2023-04-26 15:00:43
On April 26, the Leninsky District Court of Bishkek held a hearing on the suit of the Ministry of Culture to terminate the activities of Azattyk as a media outlet due to a video about the conflict on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border that occurred in September 2022.
The lawsuit against Azattyk was the release of the program “Present Time. Asia” dated September 16, 2022. It was he who became the reason for the indefinite blocking of the Azattyk website. This issue was researched by linguist Zhyide Semenova.
Before the start of the trial, she told reporters that she single-handedly conducted an examination of the video material that caused the lawsuit.
At the court session, Semyonova was asked two questions: are there any linguistic signs of inciting ethnic hatred and war propaganda in the material?
The specialist said that “there are linguistic signs of a negative nature in relation to the Kyrgyz Republic in the material.” However, as Semenova explained, the identification of ethnic hatred or propaganda in this material is not within her competence and this requires a legal assessment.
“The material is informational in nature, where the author interviews two parties. Therefore, the linguist cannot identify propaganda in this case,” she said.
Timur Sultanov, a lawyer defending the interests of Azattyk, asked the expert why she did not return the material if it was not within her competence. Semyonova said she showed “expert initiative” and, according to the law, has the right to draw conclusions based on the study.
After that, the court announced the debate of the parties, but Azattyk’s lawyers asked the court for time to prepare a written substantiation of their position on the claim of the Ministry of Culture.
Representatives of the Ministry spoke and stated that the video material of the program “Present Time. Asia” allegedly prompted an information war between the two countries.
“The material is still in the public domain and has not been removed,” a spokeswoman for the department said.
The Ministry of Culture added that they are asking the court to give a legal assessment of the video material, as well as the time when this material was distributed and satisfy the claim in full.
As a result, the court set the next hearing for April 27.
The Ministry of Culture applied to the Leninsky District Court of Bishkek with a lawsuit to terminate the activities of the Azattyk Media institution as a media outlet in January 2023.
The actions of Azattyk Media, according to the plaintiffs, contradict Article 23 of the law “On the Mass Media”, according to which the media does not allow propaganda of war, violence and cruelty, national, religious exclusivity and intolerance towards other peoples and nations.
The lawsuit was the next step of the Ministry of Culture after the department blocked the Azattyk website because of the video footage of the Current Time TV channel (a subordinate structure of Radio Liberty) entitled “Heavy fighting on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan”.
The reason for blocking the site in the department was called “inaccurate information” about the clashes on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border on September 14-17 in 2022, which the ministry considered “contrary to the national interests of Kyrgyzstan.”
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