Prison Term for Likes, Shares. How Central Asia Counters Extremism in Social Media

According to experts, the authorities in the region should revise the rigid policy of imprisonment for unintentional actions in social media.

As of early 2018, Kyrgyzstan has had 1.3 million active users of social media. This data has been reported by We Are Social. Last year, 700 thousand new users registered with social media.

According to the estimates of GlobalWebIndex, now an average internet user spends 2 hours 15 minutes in social media a day, i.e. all Kyrgyzstanis spend almost 3 million hours per day on the internet, and the number is growing.

Also, social media have increasing influence on our daily lives. Active protests, movements and extremist campaigns and recruitment often shift from streets to cyberspace and sometimes succeed more.

However, responsibility of users for the content they post in their accounts or just “like” increases along with such influence.

At a recent session of parliament, the representative of GKNB of Kyrgyzstan said that “likes by users is not a criminal offence. Experts track down those who distribute content, not those who visit their accounts” (cited from Kaktus.media).

However, in Kyrgyzstan, and generally in Central Asia, there have been cases when a virtual “like”, share or comment in social networks have become a cause for a real imprisonment.

“Earn money” on a criminal code

According to the recent Freedom on the Net 2017 report by Freedom House, Kyrgyzstan has scored 37 out of 100, the lower the score, the more freedom on the net. The country has had this score for the last two years and it is the worst score in the last 5 years. The best score was 34 in 2014, and the remaining years the republic has consistently scored 35.

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Kyrgyzstan is the only country in Central Asia, where internet is partly free. In other countries of the region, it is not free.

Despite the fact that Kyrgyzstan has no separate control of information in social media, the freedom of expression and responsibility on the net are protected the same as in offline mode. The concept of “share” is not set forth in the laws, and it depends on the privacy settings, Begaim Usenova, director of Media Policy Institute, said. According to her, if the feed in a social network is set to let your friends see what you do, then your actions are in fact the dissemination of information. Thus, in case of posting controversial content, penalty can follow.

“We should understand that what we post and share initially comes from us, even if we don’t write the message itself. So one should at least take all reasonable efforts to make sure that information one disseminates is accurate to avoid dissemination of inaccurate or rather unlawful messages,” she said.

Another point is that a single share of illegal content should not result in criminal responsibility in the form of imprisonment for 4 to 7 years, as it does now under article 299 of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, “Incitement of national (interethnic), racial, religious or interreligious hatred”.

“Many people live somewhere in rural areas and think that social media is their personal space and comment on everything they want and do not even know that they can be imprisoned for that. We should work on that. A person should be first warned that he cannot write such messages, then fined, and if he keeps on doing the same, he should be imprisoned.

Now this article has become an article which can be used to earn money. How? They [law-enforcement bodies] come to a person and say that this article can be used to send him to prison. So those parents who don’t want their kids to go to prison want to pay their way out,” Rita Karasartova, head of the Institute for Public Analysis, said.

In 2016, the term of “internet” appeared in item 6 of article 226 of the criminal code “Public approval of terrorist or extremist activity”. According to religious scholar and expert in extremist Ikbolzhan Mirsaitov, this has led to many cases of detention of users for “likes” or “shares” in social networks, especially in the south of the country last year.

“Many users have been charged with administrative penalty (fine in the amount of 1-2 thousand soms, or 14-29 dollars), and imprisonment for 1 to 3 years in case of further violation. These have been mainly young people who didn’t know about the criminal responsibility and conveyed and shared information. This year, young people already know it’s no joke and this trend is declining,” Mirsaitov said.

Repression of freedom

In Tajikistan, only 3 per cent of people use social media, i.e. only 310 thousand people out of 9-million population. The republic is not listed in the Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net report, but according to Human Rights watch, the human rights record has sharply deteriorated since 2015 “amid an on-going crackdown on freedom of expression and the political opposition, as well as targeting of independent lawyers and religious freedom.”

This summer members of the lower chamber of Tajik parliament voted for amendments to article 179 of the national criminal code “Public calls for committing terrorism crimes and (or) public approval of terrorist activities”. Part two of this article is amended to contain a phrase “via internet”. Punishment for that is imprisonment for 10 to 15 years.

“The use of social media on the internet is qualified as a proof of complicity in extremist and/or terrorist organisations. It’s not just about “likes”, it’s about distribution and transfer of such materials. Cases of criminal penalty for actions that have qualifying signs of the use of internet for the specified crimes take place in Tajikistan. In practice, this category of cases occurs very often,” Abdurakhmon Sharipov, practising lawyer and legal counsel of Independent Centre for Human Rights Protection, said.

Human rights activists don’t think such countering extremism or terrorism is justified. According to them, criminal cases are initiated on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

“Today the criminal code of Tajikistan contains 8 articles that envisage penalty for offences on the internet. As practice shows, the principle of justice set forth in the Tajik criminal code (punishment should be just and comply with the nature and degree of public danger of a crime) is not always followed in such categories of cases,” Nodira Abdulloeva, coordinator of labour migration programmes at the Human Rights Centre, said.

A tool against dissenters

Kazakstan has scored 62 by the freedom on the net. The country has been scoring the same for five years, plus minus 1-2 scores.

