Kazakhstan ​Journalists collecting signatures under application to General Prosecutor in support of Seitkazy Matayev

The journalists of Kazakhstan are collecting signatures under application to the General Prosecutor's Office for support of chairman of the Union of Journalists Seitkazy Matayev.

"We claim the General Prosecutor's Office to take the investigation under complete control and provide maximum publicity and transparency of the investigation. We believe that only constant and timely information of the society about the investigation, clear answers to the questions may prevent spread of rumors and provide unbiased investigation," reads the statement.

The journalists emphasized the necessity to observe the presumption of innocence.

"We also call the chiefs of the Ministry of State Service Affairs to take into account that according to the law only the court may call a person a criminal. Thus, we ask to hold back from publications spelling out the actions of Matayev like it was done in the document spread today "the economic and corruption crimes committed by Matayev are serious". Usually the Prosecutor's Office and the state servants remind us, journalists, that there is presumption of innocence and a person cannot be blamed before the court's verdict. Now we see how the state bodies do it, that is inadmissible from the point of view of the law of Kazakhstan, neither from the ethical point of view," the message reports.

The application will be sent to the General Prosecutor's Office and posted in the Internet on Tuesday.

More than 200 users of the social networks have signed the application, including individual journalists and whole editorials, press-services and organizations.

Source: kaztag