Affiliated media: informburo.kz, Journalist

Incident date: January 23, 2023

Attack type:

• Illegal impediments to journalistic activity, denial of access to information

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Informburo.kz

Location: Kazakhstan, Astana, Astana

Additional information:

On January 23, the judge of an Astana district court Nazgul Bapakova demanded that TV cameramen be removed from the courtroom and forbade journalists to take photos and videos of the session on their phones before the start of the next hearing in the criminal case of businessman Boranbayev. «Some journalists posted videos with fragments of the trial on their personal accounts in social networks. By means of montage, subtitles with value judgements were attached to the video, which were removed from the account after a remark by the presiding judge. (...) With their subjective beliefs, the journalists are trying to form a negative public opinion about the trial in advance, which is inadmissible under the law», — said Bapakova. Journalists are allowed to attend the sessions, take manual notes, and publish materials from the courtroom, but without witnesses’ testimony and disclosure of their personal data.