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Facebook and YouTube are among the most popular social media for disseminating the ideas of extremism in Kazakstan. Shares of such publications qualify as dissemination of information. A person who has shared such information will have the same responsibility for it as the author.

“In Kazakstan, there are criminal cases initiated and guilty verdict brought in for shares and likes of information that qualify as incitement of hatred, mainly ethnic and religious. Responsibility for incitement of various kinds of hatred is set forth in article 174 of the Kazak criminal code. According to official statistics, in the last three years there has been an increase in the number of people brought to trial under this article,” Tamara Simakhina, legal counsel of Adil Soz Foundation, said.

Article 174 of the criminal code “Incitement of ethnic, social and religious hatred” sets forth imprisonment for 2 to 7 years. Criminal cases are also initiated on article 274 “On dissemination of knowingly false information”, which is punished either by a fine up to 12 million tenges (nearly 32 thousand dollars) or by imprisonment for two to five years.

Besides, any user of social media can be detained for one and a half months if anyone leaves an extremist comment on his page. First, the user will receive a letter asking to delete such comment, and if the user fails to respond, he will be brought to trial.

Kazakstan is the only country in Central Asia, whose legislation is being actively amended with the purpose to control internet. In January 2017, the prosecutor’s office of Kyzyl Orda oblast reported that it blocked access to 39 messages on Facebook and VKontakte and to 25 accounts on YouTube due to the alleged incitement to religious and ethnic hatred.

The country has a few agencies that control online content, including the national security committee, president’s office and even representatives of local governments. However, human rights defenders think that countering extremism is just an excuse.

*Evgeny Zhovtis. Photo: Yaroslav Radlovsky*

“I don’t think this is a fight against extremism in social media, it’s rather a check of a tool against dissenters. Criminal cases are initiated on formal grounds; consequences are not assessed in any way. Some text, share, post, like, statement is taken for analysis by experts, who draw a conclusion as to whether this material contains any extremist information or not. In terms of criminal law, this procedure doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. All these conclusions are presumptive and no one cares to prove intent during prosecution,” Evgeny Zhovtis, director of Kazakstan Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, said.

They are watching you

Uzbekistan has scored 77 by the freedom on the net. In the last 4 years, the country used to score 78-79. The improvement is related to the opening of a state portal, but according to Freedom House freedom on the net is still repressive in the country.

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However, according to Human Rights Watch, the Uzbek parliament “has supported amendments to law that allow intelligence agencies track down online activity of citizens by fixing messages and comments in social media.” In the last few years, the authorities have been blocking access to popular social media, including VKontakte, Facebook and YouTube. However, official blocking is not recognised, although providers have repeatedly received such instructions. The organisation calls on the national authorities to ensure efficient access to information, including on the internet.

Although the country has no record of criminal cases for likes and shares, the authorities monitor social media. However, criminal cases are being initiated on other grounds, Mutabar Tajibaeva, head of Club of Flaming Hearts international human rights organisation, said. She cited a case when activists discussed violation of religious rights on Facebook, following which a few bloggers and ordinary participants of the discussion were arrested immediately.

“Since the times of Karimov, intelligence services constantly employ the services of prostitutes, informers, representatives of mahalla boards, and other agents of intelligence services. They have been used against civil society activists and other unwanted citizens. The above-mentioned agent net is used to discredit, initiate criminal, administrative cases. As a result, illegal administrative offences, administrative fines and arrests take place. This method is used systematically,” Tajibaeva said.

Decriminalisation and uniformity of approaches

“One share cannot be a crime. The crime is a set of various actions, intentions.” Begaim Usenova

Despite the differences in Central Asian laws, they have one thing in common: extremely tough punishment for likes and shares. A Kazakstani human rights activist Evgeny Zhovtis said that a clear distinction must be made between the freedom of speech and its misuse, when criminal prosecution is unavoidable. According to him, criminal proceedings are possible only if:

a) statements contain a threat of violence, and also contain incitement of hatred, hostility and calls for violence;
b) the threat is real.

Besides, experts agree that diverse sanctions should be imposed for various statements, motives and consequences.

“We cannot deem a share as a ground for initiation of proceedings apart from its author, intent, audience, other factors. One share cannot be a crime. The crime is a set of various actions, intentions. And responsibility should be based on its effect, social danger, real threat, whether the one who shares understood or wanted to cause any negative consequences or not,” Begaim Usenova said.

According to her, this issue needs a complex approach: law knowledge of people should be improved, investigators and judges should be taught, laws should be amended. Also, a single approach to such cases should be developed subject to international law.

The same situation is in Tajikistan.

“I think our [Tajik] criminal law that envisages responsibility for actions on the net is still vague and is widely interpreted by law enforcers. I think Supreme Court should develop a plenary assembly that would explain to courts how to give legal assessment of such cases subject to their nature and degree of public danger of likes or shares,” Nodira Abdulloeva said.

Kazakstan doesn’t have such a document, yet human rights activists doubt its efficiency.

“I am not sure it could minimise or specify anything. It’s just an attempt to minimise the harm of laws that are flawed in their concept. This is a reduction of harm. Yet it doesn’t solve the problem. We should speak about the conceptual revision of laws and approaches. Otherwise, we won’t solve the issue,” Evgeny Zhovtis said.

This publication was produced under IWPR project “Forging links and raising voices to combat radicalization in Central Asia“

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