Earlier this week EurasiaNet.org reported on the trials and tribulations faced by Respublika newspaper, which is often highly critical of President Nursultan Nazarbayev's administration, and the samizdat publishing methods the newspaper uses to reach newsstands.
Now it seems a fresh misfortune has befallen Respublika: The director of the paper’s parent company has gone missing just days after being beaten up and robbed of documents belonging to the newspaper.
Daniyar Moldashev, head of Respublika’s registered publisher, ADP Ltd, was brutally attacked near his home on March 26 after returning from a trip to Moscow to visit Respublika’s editorial office there, deputy editor Oksana Makushina told a news conference in Almaty on March 31.
Moldashev was left with a broken arm and a concussion, and the attackers stole a camera and documents he’d brought from Moscow: items related to the newspaper’s investigative reporting.
Moldashev was supposed to be at home recovering, but since March 29 he’s been unreachable by telephone and isn’t to be found at home, Makushina said.
The only communication from him since then has been an enigmatic call from an unidentified number to the cellphone of a colleague, Guzyal Baydalinova, the evening of March 30. Moldashev said he was, all of a sudden, in Minsk – and then hung up.
In another mysterious twist to the tale, staff in Respublika’s Moscow office suspected that Moldashev was under some sort of surveillance in the Russian capital, Makushina said. The spooks were so amateurish that the Moscow journalists spotted them and even managed to take some photos.
At the Almaty news conference, Respublika’s attorney Sergey Utkin recalled the pressures on the outlet over the years, which have included lawsuits, threats, seizures of print runs, refusals to print the newspaper and a closure order.
Police should get on to Moldashev’s case forthwith, he said: “It’s all very strange and we urge the law-enforcement bodies to investigate the situation immediately.”
Strange indeed, and let’s hope Kazakhstan’s police get to work faster on this case than they sometimes do when crimes are committed against the journalistic community.
Joanna Lillis is a journalist based in Almaty and author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan.
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.