Kazakhstan: Journalists Appeal to Nazarbayev to Liberalize Media Rules

Kazakhstan's annual Eurasian Media Forum, organized by President Nursultan Nazarbayev's eldest daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, opens in Almaty on April 23. The conference this year is taking place amid controversy in Kazakhstan over planned changes to legislation governing the Internet and concerns over the reporting environment in general.

The draft amendments to Internet legislation, drawn up by the Information Technology and Communications Agency, are set for their first reading in the lower house of parliament, the Mazhilis, on April 29. Proponents of the bill say the amendments are needed to protect people's rights and establish provisions to fight the propagation of terrorism, extremism, and pornography. Opponents say the changes are overly restrictive. For example, the draft legislation effectively classifies blogs, forums, and chat rooms in the Kazakhstan domain as media outlets, thereby subjecting them to strict oversight and making Internet users answerable for comments posted online.

Three days before the opening of Kazakhstan's annual media jamboree - where international guests discuss issues facing global journalism -- prominent members of the journalistic community sent an open letter to Nazarbayev, which they also planned to hand him in person at the forum. In it, they ask for a meeting to discuss Internet legislation and other issues facing the media.

"The principles of democracy proclaimed in our Constitution -- the ban on censorship and the guarantee of freedom of speech -- are being undermined by state bodies which are supposed to uphold these principles," the letter said.

"We have the right to decide what to read [online] and how to assess things," Tamara Kaleyeva, president of the Adil Soz (Free Speech) foundation and a signatory to the letter, said at a news conference in Almaty on April 20. "We are not cattle, after all."

The planned legal changes have sparked the For a Free Internet! campaign, which has organized flash mobs and protests against the proposed legislative changes. "These amendments do not only threaten the independent media but also those who engage in civic journalism. ? If this law is adopted, those who want to express virtual protest will not be able to," Yevgeniya Plakhina, a member of the campaign's initiative group, told EurasiaNet.

Yuri Mizinov, editor-in-chief of the Zonakz.net news website, says the new legislation does not address a host of unregulated issues facing Internet media outlets in Kazakhstan, ranging from the suspected blocking of sites to hacker attacks. Zonakz.net is among those sites that have experienced periodic accessibility problems in recent months, which has led opposition parties to appeal for an investigation. Prime Minister Karim Masimov responded by ordering officials to investigate and offered one of the newspaper websites facing difficulties, Respublika, to post an issue on his blog. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

On April 16 Chairman of the Information Technology and Communications Agency Kuanyshbek Yesekeyev placed the responsibility for ensuring access to websites firmly on the sites themselves, saying administrators should establish appropriate security measures to prevent attacks. "We do not block sites," he insisted. Adil Soz registered 12 cases of blocked or limited access to websites in Kazakhstan in 2008.

The controversy comes with the country in the middle of a drive to expand e-government. Masimov launched a blog earlier this year and ordered officials to follow suit, which they have largely done.

Journalists are concerned not only about Internet regulation but also about the general media climate. They complain of excessive litigation, holding up as a case-in-point the Taszhargan newspaper, ordered earlier this year to pay $200,000 in damages to a parliamentary deputy in a libel suit that led to a protest from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Overall, according to Adil Soz, plaintiffs sought over $14 million in damages from journalists in libel-related cases in 2008, even as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) -- which Kazakhstan will chair in 2010 -- continued to call vainly for libel to be decriminalized.

In the face of the OSCE's long-standing calls for the de-monopolization of Kazakhstan's media market, the Nur Otan party led by Nazarbayev, along with the Samruk-Kazyna state fund, recently set up the Nur Media group, which owns influential outlets such as Astana TV, NS radio, and the Liter and Aykyn newspapers.

In an awkward coincidence that highlights the tense media environment, the trial of Ramazan Yesergepov, editor of independent weekly Alma-Ata Info, on charges of publishing classified material, is scheduled to open the same day as the media forum. His arrest in January, when he was seized from his hospital bed, sparked protests from media freedom bodies including the International PEN organization.

In another high-profile case, Tokbergen Abiyev, who runs the corruption-exposing Antikorruptsionniy Vestnik newspaper, was sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty last year of attempted bribery. In March, he had another three years added to his sentence for failing to pay damages.

The Culture and Information Ministry was not immediately available for comment on planned changes to legislation or on the general media environment. But administration officials regularly affirm their commitment to freedom of expression.

Kazakhstan has gone some way toward meeting liberalization pledges to the OSCE. OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklos Haraszti has welcomed recent reforms, but has also called for more action, saying the current legislative base "still fails to meet several international standards."

With eight months left before Kazakhstan assumes the helm of the OSCE, the journalists lobbying to meet Nazarbayev are hopeful they can persuade him of the need to liberalize the media environment. Recalling approvingly how he vetoed a controversial media law in 2004, they are now calling for "really progressive reform of media legislation in the interests of the whole of society."