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KAZAKHSTAN
The Constitution and the 1991 Press and Media law provide
for freedom of the press, but the Government closed or
otherwise harassed much of the independent media. A
new law on national security passed in June gave the
General Prosecutor of the Republic the authority to
suspend the activity of news media that undermine
national security. Following the government
decision in October to call early presidential elections,
many members of the independent media reported government
pressure not to cover opposition candidates. In
late April, the General Prosecutor publicly charged that
10 newspapers violated the Press and Media Law, although
the Minister of Information publicly opposed the action
and none of the cases came to trial. The Government
continued to own and control most printing and
distribution facilities and to subsidize periodicals,
including many that supposedly were independent.
The potential for government control and widespread
belief that the Government was cracking down on
independent media resulted in widespread media
self-censorship. The key subject considered
“off limits” by journalists was personal
criticism of the President and his family. The
press generally was permitted to criticize government
decisions, official corruption, and the powerlessness of
the Parliament.
In September
the Ministry of Justice issued an order revoking the
legal registration of the Russian-language opposition
newspaper Twenty-First Century (XXI Vek). The
official notice delivered to the publisher gave no reason
for the revocation. The notice arrived 2 days after
an unknown person tossed a firebomb into the
newspaper’s office. The day before the
firebombing, Twenty-First Century had published extensive
coverage of the arrest of Mikhail Vasilenko, an advisor
to former prime minister Kazhegeldin (see Section
l.d.). Ministry of Justice officials subsequently
notified Twenty-First Century that they would take no
immediate action to enforce the order closing down the
newspaper, which continued to publish at year’s end
although the order revoking its registration has not been
withdrawn.
In July tax
police raided the offices of the only national
Kazakh-language opposition newspaper, Dat.
(“Dat” is a Kazakh language expression used
after interruptions to mean, “let me
speak”). Tax police allegations of financial
irregularities against Dat did not appear credible.
According to a press release issued by Dat, tax agents
acting without a required warrant seized the
newspaper’s computers, records, and payroll
money. The press release suggested that the
newspaper closed because it regularly published articles
exposing government corruption and criticized the
President and his family.
On November 4,
Dat was raided again by the customs police and the
Internal Affairs Police (MVD), who seized all copies of
the current week’s edition as well as leftover
previous editions. The pretext for the raid was
that the paper allegedly had failed to file a customs
declaration for the current issue when it was brought
from Russia. When the editor-in-chief produced the
customs declaration later that day, the MVD changed its
tactics. It charged that since the newspaper had
not paid a $500,000 (35 million tenge) civil judgment for
“publication of false information” about the
President of the state television station KAZ-1, it was
authorized to seize all available copies of the newspaper
and other newspaper assets. The court reportedly
levied 5 million of the 35 million tenge judgment against
the editor-in-chief personally. As a result, on
October 22 the tax police and militia sealed his
apartment and impounded his personal property until his
portion of the civil judgment was paid. Dat filed
an appeal to revoke the judgment. On December 3, a
court ordered Dat to close following the newspaper’s
failure to pay its fine. The judgment was issued in
favor of the President of the Kazakhstan 1 Television and
Radio Corporation, who alleged that Dat had slandered him
by publishing a transcription of a Radio Liberty
interview in which a former Kazakhstan 1 employee accused
him of embezzlement.
In early
November in Astana, the customs office seized all copies
of the current issue of the independent newspaper
Center. After the seizure, Center was subjected to
a series of inspections by the tax and customs offices
and the Ministry of Information. The Ministry first
charged that the newspaper officials had not filled out
the customs declaration properly and then said that they
failed to fill out a special form for importing newsprint
from Russia. Throughout November the
editor-in-chief and staff members of Center received
threats of death and violence.
