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DE RUEHTA #1402/01 2290958
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 170958Z AUG 09
FM AMEMBASSY ASTANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6041
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE 1842
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 1210
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 1912
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 0871
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 2422
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 2738
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RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC 1397
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC 1299
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RHMFIUU/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ASTANA 001402 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN, SCA/PPD, EUR/RPM, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV KDEM OSCE KZ
SUBJECT:  KAZAKHSTAN:  "ALMA-ATA INFO" EDITOR LOSES TWO COURT 
BATTLES OVER MEDIA FREEDOM 
 
REF: (A) ASTANA 1399 
(B) ASTANA 0351 
 (C) ASTANA 0191 
 (D) ASTANA 0058 
 (E) 08 ASTANA 2383 
 
¶1.  (U) Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for public Internet. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  On August 13, Kazakhstan's Supreme Court ruled 
against "Alma-Ata Info" newspaper and upheld a lower court's ruling 
that suspended the newspaper for three months for publishing 
allegedly classified documents.  This ruling is related to -- but 
separate from -- the case against "Alma-Ata Info" owner and 
editor-in-chief Ramazan Yesergepov.  On August 8, in a closed and 
separate process, Taraz city court found Yesergepov guilty of 
divulging classified documents and sentenced him to three years in 
prison.  Yesergepov's wife announced his intention to appeal the 
verdict, but no date for the appeal has been set.  Local and 
international civil society representatives and opposition activists 
have sharply criticized the ruling, which received wide coverage in 
local print and some TV media. Both local and international print 
media picked up the critical statements made by Reporters Without 
Borders, Freedom House, and the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the 
Media Miklos Haraszti.  The Ambassador has raised U.S. concerns 
about the case with the presidential administration.  END SUMMARY. 
 
SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST "ALMA-ATA INFO" 
 
¶2.  (SBU) On August 13, Kazakhstan's Supreme Court upheld a lower 
court's ruling that suspended the newspaper "Alma-Ata Info" for 
three months for publishing allegedly classified documents.  The 
original suspension ruling dates back to early January, when the 
newspaper's owner and editor-in-chief Ramazan Yesergepov was 
separately charged with dissemination of classified documents 
(reftels B-E), a crime of which he was convicted on August 8. 
Contrary to some media reporting, the Supreme Court's ruling 
addressed solely the suspension of the newspaper and has no 
immediate bearing on the case against Yesergepov, or on his appeal. 
 
 
¶3.  (SBU) At the hearing before the Supreme Court, "Alma-Ata Info" 
representatives argued that the suspension was illegal because the 
documents published by the paper should not have been classified to 
begin with.  Kazakhstani legislation outlines several kinds of 
government information that can be classified as secret, in 
particular, information on covert law enforcement operations and 
information dealing with national security.  The law also stipulates 
that documents showing the wrongdoing of government employees cannot 
be kept confidential.  The newspaper's representatives argued that 
the documents published did not contain any information that could 
be classified as secret and, in fact, contained proof of wrongdoing 
on the part of the Taraz KNB.  The Supreme Court rejected these 
arguments and moved swiftly to deny the newspaper's appeal. 
 
EARLIER, YESERGEPOV SENTENCED AT CLOSED HEARING 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  In a separate process, on August 8,  the Taraz city court 
judged Yesergepov guilty under Articles 172 and 339 of Kazakhstan's 
Criminal Code for allegedly gathering and divulging confidential 
information.  The court, which read its ruling behind closed doors, 
also banned him from publishing a newspaper for two years after his 
release.  The trial has been closed to the public since it began in 
April on the grounds that it concerned state secrets.  Nonetheless, 
several journalists, civil society leaders, and an embassy 
representative traveled from Almaty to Taraz to observe the 
sentencing hearing.  Yesergepov's wife, Raushan Yesergepova, 
announced on August 11 that Yesergepov plans to appeal the verdict, 
but the date of the appeal has not yet been set. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Yesergepov's co-defendants were sentenced at the same 
hearing on August 8.  Sultan Makhmadov, the Taraz alcohol magnate 
accused of passing confidential KNB documents to Yesergepov (reftel 
C), was sentenced to seven years in prison; Bolat Zhanuzakov, the 
 
ASTANA 00001402  002 OF 003 
 
 
former KNB officer who allegedly sold the documents to Makhmadov, 
was sentenced to nine years; and Yerlan Sandybayev, head of security 
for Makhmadov and whom the prosecution accused of serving as the 
go-between between Makhmadov and the KNB, was sentenced to eight 
years.  In an interesting twist, the night before the hearing, 
Makhmadov disappeared from his house, where he had been under house 
arrest.  He was apprehended the next day at the Bishkek airport and 
returned to Taraz in time for his sentencing.  No information was 
available on how he was able to flee from his KNB guards. 
 
