Representatives of the journalistic community and political parties established headquarters to defend convicted Ramazan Yesergepov, the owner and editor of the weekly Alma-Ata Info
The group formed by 13 journalists and politics said it would embark on a series of protest campaigns in response to the outrageous trial.
"We find sentencing a journalist to a three-year imprisonment for his absolutely correct professional actions: publicizing the important information for the public about violations of state security officials, yet another evidence of persecution of journalists,” reads the statement.
Yesergepov’s defense headquarters plan an internet meeting against the sentence, a number of rallies, a consecutive hunger strike by editors of independent media and the Day of Media Silence.
A three-year jail sentence which a court in the southern city of Taraz (administrative center of Zhambyl region) was passed on Yesergepov on 8 August on charges of gathering and divulging classified documents under articles 172 and 339 of the Kazakh criminal code.
Interfax-Kazakhstan
