Sharip Kurakbaev, editor in chief of the Kazakh opposition newspaper \"Soz,\" told a news conference in Almaty on 17 February that a court order has suspended publication of the newspaper. Kurakbaev said that the newspaper\'s accounts and property have been frozen. Lawyer Sergei Utkin, who is representing \"Soz,\" told journalists that that order, which comes after the National Security Committee won a 5-million-tenge ($38,500) libel judgment against \"Soz,\" proves that the purpose of the suit was to shut down the newspaper. He said that the newspaper has minimal assets and can only raise money by continuing to publish. Tamara Kaleeva, head of the free-speech NGO Adil Soz, stressed that because Kazakh law does not limit damages in defamation lawsuits, it creates a convenient mechanism for silencing gadfly media. (Interfax-Kazakhstan)