Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

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OSCE must put Kazakh press freedom on summit agenda

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…

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CPJ's Ognianova, center, leads a briefing Tuesday in Vienna. With her are, left, Anthony Mills of the International Press Institute and CPJ's Jean-Paul Marthoz. (CPJ)

A top Kazakhstan diplomat pledges press reforms

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…

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Berlusconi finds a wiretap bill more difficult to pass than expected. (AP/Riccardo De Luca)

In Italy, vote postponed on Berlusconi’s ‘gag law’

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is leaving for vacation in a very bad mood. On Thursday, the House of Deputies, although dominated by Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, decided to postpone until September its vote on a wiretap bill that had been considered a bellwether by a government wracked by internecine wars and confronted with ominous poll…

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OSCE summit should address Kazakhstan press record

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. 

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CPJ asks OSCE to put Kazakh press freedom on agenda

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).

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CPJ testimony: Threats to free media in the OSCE region

Kazakhstan, the current chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, has failed to live up to its press freedom commitments, CPJ’s Muzaffar Suleymanov told the Congressional Helsinki Commission in Washington today.

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Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, left, and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev at a November economic conference. (AP/Sergei Grits)

In bad company: Kazakhstan takes page from Belarus

Belarus has been termed Europe’s last dictatorship because of its long intolerance of dissent and press freedom. So accustomed is the world to the clampdowns of President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime that neither a recently issued decree on Internet access, which requires that providers record users’ personal data, nor last week’s police raids at a number…

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Embattled Kazakh weekly paralyzed by damages

New York, March 9, 2010—Kazakh authorities should immediately lift their ban on the distribution of the independent weekly Respublika-Delovoye Obozreniye, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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