On December 8,
two assailants beat a visiting German journalist, Minette
von Krosigk, and a Kazakhstani colleague, shortly after
they returned to Almaty from a reporting trip to
Kurchatov and Semipalatinsk. The assailants took
von Krosigk’s camera equipment and the film and
notes that she had taken during the trip. Von
Krosigk had been investigating the continuing medical and
social effects of nuclear testing carried out near
Semipalatinsk during the Soviet era. During her
trip, von Krosigk reportedly collected information about
the current disposition of hazardous nuclear
materials. The attack on von Krosigk and her
colleague, and the theft of their journalistic materials,
might have been motivated by official concern over her
reporting, but the evidence is inconclusive.
According to
credible observers in the independent press and human
rights community, in June the tax authorities coerced the
owners of the independent Karavan media
group—composed of the Karavan newspaper, KTK
television station, and the Franklin Press
publisher—into selling the group to business
interests closely associated with the President.
Several months after the sale, three independent
newspapers reported that Franklin Press, previously
Kazakhstan’s only independent newspaper publisher,
doubled the price of newsprint and cancelled its
contracts with the newspapers. The newspapers all
sought new publishing contracts outside Kazakhstan with
mixed success. By autumn the Government ordered
customs officials to seize any newspapers coming from
Kyrgyzstan. Some newspapers are being printed in
Russia.
In April the
General Prosecutor announced that the Russian-language
newspapers Tselina, Lad, Rabochnaya Zhizn, Communist,
Azamat Times, Karavan, Kazakhskaya Pravda, and Biz-My
would receive subpoenas to appear before the
police. Among reasons given for the subpoenas was
“imprecise coverage” of strikes in 1997.
In June the General Prosecutor announced indictments
under the Law on Press and Mass Media against Karavan,
Kazakhskaya Pravda, and Biz-My, as well as the Kazakhstan
edition of the Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty.
The General Prosecutor cited articles about relations
between Kazakhs and ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan and an
article that allegedly violated the privacy of prominent
persons as bases for indictments. No further action
on these cases had been taken by year’s end.
In October the Government brought criminal charges of
inciting interethnic ethnic discord, which carry a
possible sentence of 7 years imprisonment, against
opposition leader Petr Svoik for his newspaper article
about relations between ethnic Russians and
Kazakhs. Subsequently the case was suspended
indefinitely.
In November
guards at an army base in Almaty destroyed the equipment
of two crews from the independent KTK television station
who were attempting to enter the base to report on a
recruit’s suicide.
The newspaper
Economika Segodnya, which came under government pressure
in 1997 for publishing criticism of the President, closed
following the emigration of its editor-in-chief.
The Communist Party’s national newspaper, which the
Government closed in 1997, has not been able to resume
publication.
About 80
percent of newspapers are subject to direct government
control. All daily newspapers are
government-run. There are also a large number of
newspapers that are produced by government ministries,
for example, Kazakhstan Science, published by the
Ministry of Science. However, many newspapers
receive a government subsidy, including about 90 percent
of Kazakh language newspapers, although most of these
would call themselves independents. Therefore,
including newspapers that receive subsidies, about 80
percent of newspapers are government-run. Each
major population center has at least one independent
weekly newspaper. There are seven major independent
newspapers in Almaty.
The Government
controls nearly all broadcast transmission
facilities. Independent television and radio
stations were threatened with closure or nonrenewal of
their broadcast licenses. On June 17, the Minister
of Information said, in the context of new frequency
auctions, that it would be necessary to close certain
stations or refuse to renew their broadcast licenses, if
they were not in conformity with the rule requiring 50
percent Kazakh language content in broadcasting. At
that time, reportedly no stations (government or private)
met the 50 percent Kazakh requirement, but the threat of
nonrenewal was directed at a few, out-of-favor
independent stations.
There are 35
independent radio and television stations. Twelve
of these are in Almaty. In November 1996, there
were 57 independent stations in the country; 8 were in
Almaty. Of the 26 stations that went out of
business in 1997, half closed due to government auctions
of radio and television frequencies. The other 13
went bankrupt before the auctions began or joined forces
with other broadcasting companies to compete in the
auctions. There are only two government-owned,
combined radio and television companies; however, they
represent five channels and are the only stations that
can broadcast nationwide. Regional governments own
several frequencies; however, independent broadcasters
have arranged with local administrations to use the
majority of these. An Association of Independent
Electronic Media of Central Asia (ANESMI) exists, but it
is fractured and weak.
