From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Thu Apr 03 2003 - 09:20:00 EST
Weekly report of events in the mass media of CIS states
Issue no. 13 (63), March 24 - 30, 2003
I. Judicial and Legal Persecutions
Kazakhstan
As became known on March 26, the Almaty City Court held hearings on the
Ministry of Information, Culture, and Public Accord's suit against
Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper Kazakhstan Sergaly Mukhtarbekov. It
should be recalled that last summer the Ministry already held
Mukhtarbekov administratively responsible for some technical violations
and filed a suit on suspending the newspaper for three months. This time
around, technical violations were again the pretext for holding the
newspaper administratively liable. The Ministry claimed that one of the
latest issues of the publication indicated wrong information about its
circulation: while the Ministry claimed that the actual figure was
10,000 copies, the publication indicated it as 13,000. The editorial
office claimed that a bill submitted to the court, which certified the
payment for the printing of 13,000 copies, bore a falsified signature.
Hence, there were no evidence proving that the newspaper published wrong
information on its circulation, according to the defendant.
The court ordered a handwriting identification examination, which
confirmed that the signature on the bill did not belong to a newspaper's
representative, which meant that the order on holding the
editor-in-chief administratively liable had to be invalidated.
However, the judge ordered a new handwriting identification examination.
The second expert conclusion was not shown to the editorial staff.
However, the prosecutor, who based the indictment on this expert
conclusion, suggested that the experts were unable to certainly
establish whether the signature on the bill belonged to a newspaper's
representative or not. Therefore, the prosecutor insisted that the
director of the printing office be trusted as a witness, who said that
the signature belonged to a newspaper's representative. The judge ruled
that holding the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Kazakhstan
administratively liable was legal and did not turn down this ruling.
The Kazakhstan's personnel are sure that the proceedings on suspending
the newspaper's publication for three months will be resumed.
***
The Ministry of Information, Culture, and Public Accord has also
attempted to suspend the release of the newspaper Assandi-Times. On
March 27, judicial hearings were held on a lawsuit by the Almaty
department of the Ministry, which demanded that the newspaper be
suspended for 3 months, claiming that it failed to undergo
re-registration after it changed hands and therefore cannot be
published.
A newspaper's lawyer noted that the law on the media does not provide
clear regulations regarding a publication's masthead during a
re-registration period. The lawyer noted that the ministry itself
violated the law, under which it must either re-register a publication
or deny this within two weeks, while more than a month has already
passed since the newspaper submitted a re-registration application. In
this connection, the editorial staff concludes that the ministry is
seeking to shut the newspaper down on any pretext.
The next court session was scheduled for March 31.
Kyrgyzstan
On March 24, the Bishkek district court held hearings on a suit by
parliament member Doronbek Sadyrbayev against the newspaper Kyrgyzstan's
Word. The parliamentarian charged the newspaper with publishing
incorrect information about his participation in rallies in the city of
Jalal-Abad in the autumn of 2002. Judicial hearings on Sadyrbayev's suit
against the newspaper Evening Bishkek, which published the same
information, were held at the Sverdlovsky district court.
***
According to reports of March 27, journalist Tologon Sulaimanov of the
newspaper Kyrgyzstan Akyikaty was charged with abduction under Article
123 of the Criminal Code. The matter involves Bakyt Chordoyev from the
Pervomaisky city planning organization, who reportedly facilitated
falsifying outcomes of the voting at a polling station during the
national referendum. Tynarbek Kandyraliyev, a senior official from the
Bishkek city investigation department said that, after an investigation,
the abduction charges were brought against member of the Arnamys party
Tynchtybek Dulatov and journalist Tologon Sulaimanov. According to
Kandyraliyev, the journalist has already confessed to committing the
crime, after which he was released under a written pledge not to leave.
