Members of the mandate service of Tbilisi court of appeals insulted TV reporters who on March 19 covered the rioting in the courtroom during the trial of 14-year-old Giorgy Zerekidze.
“Journalists and everyone else present were beaten to leave the courtroom,” a reporter of the channel said on Rustavi-2 channel news show.
He said that after the sentence was announced the mother of the defendant almost fainted and a cameraman wanted to film the incident provoking “an acute reaction” from the mandate service.
“They accounted their actions to the fact that filming in the courtroom is prohibited but they had not warned the media about the ban in advance,” the reporter said.
During the incident the camera of Rustavi-2 was broken.
In his turn secretary of the Supreme Council of Justice Valery Tsertsvadze said that during the March 19 incident when journalists and cameramen were exposed to physical violence, the mandate service had not abused its powers.
Kyrgyzstan
A staff member of the Kyrgyz State Broadcasting Company Kairat Birimkulov was beaten near Bishkek in the evening of March 16. He was attacked near his home in the village of Strelnikova, Chuya region. The attackers armed with knuckles and iron rods beat the journalist, took away his digital video camera, dictaphone and briefcase with documents. Birimkulov was taken to Chuya regional hospital in critical condition.
The journalist believes the attack may have been provoked by his reports on the situation on the railways and claims that he had been pressured and regularly threatened on the phone.
Birimkulov works for the section of social and economic programs and hosts the Society and Law show together with representatives of Kyrgyz TransKontrol Company and the Association of Carriers and Forwarders.
At a January 26 press conference in Bishkek he accused Nariman Tyuleyev, CEO Kyrgyz Railways, of corruption, illegal business operations and implementation of projects disadvantageous for Kyrgyzstan.
The press service of Kyrgyz Railways on March 19 denied any involvement in the attack on the journalist and said it regards the attack as a provocation meant to prevent Birimkulov from appearing in court. Representatives of the press service told AKI-Press news agency that after the press conference at which the journalist accused Tyuleyev of corruption the railways filed a libel suit against him. “The first court hearing was supposed to take place today [on March 19] and we were not interested in kicking a racket. The insinuations are a trick to mislead the investigation,” the press service said.
Following the incident member of parliament Isa Omurkulov addressed representatives of the president and government in parliament to take measures in relation to the attack on the journalist.
Ukraine
On March 23 when after a session of the political council in Verkhovna Rada journalists were interviewing Economics Minister Anatoly Kinakh, his bodyguard tried to snatch away the camera of the photographer of Kommersant-Ukraine daily.
The journalists asked the minister to stop his bodyguard but the latter grew even more violent and using foul language threatened to beat up the photographer downstairs.
II. Detentions and Arrests of Journalists
Belarus
Igor Bantsyr, a staff member of Magazyn Polski Na Uchodzstwie, was detained on March 18 and on March 19 in Grodno judge of Leninsky district court Natalia Kozel sentenced him to 10 days of administrative arrest for using foul language in a public place.
Two police officers acted as witnesses. They claimed that Bantsyr had walked alone in Lenin square, using foul language and ignoring reprimands. The judge found their accounts justified.
The reporter’s lawyer Alexander Birilov said the trial was one of many of the kind.
“The pattern is primitive and well tested. Police officers act as witnesses and say what they are told. Besides, one and the same judge Natalia Kozel handles almost all such cases. She has got so used to them that one can easily predict her judgments. This way almost all independent journalists have been placed in the jails of Grodno,” he said.
Igor Bantsyr himself told Radio Liberty that on a day off he bumped into drunken police officers in the city center. He said they had detained him before during some political events. The following day he went to a football match where the same officers were on duty. After a while they stopped him. “They stopped me for identification and later at the police station an act of misconduct was suddenly compiled,” he said. Bantsyr says he does not use four letter words and is confident that he was detained to prevent him from covering the opposition action in Minsk on March 25.
III. Lawsuits against Journalists
Azerbaijan
Preliminary hearings of the case of journalist Rafig Tagi and editor-in-chief of Senet newspaper Samir Guseinov was held at Sabaili district court of Baku on March 19. They are charged with spreading ethnic, racial, social or religious enmity.
