Tag Archives: media freedom

Georgian journalist accuses police of abuse

DEC. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Georgian talk show host, Giorgi Gasviani, accused police of beating him up and threatening him after a minor car accident in snowy conditions in Borjomi, northern Georgia. Media quoted Mr Gasviani as saying that he was attacked by a drunk off-duty policeman after his car slid on an icy road. Georgia’s police force is often held up as the model transformation from a corrupt institution to a far more open and respected unit. The interior ministry said it has launched an investigation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)

Kazakhstan introduces new law for broadcasters

DEC. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — New legislation in Kazakhstan will mean that from January 2017 all foreign TV stations planning on broadcasting programmes from the country will have to have a registered office, media quoted Kazakhstan’s information minister, Dauren Abayev, as saying. The move is seen as yet another way for Kazakhstan to increase its control of the media.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Tajikistan strips 6 RFE/RL reporters of accreditation

NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said that the Tajik authorities had stripped six of its reporters of their accreditation after the news agency published a story criticising the promotion of President Emomali Rakhmon’s daughter to a senior foreign ministry position.

Mr Rakhmon has a reputation for promoting his friends and family to high positions in the Tajik government and some analysts have said that he is setting up his son, Rustam Emomali, to take over the presidency from him. Mr Rakhmon has changed the constitution to scrap minimum age limits for presidential candidates.

Earlier this year Rukhshona Rahmonova, his daughter, was made an MP and now she has been appointed the deputy head of a department within the foreign ministry.

RFE/RL said that the stripping of its journalists’ accreditation was an attack on the whole agency.

“We are outraged by this action by the Tajik government, which is a blatant attack on our ability to do our jobs as journalists,” it said in a statement on its website.

The media scene for journalists in Tajikistan has been worsening over the past few years. The government has jailed both dissenting journalists and opposition activists.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Police arrests another prominent Kazakh journalist

ALMATY, NOV. 15 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Astana arrested prominent Kazakh journalist Bigeldy Gabdullin for extortion, a charge that his supporters say is fabricated.

Mr Gabdullin is one of Kazakhstan’s most high-profile and influential journalists. He is executive director of the internet-based media company radiotochka.kz and the editor-in-chief of Central Asia Monitor. Both are renowned for being critical of the government and it policies.

The Pen Club, a London-based organisation that promotes writers’ rights, had previously appointed Mr Gabdullin as its representative in Kazakhstan.

“The organization fears he may have been targeted for his reporting critical of government officials,” it wrote in a press statement. “It is calling for him to be released unless clear evidence of a criminal offence is made available and he is charged and tried promptly and fairly in accordance with international fair trial standards.”

Earlier this year, a court in Astana also sentenced Seitkazy Matayev, a former press secretary to Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev and head of the National Union of Journalists in Kazakhstan, to six years in prison for financial crimes.

Journalists in Kazakhstan said that conditions to operate freely have rarely been as bad. Earlier this year, the government created a new information ministry. One of its first acts was to introduce rules for the media which journalists said are designed to stifle free speech.

At a meeting set up to reassure journalists, Dauren Abayev, the minister for information and communication, said the rules were not designed to crush free speech but instead to improve quality.

“The whole system will be improved. There was done a lot of work before we brought up this bill for discussion,” he was quoted as saying by media.

“It is not a crackdown but instead has been done for the end-user, for the citizens of the country.”

Journalists were less impressed.

A journalist from the vlast.kz website said: “The adoption of new amendments might significantly complicate the work of journalists, and with the recent arrests and verdicts it is hard to imagine how this can end well for journalism in Kazakhstan.”

Another anonymous journalist said that the rules and requirements had gotten so complicated that it was difficult to decipher how to avoid being sanctioned and that the new requirements had undermined independent journalism in Kazakhstan.

“There is almost no independent media left. And indifference of the majority of journalists to this legislation is very demonstrative,” she said.

“They know that nothing depends on them. If they open their mouths, they will be fired. Only those who still write or try to write freely are resisting it.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)

Uzbekistan detains German reporter

NOV. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Almaty-based Edda Schlager, a German freelance journalist, was deported from Uzbekistan for working without accreditation. Uzbekistan severely limits accreditation for foreign journalists and Ms Schlager admitted that she had been working as a journalist on a tourist visa. International interest in Uzbekistan has increased since the death in September of Islam Karimov, who ruled the country since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)

HRW condemns assault in Turkmenistan

NOV. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned an assault on Turkmen journalist Soltan Achilova, who had also been briefly detained and questioned by the police. In a statement, HRW said that the October attack on Ms Achilova, who works for US- funded RFE/RL, had been organised to silence criticism.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Tajikistan bans newspaper

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik Indem think tank suspended the print edition of its Nigoh newspaper under pressure from the authorities. The independent media scene has shrunk in Tajikistan in recent years. Nigoh was known for its support of the now banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Kyrgyzstan increases film control

OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz government has increased its ability to ban films considered pornographic or too violent, media reported. Human rights group have said they are worried that the new laws could be used for political reasons but family groups have welcomed the tighter control that the state will have over film releases in cinemas and on television.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Azerbaijan jails for 10 years activist who graffitied Heydar Aliyev statue

OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Baku sentenced a 22-year- old activist to 10 years in jail after he sprayed anti-government slogans on a statue of former president, Heydar Aliyev.

Giyas Ibrahimov was arrested with fellow activist Bayram Mammadov in May 2016, hours after a photo of the graffiti was posted on Facebook. Both were later charged with drug possession although the men said that these were bogus and were politically motivated.

Opposition groups have said that the authorities wanted a particularly heavy sentence against Ibrahimov because of the sensitivity of defacing a state of Heydar Aliye, father of current president Ilham Aliyev.

Before he was led away at the end of his trial, Ibrahimov was defiant “We didn’t violate any law, we violated the rules of a corrupt system,” he said.

Mr Mammadov, who was arrested with Ibrahimov, is still waiting for his case to be heard.

Erkin Gadirli, academic and member of the opposition REAL movement told The Conway Bulletin that President Aliyev would have taken the defacing of the statue personally.

“The punishment was so severe in order to teach a lesson to other activists,” he said.

The court’s verdict was also rare because the judge handed out a longer jail sentence than the prosecution had asked for. The prosecutor had asked for nine years but Ibrahimov was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Just hours after the verdict was passed, slogans of solidarity and support for the jailed activist started appearing on Baku’s streets. Importantly for the authorities, though, none of the many symbols and statues of Heydar Aliyev were defaced.

Others, though, thought the sentence was justified.

“I am against random street graffiti. As far as I know Giyas has been arrested on a drug charge,” Seda Huseyn wrote on a blog. “Anyway, what’s the point of slogan-scribbling? It works for the interests of human rights defenders. They use Giyas for their filthy ambitions like receiving grants from abroad.”

Europe and the US have criticised Azerbaijan during the past few years over its treatment of opposition activists. It’s likely that Ibrahimov’s case will generate more criticism of the Azerbaijani authorities

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Azerbaijani court releases Huseynov

OCT. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Baku released Javid Huseynov, an Azerbaijani international football player jailed at the end of May for links to the killing of a journalist in 2015. Initially sentenced to four years in prison for obstructing justice, Mr Huseynov was freed after an appeal. A group of people linked to Mr Huseynov beat Rasim Aliyev, a journalist, to death after he had criticised Mr Huseynov’s behaviour.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)