The Government
continued to auction radio and television broadcast
frequencies. A change in rules allowed the
Government to award a frequency in cases where only one
bidder participated in an auction; a minimum of two
bidders was required previously. Many members of
the independent media and human rights activists believed
that the Government used the auctions to harass and even
eliminate independent media. High minimum bids
required by the Government deterred many small
independent broadcasters from competing for frequencies,
particularly in the provinces. Auctions of
frequencies this year, however, reportedly appeared to be
based on merit. Nevertheless, the Minister of
Information, who chairs the commission, effectively can
impose his decisions at any time.
There was no
further action by the Prosecutor General concerning the
legality of the frequencies auction in 1997, given the
absence of a response from the Prime Minister to the
Prosecutor’s request for a ruling on the law guiding
the auctions. There was no law passed on the tender
procedures during the year.
The only
independent electronic media in Shymkent, the television
station Otyrar and radio station Umax, were threatened
with closure for failing to comply with the 50 percent
Kazakh language requirement imposed by the Press and
Media Law. Application of this law, which generally
is not enforced, against the stations appeared arbitrary,
especially since the stations broadcast more Kazakh
language programming than most other stations.
According to credible although unverified reports, owners
of these stations and other media might have been under
legal pressure to sell their outlets to business
interests favorable to the Government.
The
Constitution provides for the protection of the dignity
of the President and the law against insulting the
President and other officials remained on the
books. Labor movement leader Madel Ismailov was
sentenced to 1 year in prison for violating the law (see
Section l.e.). In February a court in Uralsk
convicted three youths—Ainur Kurmanov, Sergey
Kolokolov, and Vasya Nikolayev—of insulting the
honor and dignity of the President after they were
arrested in 1997 for spraying antipresidential graffiti
on a building in Uralsk. Two of the youths, who had
been detained for 5 months, were sentenced to 2½ years
on probation. The third, a minor who had been
released into the custody of his parents, received a
sentence of 1 year on probation.
Several laws
control advertising in the mass media. One law
restricts alcohol and tobacco advertising on television,
as well as “pornography” and
“violence” during prime viewing hours.
Another law restricts advertising in each issue of a
newspaper to 20 percent of the total material. The
Minister of Justice and the Minister of Information have
interpreted this law as restricting paid articles, but
not commercial advertisements.
Academic
freedom is circumscribed. As is the case for
journalists, academics cannot violate certain taboos,
such as criticizing the President and his family.
There were widespread credible reports that universities
and schools coerced faculty, students, and the parents of
schoolchildren to sign nominating petitions for the
reelection campaign of President Nazarbayev. The
Al-Farabi national university in Almaty forced Yelena
Nikitenko, an adviser to opposition presidential
candidate Akezhan Kazhegeldin, to resign from the faculty
in October because of her outside political activities
(see Sections 1.c. and 3). An academic critic
of the Government, Nurbulat Masanov, was not reappointed
to his position in the political science department at
the same university; some independent observers alleged
that government pressure was responsible for the
decision. Course topics and content generally are
subject to approval by the university administration.
Commentary
The following is Jerry Huffman’s testimony to the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe on the
status of media freedom in Kazakhstan on May 6, 1999.
I am the
Central Asian News Advisor for Internews, and I have
worked in Kazakhstan for one year. Internews is an
NGO largely funded by the United States Agency for
International Development. Our mission is to
support independent television stations in more than a
dozen countries around the world including
Kazakhstan. From our headquarters in Almaty we have
worked with the Kazakh media since 1992 and have trained
hundreds of station personnel in everything from
technical issues, to business practices, and news
production.
President
Nazarbaev recently gave an interview to Radio Liberty
where he bragged of the RL’s ability to openly
criticize himself or any aspect of his government.