Their lawyer Isakhan Ashurov had filed a plea to drop from the list of evidence the testimonies of Samir’s father Adaget Guseinov, Elchin Suleimanov and Museddes Israfilov and to cancel measures of punishment.
The court rejected the plea and ruled to put off hearings to April 2.
Ukraine
On March 22 the founder and publisher of Subotnya Poshta weekly, the Lviv-based Professionalnaya Liga company, received a lawsuit for the protection of the honor and business reputation and for non-pecuniary damage from Petro Pisarchuk, member of the parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions.
The lawsuit followed the March 18 publication of an article about the attack on the editor-in-chief of the weekly and the question addressed to Ukrainian Prime Minister and leader of the Party of Regions Viktor Yanukovych during his visit to Lviv on January 30. Irina Tsytsak, deputy editor of the weekly, asked Yanukovych about the December 26, 2006 beating of the editor Rustam Kurbanov.
Kurbanov was attacked in a parking lot in the territory of Yuzhny marketplace co-owned by Pisarchuk. The attacker was a lessee of the market. Security men of the market witnessed the incident. They knew that the victim of the attack was Kurbanov who had parked his car at the lot for several years. Kurbanov asked them to call the police but they ignored him.
Even though three months have passed since the incident the city prosecutor’s office does not hurry to investigate the circumstances of the crime on a full scale. When the security men started changing their initial testimony journalists concluded that Pisarchuk could have been interested in that. That was the question which Tsytsak asked the prime minister when the met the press in Lviv.
The deputy evaluated his moral damage at 100,000 hryvni, 90,000 of which he claims from the founder of the publication and 10,000 from the journalist.
IV. Other Forms of Pressure on the Media. Conflicts with the Authorities and Political Organizations
Belarus
The Vitebsk Regional Printing Shop on March 22 refused to publish the independent political newspaper Vitebsky Kuryer, its editor Vladimir Bazan told BelaPAN. “Director of the regional printing shop Yevgeny Larichev told representatives of the newspaper – the executive director and lawyer – that a contract for the publication of Vitebsky Kuryer will not be signed. He did not state the reason for the refusal,” Bazan said.
Bazan said that despite the refusal readers will get the next issue. The 1,700 copies of the issue will be made on the printer at the newspaper office. The newspaper will be issued in A4 format (usually A2).
Georgia
Mayor of Rustavi David Nadashvili on March 19 expressed indignation with the March 16 news report of Imedi broadcasting company on water supplies in the city.
“The report that part of the population of Rustavi gets drinking after for only three hours a day is not true. I hope the journalist was misled. However, it is clear that there are forces in the country that are not happy about our successes. Part of the city people must have forgotten how they had to carry water upstairs. Let them complain as much as they want, we will still carry on our job,” he said at a session of the city government.
Kyrgyzstan
First Deputy Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov has asked the president of Kyrgyzstan to dismiss the editor of the government-owned newspaper Kyrgyz Tuusu.
At a parliament session on March 19 he said that a commission of the Kristall state-owned company found out that an issue of the newspaper published in over 6,000 copies did not contain a single insert on the sale of the company. “Thus the editor was instrumental in the auction being held in a closed mode with nobody knowing about it,” Usenov said.
Uzbekistan
It was reported on March 16 that pressure is exerted on journalists whose names were found in the notes of reporter Umida Niyazova who is now under arrest.
One of the most active independent journalists was summoned to the transport prosecutor’s office a few days ago. On conditions of anonymity he agreed to tell Uznews.net about his visits to the office.
He was summoned to the prosecutor’s office with a document brought to his home by a courier for Ulugbek Artykov, the investigator probing Niyazova’s case. Fifteen minutes before the visit the reporter’s local police officer called him to ask an absurd question evidently to check whether he was at home.
Probably he also called the courier when he handed in the summons. “Yes, everything is O.K., I am already here,” the courier said on his mobile phone.
“The following day I had to go to the prosecutor’s office as a witness because as such summons state in case of refusal I would be detained by force,” the journalist recalls.
