It’s my second link to a report by Hal Roberts (and others at the Berkman Center) in as many days, but I worry that this this detailed document on denial-of-service (DOS) and hacking attacks on independent media and human rights groups might get missed in the holiday season. The news headlines in the last few…
CPJ has documented for several years the use of spurious anti-piracy raids to shut down and intimidate media organizations in Russia and the former Soviet republics. Offices have been shut down, and computers seized. Often, security agents make bogus claims to be representing or acting on behalf of the U.S. software company Microsoft.
New York, November 30, 2010–Heads of state and high-ranking officials representing 55 participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) must urge the current OSCE chair, Kazakhstan, to make good on its press freedom commitments when they meet in Astana for a regional summit this week, the Committee to Protect Journalists…
Kazakhstan is ready to bring its press laws in line with international standards, a top diplomat told a CPJ delegation in Vienna this week. Decriminalizing libel, placing caps on defamation awards, and enacting access-to-information legislation are on the government’s agenda, said Kazakhstan Ambassador Kairat Abdrakhmanov, who is chairman of the permanent council of the Organization…
President Nazarbayev’s government promised reforms in exchange for gaining chairmanship of the OSCE. But the reforms never materialized and now, as a summit approaches in Astana, the OSCE is risking damage to its own reputation. A CPJ special report by Nina Ognianova
In our special report, “Disdaining press freedom, Kazakhstan undermines OSCE,” CPJ details Astana’s broken promises to reform its repressive policies. Here, CPJ’s Nina Ognianova tells the story of one man, imprisoned newspaper editor Ramazan Yesergepov, whose conviction symbolizes the government’s press freedom failures. Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right click here…
New York, July 19, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to place Kazakhstan’s poor press freedom record on the agenda for its summit planned for later this year. Kazakhstan, the OSCE chair, is scheduled to host the summit in its capital, Astana.
Dear Members of the OSCE Ministerial Council: In advance of your July 16-17 meeting at the Ak-Bulak Resort in Kazakhstan, the Committee to Protect Journalists—an independent advocacy group that defends the rights of journalists worldwide—would like to draw your attention to the poor press freedom record of Kazakhstan, the current chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
New York, July 8, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the well-being of Ramazan Yesergepov, the ailing imprisoned editor of the now-defunct independent newspaper Alma-Ata Info, who is on a hunger strike for the third consecutive day in a penal colony in the southern Kazakh city of Taraz.