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).
You are set to
discuss the agenda of a possible OSCE summit to take place in Astana later this
year. Given Kazakhstan’s
failure to meet its OSCE commitments regarding human rights and press freedom,
CPJ calls on you to
make Kazakhstan’s
press record a main focus of the summit’s agenda.
Halfway into its OSCE chairmanship, Kazakhstan is holding at least
one journalist and one prominent human rights activist in prison in retaliation
for their work; at least two independent newspapers have been shut down under
government pressure; censorship has crept up into the only remaining oasis for
free expression, the Internet; and the state has continued to use bureaucratic
pressure—including politicized audits on printing houses—to stifle independent
coverage.
Kazakhstan made commitments in November
2007 in Madrid
to improve conditions for the press in the months preceding its
assumption of the OSCE chairmanship. Specifically, then-Foreign Minister Marat
Tazhin told the OSCE’s 15th Ministerial Council that Astana was committed
to bringing Kazakhstan’s
media laws in line with international standards; he singled out the need to
decriminalize libel.
Almost
three years later, not only has Kazakhstan
not decriminalized libel but President Nursultan Nazarbayev has signed into law
new, restrictive Internet and privacy bills. One equates Internet sites—including
personal blogs, chat rooms, and social networking sites—with traditional media,
subjecting them to the same restrictions. The vaguely worded privacy law chills
critical reporting on government officials by carrying penalties that include
closing media outlets and imprisoning journalists.
Despite an
international outcry against the new restrictions, Kazakh authorities announced the creation of the Service to
React to Computer Incidents under Kazakhstan’s main state communications
regulator, known by its acronym AIS. Kuanyshbek Yesekeyev, then head of AIS,
told the Kazakh Parliament in March that the service had begun checking
“destructive” websites. Yesekeyev mentioned the existence of “black
lists” but failed to clarify which sites were on them or how a site qualifies as “destructive.” Attempts by local journalists and media groups to receive
further information about this newly created service and its purpose have gone unanswered.
Meanwhile, the
website of the embattled independent weekly Respublika
remains inaccessible to the majority of Internet users in Kazakhstan. The site, which publishes
criticism of Kazakh authorities and investigations on sensitive subjects such
as official corruption and nepotism, is accessible only through proxy servers
and is forced to rotate Web addresses constantly. Respublika’s case is a good example of the lengths to which Kazakh
authorities go to muzzle alternative information. The paper has had to
re-register under different names 10 times in 10 years to avoid repeated,
official attempts to close it down. The weekly is now close to bankruptcy as a
result of a politically motivated defamation lawsuit brought by a partially
state-owned bank. No printing house would produce the paper for fear of
official retaliation, and an Almaty court banned Respublika’s distribution until it had paid off damages in the
amount of 60 million tenge (about US$400,000) to the allegedly defamed bank. The
paper’s staff currently produces the weekly on office equipment.
In addition to going
after entire independent media outlets, Kazakh authorities have muzzled
individual journalists.
In January 2009, exactly one year
prior to Kazakhstan’s
OSCE chairmanship, authorities seized Ramazan Yesergepov, the ailing editor of
his now-defunct newspaper Alma-Ata Info,
from his bed in an Almaty hospital, where he was being treated for
hypertension. In November 2008, Yesergepov had published two internal Kazakh
security service (KNB) memos, which attested to the agency’s attempts to
influence a prosecutor and a judge in a criminal tax evasion case. Eight months
into his detention, following a closed trial riddled with procedural violations—including
denial of defense counsel, and denial of access to his case file and verdict—Yesergepov
was sentenced to three years in prison for “collecting state secrets.” All of
his appeals have been denied. In June, frustrated at what he saw as inaction in
the face of rights violations in Kazakhstan, Yesergepov wrote an
open letter to the heads of OSCE member states: “In
pursuit of your own interests, you forgot the key function of the once-authoritative
organization and became involuntary accomplices in what goes on in my country
today.”
CPJ has interviewed dozens of
independent journalists who expressed disappointment that the summit could
become a public relations opportunity for Nazarbayev and who emphasized the
conspicuous absence of press freedom and human rights from the summit’s
proposed agenda.
When Kazakhstan
entered the OSCE in January 1992, it
voluntarily accepted all the commitments contained in the organization’s key
documents, including provisions on freedom of the media. But OSCE documents do
not only spell out individual member state responsibilities; they also chart
collective obligations. The Moscow Document of
October 1991, in particular, states that issues of human rights and fundamental
freedoms are not to be treated as internal affairs of one state but as matters
of international concern. The Moscow Document says that participating states
accept those issues as “foundations of the international order,” and they
commit to “fulfill all of their human dimension commitments and to
resolve … any related issue, individually and collectively, on the basis of
mutual respect and co-operation.”
CPJ calls on you to act now and prevent the further
trampling of press freedom and human rights in Kazakhstan. You can start by insisting that a precondition of
holding an OSCE summit in Astana this year is the placement of the current
chair’s press freedom record high on the agenda, and by demanding the
participation of independent journalists, and media rights, press freedom, and
civil society activists in related discussions.
Thank you for your
attention to these urgent matters.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director
https://cpj.org/x/3a59