In reality,
there is very little the President could do if the
station criticized him—but any journalist in
Kazakhstan taking the same risk faces almost certain
harassment and loss of their livelihood. Any
station running a story critical of the President can
count on having their taxes audited, receiving
threatening visits from the security forces, or closure
for any one of a number of trumped-up reasons.
The reality is
the Nazarbaev administration has done everything within
its power to muzzle the independent media in Kazakhstan.
The recent
presidential election provides a clear example:
There were
three rules the media had to follow to be allowed to
operate during the campaign:
No stories
that were critical of the President or his policies.
No stories
that were critical of the President’s family.
No stories
about the opposition candidates.
Internews
received several reports of station managers being called
into local governmental offices and threatened with
closure if any of the rules were violated.
Security
forces routinely called television stations and demanded
rundowns of the previous day’s news coverage.
Internews also had several reports of security forces
dictating “ideas” for news coverage to the
stations.
Any station
that broke the rules could be closed under
Kazakhstan’s language law. It dictates that
50% of all programming broadcast must be in the native
Kazakh language. That level is virtually impossible
to achieve. In fact, our own survey of Kazakhstani
broadcasters stations show none of the stations can
maintain the 50/50 balance including the
government’s own radio and television stations.
Another law
subjects journalists to prison terms if the President is
“insulted.” The truly chilling part of
the law, other than its absurdity, is that there is no
clear definition of what it means to “insult”
the President, nor is does the law contain an exemption
for truth. The vagueness of the statute is clearly
meant to intimidate. And the result of a court
finding the President was insulted is criminal penalties,
not civil penalties (as in the West).
The unwritten
threat is crystal clear. If you follow the
government’s orders you will be allowed to stay on
the air. Buck the system and your station can be
closed on a whim.
The
Kazakhstani government has undoubtedly failed to inform
you of the Nazarbaev family’s attempts not only to
muzzle the independent media, but to purchase the most
successful stations in the country.
Our
information shows that Nazarbaev family members either
own or control the largest television and radio stations,
newspapers, and advertising outlets in the nation.
That power means balanced, critical coverage of the
administration is virtually non-existent.
It must also
be noted that stations controlled by the Nazarbaevs have
not been required to pay the exorbitant licensing fees
extracted from other independent stations. The fact
alone has saved the Nazarbaevs several million
dollars—money that by Kazakhstani law was meant for
the federal coffers.
The
Kazakhstani media is fighting to find its proper place in
society. There are stations succeeding in spite of
the overwhelming obstacles the government puts in their
path. There are stations succeeding in spite of a
poor economy. There are journalists who risk their
careers by pushing the envelope of what is considered
acceptable reporting.
In the short
term there are many steps the Commission on Security and
Cooperation specifically, and the U.S. Congress in
general, could take that would help the Kazakhstani
media:
Pressure the
GOK to either eliminate or dramatically revise the
language law. This sword of Damocles is one of the
biggest threats to independent stations.
Pressure the
GOK to release the several journalists imprisoned on
charges connected to their reporting activities.
Increase the
amount of funding to organizations like ABA/CEELI, NDI,
and IFES to continue developing independent political
systems. They are having an impact within
Kazakhstan.
Increase
funding of Internews. Often the moral support we
provide to a station is as important as the technical
training. Without Internews, we fear many stations
would simply buckle under the sometimes-overwhelming
government pressure.
The
independent media is fighting for survival in
Kazakhstan. It faces nearly overwhelming odds on an
economic level. The pressure brought to bear by the
government is stifling and threatening.
I am appalled
at the public relations war the Nazarbaev administration
is waging to convince U.S. public opinion that it
supports a free media. It does not—and
stations the administration cannot buy or control it is
now attempting to legislate or harass into oblivion.
There is a war
going on in Kazakhstan, and it is centered on news and
information.
I urge the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe to give
us the political support and financial weapons the
independent media in Kazakhstan need to keep fighting.
Jerry Huffman
Central Asian News Advisor, Internews
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