Published on 1 June 2009
10 February 2010 - Court climbdown interrupts latest government offensive against media
13 January 2010 - Despite heading OSCE, Kazakhstan continues to suppress free expression
23 October 2009 - Newspaper editor’s three-year jail term confirmed on appeal
President Nazarbayev has done nothing to improve his record as a predator of press freedom since his reelection for another seven years in 2005 with 91 per cent of the vote. Any insult to his reputation and dignity has been made punishable by a prison term and he has amended the law to tighten registration of media outlets and make it easier to shut down opposition papers. Journalists employed by newspapers that have been closed down are banned from working for three years.
When US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visited Kazakhstan in 2005, Nazarbayev told her: “We are in favour of freedom of expression inasmuch as a society in transition can allow it.” This clearly explains why Radio Free Europe’s English and Kazakh-language websites were inaccessible for more than six weeks. And why the National Security Committee hounded the editor of a weekly in late 2008 to get him to reveal his source for an embarrassing story. Internal power struggles continue to take their toll on the media. The country’s most popular blog platform, for example, was closed after the president’s disgraced former son-in-law used it to launch his own online newspaper.
He is the editor of Erk, the last opposition newspaper in Uzbekistan until it was banned by the authorities in 1993, and he was jailed on 18 August 1999 in the wave of repression after the failed assassination attempt on President Islam Karimov in Tashkent on 16 February 1999.
