Screenshot from the press conference video on April 22
A group of Kazakh journalists issued an open appeal to the country's authorities on April 22, demanding a review of Article 274 of the Criminal Code concerning the dissemination of «knowingly false information.» The Kazakhstan Press Club reported this on its Facebook page.
Participants at the press conference stated that Article 274 of the Criminal Code has become a tool for persecuting journalists and active social media users due to vague wording and the lack of clear criteria for what constitutes «information creating a danger» to public order. According to them, the article is applied selectively, and journalists are effectively punished even before a verdict is issued—through house arrest and the inability to continue their professional activities.
The authors of the appeal request the initiation of a unified law enforcement practice for Article 274 in investigative bodies and courts, as well as consideration of the possibility of decriminalizing the first two parts of this article by reclassifying the relevant offenses as administrative violations. The appeal has already been sent to the Ministry of Information, the Supreme Court, Parliament, the Presidential Administration, and the Prosecutor General's Office, but no response has been received yet, according to Exclusive publication's editor-in-chief, Karlygash Ezhenova.
In recent months, journalist Botagoz Omarova, Orda.kz editor-in-chief Gulnar Bazhkenova, KazTAG General Director Aset Mataev, and agency editor-in-chief Amir Kasenov have faced criminal prosecution under Article 274. Earlier, a broad coalition of international journalistic organizations and the Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan had already appealed to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev regarding these cases.