Uzbekistan
On March 24, 2003, officers from the Samarkand regional police
department seized and broke a mini recorder belonging to Rohilal
Ochilova, a stringer from the Voice of America radio station. The
recorder contained an audio-tape with records of a rally against the
dismissal of Yusuf Abdullayev from the post of the head of the Samarkand
State Institute of Foreign Languages. The rally in Samarkand on March 24
gathered some 1,000 students and professors, who demanded that
Abdullayev be reinstated in his post.
The journalist said the recorder and the tape were totally destroyed.
"In my opinion, the police were seeking to destroy my records to make it
impossible to broadcast real voices and opinions of the participants in
the picket," Ochilova said.
II. Other Forms of Pressure Exerted on Editorial Offices and
Journalists. Conflicts with Authorities and Political Organizations
Azerbaijan
At a regular session of the national assembly on March 25, parliament
member Karim Karimov branded the opposition newspaper Yeni Musavat and
the magazine Monitor as slanderous and dangerous traitors, which are
seeking only "to insult and malign the country's president and the
father of the nation," Heydar Aliyev. Kerimov praised a number of
articles published by parliamentarian Rizvan Jabiyev in the
pro-government publication Azerbaijan, in which he criticizes Yeni
Musavat and Monitor. Kerimov suggested that Jabiyev's articles be
compiled in a brochure and translated into English, French, and German.
In Kerimov's view, the Azerbaijani version of this brochure should be
distributed among libraries, and the foreign-language versions be sent
to those who "deliberately or mistakenly defend the editors of the
publications, Rauf Arifoglu and Elmar Huseynov."
Armenia
On March 28, the Armenian National Press Club called on all supporters
of freedom of the press to take part in protests against the bill On
Mass Information, which was to be held in front of the parliament
building at 11:30 a.m. on March 31, before the voting on the bill. The
initiators of the rally said the authorities had broken an agreement to
discuss the bill in autumn, when a new parliament is elected, and are
rushing to pass the bill. They also said not a single proposal on
improving the bill, which were put forward by journalistic associations
or media outlets, was taken into account by the initiator of the bill,
the Justice Ministry.
Kyrgyzstan
According to reports from Osh on March 26, the city's only private kiosk
selling printed matter had been shut down with the tacit consent of the
local authorities, in particular, the city architecture office. Ismoil
Akhmedzhanov, the kiosk's owner, claimed that this was the only place in
the city where people could always buy independent publications, which,
in his view, was the reason for shutting it down.
III. Restriction of Access to Information
Azerbaijan
On March 27, Director of the news agency Turan Mehman Aliyev appealed to
the editors of local newspapers to convey his letter to President Heydar
Aliyev through printed media outlets. The letter indicates that
journalists experience great and unjustified difficulties in receiving
and clarifying information with the press services of government
agencies. In Mehman Aliyev's view, the lack of proper interaction with
the press services of government institutions can be attributed to two
reasons: the policy of secrecy pursued by the heads of these
institutions and low professionalism of the personnel of these press
services, who most often are just accidental people in this sphere. As a
result, the state is deprived of the opportunity to explain its
policies, announce its achievements and successes, and provide
informational support of events and processes. To resolve this problem,
Mehman Aliyev suggested the following measures: drafting a new document
regulating the activity of press services, obliging the chiefs of
government institutions and their press services to intensify their
relations with the press, obliging them to hold regular meetings with
the press, etc.
*********************************
Event
Quantity
Attacks on journalists
Journalists killed
Journalists detained and arrested
Legal and judicial persecution 2 - Kazakhstan
2 - Kyrgyzstan
1 - Uzbekistan
1 - Ukraine
Other kinds of harassing editorial boards and journalists 1 -
Azerbaijan
1 - Armenia
2 - Kyrgyzstan
2 -Moldova
1 - Ukraine
Restriction of access to information 2 - Azerbaijan
1 - Armenia
1 - Kazakhstan
2 - Ukraine
Disappeared journalists
Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations
4 Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow 119021, Russia
phone: (+ 7 095) 201-7626; 201-3550 comm. 124
fax: (+ 7 095) 201-7626
e-mail: panfilov@cjes.ru
Web site: www.cjes.ru
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