Four Kazakh residents have been held administratively liable for spreading false information on social media about an emergency in the Mangystau Region, reports infohub.kz.
According to police, two women with the initials D.S. and G.S. posted on Facebook about a serviceman identified as A.A. They claimed that the man had allegedly swum to shore on his own, saved a drowning comrade, and that the circumstances of the incident and his action were being deliberately concealed.
During the investigation, D.S. explained that she had received this information from distant relatives. G.S. stated that she had found the information on social media and posted it on her page without verifying its accuracy.
The Ministry of Defense officially refuted these reports. According to the ministry, during the exercises A.A. was on shore carrying out assigned training tasks. A conscript sailor, M.Ә., was with him. Both servicemen continue their service at their military unit.
Police also identified a resident of Shymkent, S.K., and a resident of Kokshetau, K.O., who spread false information about the incident. The woman reported on Facebook that another serviceman had allegedly died, that pressure was being put on his relatives, and that demands had been made to hand over money. The man published false information about the death of another serviceman in the Mangystau Region.
The court held all four citizens administratively liable. They were fined 20 monthly calculation indices each.
Police reminded that republishing others' materials and citing a third-party source do not exempt a person from liability for spreading unverified information.
Earlier, Kursiv wrote that blogger Irina Antonenko from Petropavlovsk received 10 days of administrative arrest after a live stream on a day of mourning for 14 servicemen who died during exercises in the Caspian Sea. In response to an editorial inquiry, police said her actions were classified as petty hooliganism.