Yevgeny Zhovtis

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.

Dear President Obama: In advance of your April 12 meeting in Washington with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, we’d like to draw your attention to the deteriorating press freedom conditions in Kazakhstan. Unchecked violence and the arrest of independent reporters, politicized prosecution and harassment of critical outlets, and draconian media and Internet regulation laws tarnish the record of the current chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).