Despite the seizure of its assets and the enormous fine, Assandi Times has announced publicly and on its Web site that it will resume publication Aug. 13. Nursultan Nazarbaev’s presidential administration filed the case after Assandi Times wrote an article in early June saying the editorial staff thought the presidential administration or someone close to it had produced a June 2 false issue of the newspaper. The false issue of the newspaper, which appeared in newsstands three days ahead of the normal publishing day, contained articles ostensibly signed by opposition leaders from the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DCK) and Ak Zhol parties squabbling amongst themselves. The false issue, many experts say, was both an attempt to discredit the opposition and a trap for Assandi Times, which is financially linked to DCK.

A suit was also filed against the opposition Web site Navigator (www.navi.kz), which had reprinted the article. The suit against the site was dropped after Navigator published a July 1 retraction of the original Assandi Times article.

Assandi Times lawyer Sergey Utkin said there were numerous procedural and legal irregularities in the trial, including the Medeo Regional court’s acceptance of the case from the first hearing, June 10, although the court usually takes a week to verify whether the claims filed are relevant. In addition, the presidential administration filed the suit only two days after it had requested a retraction, although the law requires anyone claiming moral compensation to wait a month for a retraction. The court eventually delayed the first trial hearing until the month-long time limit had elapsed.

Utkin also said Assandi Times’ editorial staff maintains its statement in response to the false issue was an opinion and not an accusation. The statement in question began, “The editorial staff thinks that the ‘falsification’ is the next step of the presidential administration or those close to it, attempting in this way to discredit the newspaper in the eyes of the readers.” During the trial, a Russian-language expert was invited to judge whether the statement was an opinion or a statement of fact, eventually concluding it was an opinion because it began with “The editorial staff thinks.” However, the prosecutor and judge disregarded the expert’s opinion, Utkin said.

Through various mechanisms, Assandi Times was denied the opportunity to solve the issue through peaceful means, Utkin said. This proves the intent all along was to close the newspaper, Assandi Times claimed in public statements. Utkin said other attempts to fight the case were blocked. The entire case is moot, Utkin said, because the presidential administration does not exist as a registered legal entity and thus should not be able to sue for damages to its “business reputation,” the article under the law the suit was based on. Furthermore, the statement did not hurt the general reputation of the presidential administration, Assandi Times claims, and Utkin said he proposed to bring in journalists, political scientist and social scientists to prove this point. The judge declined, Utkin claims, saying social opinion is not explained in this way, but not other solution was allowed.

“In general, from our point of view, the administration simply doesn’t have a business reputation, insofar as it doesn’t participate in the civil spheres from a private name, it can’t lose profits, it doesn’t have partners, clients, and so on, as all companies do… The administration simply has a reputation (not business), but [this reputation’s] protection by way of indemnity for moral harm for legal entities is not provided for in the law,” Utkin said.

Utkin said he and the newspaper were working on an appeal to a higher court, but he does not expect positive results. “Naturally, we are preparing an appeal to a higher court, but there is practically no hope for justice. We will continue to fight using all legal measures and will cover the result of [the judges’] deliberation in the media, hoping for the support of our readers and all healthily thinking citizens of Kazakhstan, and also of the international community.”

The Organization for and Security in Europe (OSCE) released a press release from its representative for the freedom of the media Miklos Haraszti, in which Haraszti expressed concern over the closure of one of Kazakhstan’s only oppositional media outlets as elections approach, according to a Reuters report of July 23.

While most experts say Kazakhstan’s opposition did not suffer much from the fake issue of Assandi Times itself, some media experts claim discrediting the opposition was not the ultimate goal, but rather closing the prominent opposition paper. They say the entire false issue may have been an attempt to force Assandi Times to publish a statement against the government, which would enable the government to sue it for libel. If that was the intent, so far the false issue has proven successful.