a well known Kazakh dissident, a historian faced trial at Almaty's Zhetysu District Court today, February 8. Mr. Bapi and Mr. Assanov are officially accused of printing materials "hurting dignity and honor of the Kazakh President". Last summer, just on the eve of President Nazarbayev's 60th anniversary, Karishal Assanov's article criticizing Nursultan Nazarbayev, current President of Kazakhstan, was printed in SolDat weekly. The trial started about one and a half hour later than it had been scheduled, due to the late coming of one of the experts invited to the trial, a psychologist Elena Bogodukhova. Karishal Assanov said in his statement at the trial that his article had been just based upon facts, and that nothing had been added from himself so far. He also said that the arrest of State Secretary of Russo-Belarus Union Pavel Borodin in New York and recent issuance of a new book on corruption and organized crime among top officials of Kazakhstan, titled as "Kazakhgate", in Moscow, "could prove that his article was not groundless". Meanwhile Ermurat Bapi, SolDat Weekly's Editor-in-Chief, said at the trial, that since the issue of his newspaper with the mentioned article, had never reached its readers, all the accusations put forward against him and his newspaper were "illegal". Officers of Kazakh Customs impounded the whole issue of the newspaper on its way from Russia to Kazakhstan then. SolDat newspaper's that issue was printed in Russia's Rubtsovsk Town, due to refusal of all the publishing houses in Kazakhstan to print the newspaper. Judge Bakhytzhan Shoshyqbayev decided to postpone the trial till next Tuesday. Alikhan Bogenbay-Tegi - a member of Committee on Protection of SolDat Newspaper, told correspondents of RFE/RL that all the accusations against SolDat newspaper, its Editor-in-Chief and the article's author, were politically motivated. He added that a country, where free press is oppressed, could not be called as a democratic country.

RFE/RL, 8 February 2001