Tag Archives: media

Khadija Ismayilova: Investigative journalist

MAY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Beaming from ear to ear, Khadija Ismayilova blinked and smiled. It was Wednesday and Ms Ismayilova’s first taste of freedom after 537 days in prison for charges that she and her supporters have said were politically motivated.

In those 537 days, Ms Ismayilova has been transformed from a journalist known locally for her hard-hitting investigative reports that exposed corrupt schemes linked to President Ilham Aliyev to the international face of the fight for freedom of speech in Azerbaijan.

Her resilience and determination not to back down under intense pressure from the government and other dark forces, including a series of blackmail threats in 2012 linked to sex tapes made of her, won her many admirers in the West.

John McCain, a former US presidential candidate, was among the high- profile list of politicians from around the world who have been campaigning for Ms Ismayilova’s release.

After she was freed he said: “Khadija has played a critical role in uncovering government corruption and holding authorities accountable, and her commitment to freedom of the press and human rights serves as an inspiration for journalists everywhere.”

And this work has been recognised by a string of institutions who have given Ms Ismayilova various awards including the prestigious PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award and the Anna Politkovskaya Award. Both these awards are for reporters who focus on anti-corruption issues and human rights.

And Ms Ismayilova, who turns 40 on May 27, has already said that she plans to continue her work, despite the dangers.

“Regarding my plans for journalism, I am going to continue my investigations,” she said in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio

Liberty. “There is always a lot of work to do in a country like Azerbaijan where corruption is on such a massive scale.”

In Ms Ismayilova, President Aliyev and his cohort of supporters have found a dogged and determined anti-corruption opponent.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Journalists in Kazakhstan go on strike

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Journalists at Kazinform, the Kazakh government’s media outlet, said they would go on a strike on May 21 because of wage arrears, but later called it off. Importantly, strikes at Kazinform are rare. The last recorded strike was in 2010. May 21 was a sensitive date as a popular protest against changes to the land code was planned on the same day. The government stepped in and met the demands of Kazinform journalists.

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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Court in Kazakhstan imprisons critical journalist

ALMATY, MAY 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty sentenced Guzyal Baidalinova, owner and editor of the Nakanune.kz website which is critical of the Kazakh government, to 1-1⁄2 years in jail for libel against Kazkommertsbank.

Baidalinova’s supporters said that the charges against her are politically motivated and show that the authorities in Kazakhstan have little regard for freedom of the press. In a separate case, charges against Seitkazy Matayev, head of the Journalists Union and a former press chief for President Nursultan Nazarbayev were reduced from embezzlement and tax evasion to abuse of trust. He has denied the charges.

The authorities in Kazakhstan have been cracking down on journalists as an economic downturn worsens and ordinary Kazakhs start become increasingly frustrated with their plight.

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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Editorial: Media in Kyrgyzstan

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Just days after Western human rights lobby groups had cheered Kyrgyzstan for dropping a draconian draft law that would have hindered NGO activity in the country and cut their funding, Kyrgyz MPs reminded the world that they are still ready to restrict freedoms.

Lawmakers said they dropped the NGO law because it would have harmed the economy, since many NGOs in Kyrgyzstan play the role of partner, or even substitute for the state in poverty reduction, social services and other issues.

Now, though, they will vote on a new bill put forward that bans foreigners from setting up media organisations in the country, or from funding more than 20% of their budget.

This will have repercussions for established news outlets, like AKIpress, KyrTAG, US-funded RFE/RL and Russia’s Sputnik.

This new law could profoundly change Kyrgyzstan’s media environment and, possibly, undermine its freedom. Kyrgyz MPs should do the right thing again and vote it down.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Rights groups accuse Tajik government over internet blackout

MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rights groups accused the Tajik government of blocking several news websites for two days, including Asia Plus and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Tajikistan is building up to a referendum on May 22 on extending the President’s powers, creating a potentially nervy period. Media freedom lobby groups regularly rank Tajikistan as one of the least free countries in the world.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kazakh leader sets up new ministry of information

ALMATY, MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A new information ministry announced last week by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will likely act as a censor and increase government control over the media, journalists and analysts said.

