The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan responded to the challenge of Arbat.media to the Leninsky District Court of the Russian city of Vladimir because of the material about the war in Ukraine. This was reported by the publication itself.
Arbat.media writes that the Kazakh Foreign Ministry believes that the Russian court proceeded from the requirements of the civil procedural legislation of the Russian Federation.
“Consequently, the measures he takes to block this or that news resource on the territory of the Russian Federation are based on the domestic legislation of Russia. In other words, its decisions have no legal force and are not applied on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan,” the Foreign Ministry said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that between Kazakhstan and Russia “there are no agreements providing for the possibility of external interference in the activities of the media on the territory of the parties,” and stressed that the publication Arbat.media “did not violate the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.”
“International law states that “everyone has the right to freedom of expression; this right includes freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing, in print or in the form of art, or otherwise by means of their choice, but with the possibility of the state taking restrictive measures provided for by national legislation, ”the ministry’s response cites the publication.
On January 31, the Kazakh portal Arbat.media announced that the editorial office had received a court notice about a summons to the Leninsky District Court of the city of Vladimir because of a material about the war in Ukraine. The 19th military prosecutor’s office of the Russian army and military unit 56680 act as the plaintiff. The trial is scheduled for February 17.
The editor-in-chief of the publication, Syrym Itkulov, in a commentary to RFE/RL, said that the editorial office had contacted the court office of the city of Vladimir regarding the possibility of considering the case in an online format. In court, the journalists were told that such a thing was not provided for, and they urged them to appear in court physically. Itkulov said that they “won’t go” to the court.
The notice states that the lawsuit was filed “in the interests of an indefinite circle of persons”, and on the Arbat.media website , according to the Roskomnadzor department for the Vladimir region, they revealed “publicly significant information of a political nature that does not correspond to reality and contains false information” about the war in Ukraine, which in Russia is called a “special military operation”.
The editors of the Arbat.media portal told RFE/RL that they “do not agree with the accusations”.
Arbat.media reported that this was an article titled ” Russian invaders are defeated in the Kharkiv region, but do not want to admit it “, which presented information from Ukrainian, Russian and other sources.
The publication noted that the article described the reaction of the media to the state of affairs at the front in September, when Ukrainian forces managed to recapture several settlements in the Kharkiv region from Russian troops.
This is the first known case of summoning a Kazakhstani media to a Russian court because of a material about the war in Ukraine. Earlier, since the beginning of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, some Kazakhstani media outlets received requests from Roskomnadzor to remove materials.
The press protection fund Adil Soz wrote an open letter to the government of Kazakhstan after the Kazakhstani edition Arbat.media received a notice of a summons to a Russian court for material about the war in Ukraine. The text of the letter is published on the foundation’s website. The appeal was addressed to the Minister of Information and Social Development Darkhan Kydyrali and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mukhtar Tleuberdi.
The fund recalled that “the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan is authorized to ensure the implementation of the state policy in the field of mass media and protect the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, and asked the question: what response measures does the Republic of Kazakhstan intend to take in connection with the above actions of the state bodies of the Russian Federation?