DATE OF HEARING A MOVING TARGET 
 
¶6.  (SBU) The date of Yesergepov's sentencing hearing was a moving 
target for more than a week.  The presiding judge rescheduled the 
hearing four times before finally holding it on Saturday, August 8. 
Originally scheduled to take place on August 7, it was postponed 
late in the evening the night before, causing local and 
international observers coming from Almaty to turn around mid-way. 
The presiding judge postponed the hearing until Monday morning, then 
again until Tuesday afternoon, before announcing his decision to 
hold it on Saturday morning.  Yesergepov's wife shared her 
suspicions with Poloff that the judge was trying to limit the number 
of observers at the trial. 
 
SHARP CRITICISM OF THE VERDICT... 
 
¶7.  (SBU) At a press conference in Almaty on August 11, journalists 
and civil society activists strongly criticized the court 
proceedings and the ruling.  Rozlana Taukina of the NGO Journalists 
in Trouble argued that Yesergepov was simply fulfilling his 
journalistic duty in uncovering corruption.  She listed the 
violations that allegedly occurred during Yesergepov's detention and 
trial, including the fact that he was denied bail, and the fact that 
his defenders were not granted access to his file, because they 
lacked the necessary security clearances.  Taukina expressed hope 
that the Court of Appeals will repeal the ruling and give Yesergepov 
a suspended sentence.  In an article published on the website of the 
opposition newspaper "Respublika," independent journalist Sergey 
Duvanov praised Yesergepov for fulfilling his duty in uncovering 
official corruption and condemned the courts for punishing him for 
"airing the KNB's dirty laundry." 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The OSCE's Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos 
Haraszti, sent a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Marat 
Tazhin, criticizing Yesergepov's sentence as a violation of the 
OSCE's commitment to media freedom, and urging Kazakhstan to 
overturn the verdict.  Criminalizing journalists for breach of 
secrecy "leaves investigative journalism without one of its most 
important tools:  the liberty to go beyond official stonewalling," 
Haraszti's letter said. 
 
... GETS BROAD MEDIA COVERAGE 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The press conference by Yesergepov's defenders was widely 
covered by the opposition print media, some local television 
stations, and several international media outlets, including the 
Associated Press, RFE/RL, BBC, and Agence France Press.  Local and 
international print media also printed statements made by OSCE's 
Haraszti and international NGOs, including Reporters Without 
Borders, which called Yesergepov's sentence "outrageous," and urged 
that it be overturned by the court of appeals, and Freedom House, 
which referred to the trial as "shameful conduct not befitting" the 
future Chairman in Office of the OSCE. 
 
OPPOSITION, CIVIL SOCIETY PLAN PROTEST ACTIONS 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Several journalists and opposition activists set up an 
organization called "Headquarters in Support of Ramazan Yesergepov" 
and announced plans for several protest actions, including public 
demonstrations, suspension of publication of newspapers, 
internet-protests, and possible hunger strikes.  Four opposition 
newspapers -- "Respublika," "Vzglyad," "Alga," and "Obshestvennaya 
Pozitsiya" -- declared their intention to publish a blank page in 
the papers' next editions in support of Yesergepov.  Several 
 
ASTANA 00001402  003 OF 003 
 
 
activists from opposition parties joined the "Headquarters in 
Support of Ramazan Yesergepov," and opposition party Azat released a 
statement calling for Yesergepov's immediate release and warning of 
the "growing role" of KNB in domestic politics. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) COMMENT:  We agree with Haraszti that the sentence 
against Yesergepov is incongruent with Kazakhstan's OSCE commitments 
on media freedom.  In an August 5 interview with the newspaper 
"Vremya," the Ambassador expressed concern that libel lawsuits 
against media organizations and journalists in Kazakhstan take the 
country away from European standards and urged the Kazakhstani 
authorities to apply international norms in resolving such issues. 
The Ambassador also raised Yesergepov's case in his August 12 
meeting with Kairat Sarybai, the President's Foreign Policy Advisor 
(reftel A).  We will continue to closely monitor the proceedings of 
Yesergepov's appeal.  END COMMENT. 
 
HOAGLAND