Mr Nazarbayev announced the Soviet-sounding ministry of information at the same time as he said that planned reforms to the land code would be postponed after they sparked a series of protests across the country.

He blamed a lack of public information about the reforms for the protests and said the new ministry would ease the flow of information from government to the people.

Political analyst Aidos Sarym said he thought that Mr Nazarbayev had been genuinely concerned his land reforms plans had been misunderstood.

“Authorities think that protests are just lack of communication. They think that if they will explain ‘properly’ to people, people will take it,” he said. “Nazarbayev understands that he lost his connection to the majority of population.”

But in an opinion piece on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian language website, reporter Svetlana Glushkova said that the government would try to use the new ministry to control social media, one of the few places where some form of free speech still exists in Kazakhstan, more tightly.

“I think the new ministry will increase control over social media, at first. Now you cannot see it [free speech] in TV or newspapers so the real resentment of the people, you will find it only on social media. The truth is there,” she said.

Kuralay Abylgazina, a journalist for a local news agency, agreed. She told the Bulletin that protests against the land reforms had worried the government.

“As of now, the ministry will most likely control content only from government media, but in future it will initiate some laws to regulate press freedom in the country,” she said. “And then we will see if this new government organ is a ministry of censorship.”

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Azerbaijan piles pressure on opposition journalists

APRIL 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Officials in Azerbaijan appear to have reversed a softening of a crackdown on human rights activists and the media.

Meydan TV, an opposition news agency, said that prosecutors had opened new criminal investigation on alleged illegal business activities involving 15 of its journalists, who have been told they cannot leave the country.

The action disappointed civil rights groups who had, only last week, been applauding the Azerbaijani leadership for allowing Leyla and Arif Yunus to leave Baku for the Netherlands. The two human rights activists had been released from prison at the end of last year. They were imprisoned on various charges, including espionage, which their supporters said had been fabricated.

Nina Ognianova, Europe and Central Asia coordinator at the lobby group the Committee to Protect Journalist, said: “We call on officials in Azerbaijan to immediately cease the witch hunt of contributors to the online broadcaster Meydan TV.”

The day after Meydan TV said that prosecutors had opened new cases against 15 journalists, Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court upheld a six year sentence against Murad Adilov, a member of the opposition Popular Front Party arrested in May last year on charges of drug possession.

Relations between the West and Azerbaijan have been strained over the past three years while Azerbaijani officials have increasingly clamped down on the opposition.

It’s become something of a diplomatic quagmire.

Europe needs Azerbaijani gas and the US wants a stable Azerbaijan as an ally to undermine Russia’s dominance in the region. Both, though, loathe Azerbaijan’s recent human rights record.

As for Azerbaijan, the authorities appear to want to be able to crack- down on troublesome opposition activists, journalists and civil rights workers but they also need Europe to help it extract its oil and gas and also to act as a major energy client.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Press freedom worsens in Tajikistan

APRIL 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Reporters Without Borders, an international watchdog for media freedom, said the press environment in Tajikistan has significantly worsened this year. In its annual ranking of countries, Reporters Without Borders said Tajikistan dropped 34 places, the largest overall fall in the table, to 150th place. There are 180 countries in the league table.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

UN urges Kyrgyzstan to release activist

APRIL 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The UN Human Rights Council urged Kyrgyzstan authorities to release Azimzhan Askarov, a political activist arrested in 2010. In July 2015, the US government described Mr Askarov as a political prisoner and awarded him a special human rights award. This sparked an angry reaction from the Kyrgyz government and damaged Kyrgyzstan-US relations.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Kazakhstan blocks Tumblr

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s government blocked the blogging platform Tumblr because of concerns it was being used by Islamic extremists to recruit and groom young men to join the radical IS group in Syria and Iraq. Kazakh media quoted security forces as saying that IS used Tumblr to build its various propaganda websites. Governments in Central Asia have been accused of being a soft-touch for IS recruiters.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)