Former editor of Kazakh opposition newspaper to pay fine
ALMATY. Feb 8 (Interfax) - Tatyana Trubacheva, former chief editor of the Respublika opposition newspaper, which was closed under a court ruling, has been fined 34,620 tenge.
A decision to this effect was made by the Almaty Specialized Interdistrict Administrative Court on Thursday, the international foundation Adil Soz, which campaigns for freedom of speech, has reported.
According to Adil Soz, the reason for the court ruling was "the publication of a new newspaper called Ripablik, which had a dateline that stated Trubacheva as 'the main reader.'"
"During the court hearing, the lawyers for the defendant provided the court documents stating that Trubacheva is not an employee of the new paper and therefore cannot be held responsible for its publication.
The judge ignored those arguments and found the journalist guilty of an administrative violation enshrined by Article 524 of the Code of Administrative Violations (failure to fulfill legal acts, decisions made by the authorities (officials) authorized to consider administrative violation cases)," the report says.
According to Adil Soz, Trubacheva was accused of continuing the publication of the Respublika newspaper despite the ban, although the decision to close Respublika was made long before the publication of the first edition of Ripablik, which is a totally different paper.
In late 2012, Armenian prosecutors filed a lawsuit seeking the recognition of eight newspapers and 23 Internet publications as the media publication Respublika and the termination of its publication and dissemination on the territory of Kazakhstan. The Almaty Medeus Court granted the prosecutors' lawsuit and closed Respublika in late December 2012.