Three officers questioned him. They frequently asked the same questions but in different ways evidently trying to catch the reporter lying. The journalist was especially surprised that he was asked little about Niyazova. The investigators were more interested in his professional work. They wanted to know what an independent journalist means, what he writes about and to what publications, how he receives fees, what the size of the fees is, who pays the money and how he pays taxes.
As for Niyazova, he was asked only two questions – whether she had ordered articles from him and whether she had paid him.
The journalist was most surprised by the list of all the Western Union money transfers he had received from abroad in two years that was produced to him.
“That very moment I felt that I am not a witness but a defendant because there exists the secrecy of transfers and deposits! What right did Western Union have to report confidential information to the transport prosecutor’s office?” he wondered.
The cross interrogation lasted for two hours, was minuted and signed by the witness.
The following morning he was summoned to the prosecutor’s office by phone again. This time one more officer joined them. All the questions were repeated and the interrogation lasted for two hours.
This time the reporter was asked the names of his colleagues living in different parts of Uzbekistan “for safety’s sake.”
“I got the idea that the authorities were using the criminal case of one journalist to pressure all independent journalists in Uzbekistan. Does this mean the beginning of a massive campaign against the entire independent journalistic and human right movement in Uzbekistan?” he wondered.
On March 12 at Tashkent airport three journalists returning from Bishkek home were thoroughly examined or rather searched by the customs.
Ukraine
The leadership of the First National channel plans to close the popular political talk show Toloka, anchorman Viktor Pavlyuk announced on March 21.
“On March 19 20 minutes after the beginning of the live show involving opposition figures – Yuliya Tymoshenko and head of Our Ukraine faction Vyacheslav Kyrylenko – the online voting of spectators showing a high degree of confidence in the opposition stopped,” Pavlyuk said. The following day the morning rerun of the show was cancelled. Later president of the national broadcasting company Vitaly Dokalenko announced the closure of the show.
Deputy speaker of parliament Mykola Tomenko told a news conference that he regards the case as “the comeback of censorship to Ukrainian TV and an attempt to introduce the old model of management.”
Pavlyuk said the formal reason for the closure was the claim that the results of online voting are intentionally distorted.
V. Restriction of Access to Information
Belarus
On March 25 when the opposition was conducting the Day of Will in Minsk OMON riot police separated journalists from the marchers. The press remained in Masherov Avenue while the protesters were forced into courtyards.
Moreover, several independent and opposition websites such as Khartiya 97, Belarussky Partizan, Radio Liberty, Telegraf, Belarussikye Novosti, Nasha Niva and the website of the United Civil Party were blocked that day.
Kazakhstan
For the first time journalists were barred from the court case of the Butya Kapital investment and privatization fund in which the co-chairman of True Ak Zhol cochairman Bulat Abilov and former heads of the fund Bauyrshan Karabakov and Ualikhan Bekbosyn are defendants. The absence of free seats in the courtroom was named as the reason. The report on this was issued on March 20.
Commentary Prepared by CJES Lawyer Viktoriya Blonskaya (IV Georgia)
Article 24 of the Georgian constitution proclaims the right of every person to freely receive and disseminate information, to express and disseminate opinions in oral, written or other form. The same article states that the mass media are free and censorship is banned.
The account of the situation permits the assumption of a possible violation of constitutional rights the enforcement of which “may be restricted by conditions required in a democratic society to guarantee state or public security, territorial integrity, the prevention of crime, the protection of the rights and dignity of other persons, the prevention of the spread of confidential information or to guarantee the independence and impartiality of justice.”
In the situation under review we see restrictions in the mass media exercising the rights which we find unjustified. Thus the law of the Republic of Georgia “On the freedom of speech and expression” states in Article 8 (grounds for the restriction of the freedom of speech and expression):
“1. A restriction shall be recognized and protected by this law only in case it is established by clear, understandable and purposeful law and the importance of the value that is protected through the introduction of the restriction exceeds the negative implications of the introduction of such a restriction.
2. A restriction shall be recognized and protected by this law in case it is a) aimed solely at a justified end, b) is absolutely essential in democratic society, c) is not discriminatory, d) is proportionate.”
