Kazakh Court Shuts Down Independent Magazine

A court has shut down one of Kazakhstan's very few independent publications, known for its criticism of government policies.

The Medeu district court in Almaty ruled on October 22 that the Adam (Human) magazine and its Facebook page must be shut down for violating the law on languages.

The magazine was suspended and its editors were fined in August after another Almaty court ruled that the publication violated the language law by carrying its content in Russian only.

The Kazakh law requires media outlets to carry at least half of their content in Kazakh, the state language.

The Adam publication was launched in March as a successor of the Adam Bol (Be a Human) magazine that was shut down in December 2014 for "propagating war."

That ruling came weeks after Adam Bol published an interview with opposition activist Aidos Sadyqov, who lives in exile in Ukraine.

In the interview, Sadyqov lambasted Russia for its involvement in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Source:rferl.org