Almaty prosecutors filed lawsuits against Google, Facebook and Twitter

Google, Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal are on the list of the defendants in Almaty prosecutors’ case to close a range of Kazakhstan opposition media outlets, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports. “Google is a defendant. I don’t know whether they know about this or not, but they are being sued and they have to reply to the statement,” lawyer Sergey Utkin representing Respublika newspaper said at the press-conference on Friday, November 23. He also showed a copy of the prosecutors’ claim that also includes Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal as defendants, besides Respublika newspaper. Last Wednesday official representative of Kazakhstan General Prosecutor Nurdaulet Suindikov said that Almaty prosecutors filed a lawsuit asking the court to acknowledge 8 newspapers/magazines and 23 Internet websites the Respublika network and ban them from being published and distributed at the territory of Kazakhstan. Similar claimes were made against Vzglyad newspaper and the Internet websites doubling it, foreign media (K+ channel and Stan-TV and the Internet-resources doubling them. Suindikov explained that these lawsuits were filed and registered in relation to the court ruling against leader of Alga party Vladimir Kozlov, as well as Serik Sapargali and Akzhanat Aminov who were convicted of inciting social hatred and making calls for violent overthrow of power, creation and management of organized criminal groups.