Vladimir Severny

Affiliated media: Journalist

Incident date: April 20, 2023

Attack type:

• Criminal/administrative prosecution excluding (1), (2) and (3)

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Adil Soz

Location: Kazakhstan, Almaty, Almaty

Additional information:

On the evening of April 20, journalists Vladimir and Nargiz Severny were detained in Almaty. The detention was reported in a video message by the journalists’ children. The events took place in front of their eyes. Several uniformed men and investigators detained the journalists in the Dostyk Plaza shopping center. Nargiz was taken to the police station; Vladimir was detained after he took the children home. According to their son Ratmir, his parents were detained in connection with an extortion investigation. On April 21, the police sent out a message saying that the head of a certain LLP had approached them with a complaint about extortion of money for not publishing negative materials. The journalists were detained while handing over part of the requested money. The day before the detention, Nargiz Severnaya wrote a post on a social network in which she suggested that the Ministry of Defense did not like the sharp criticism of Vladimir Seviaryniy about the army.