Media in EURASIA

Survey by the International Press Institute (IPI), Vienna

IPI director Johann Fritz, panel moderator for a session on the role of the media in Eurasia, said that despite constitutions providing for press freedom in the Eurasian region, laws were not being enforced or were being circumvented.

In a survey of the region’s media, he said Kazakhstan was perceived as one of the most tolerant countries of Central Asia, but such a label was relative.

Intervention by the Ambassador of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

In an intervention in the session on the role of the media in Eurasia, Ambassador Heinrich Haupt, head of the OSCE Centre in Almaty, said:
«Many local media representatives affirm that their working conditions are deteriorating. Authorities kept imposing more and more controls and restrictions on the media to the extent as to seriously threaten their ability to play their vital role of providing broad information and fostering democratic debate.»
He listed some examples, including: «Ministries, state security organs, fiscal police and other administrations, as well as law courts, whose independence is not always guaranteed, tend to impose technical restrictions or excessive financial burdens on critical media, thus obstructing their work and inducing them to practice self-censorship.»

Ambassador Haupt said: «Although the constitution of Kazakhstan guarantees the freedom of expression and prohibits censorship, new legal restrictions, like limitations on the re-transmission of foreign electronic mass media or blocking the accesses to opposition internet web sites are aimed to restrict the work of journalists, often under the pretext of safe-guarding national security.»

«As a result of restrictive policies and measures taken in the last months, almost all critical media have now been silenced and others are subject to an effective self-censorship, which precludes objective coverage of taboo topics like corruption scandals on high political levels.»

«The most disturbing aspect is that there seems to be a tendency to further tighten controls and restrictions.»

But he said that Kazakhstan had the potential to be in the forefront of media freedom in Eurasia «provided her leaders had the political will to play this vital role».

Voices of Dissent

Following a number of questions from the floor from local opposition media, Elisabeth Filippoulis, panelist from ERT, Greece, asked the conference organisers whether they saw a contradiction between a conference on media freedom and the recent closure of newspapers and a television station in Kazakhstan.
Dariga Nazarbayeva replied: «There is no contradiction. The truth is somewhere in the middle. We understand the impatience of our Western colleagues but it is only ten years ago that we started to build a new nation.»

She said that differences between the authorities and the media were not hidden — «opponents are here and speaking out» — and that both sides were learning to deal with each other.

«Let us be patient and build our media on the basis of civilised relations, not just in Kazakhstan but internationally,» she said.

Other Comments on the Media

• «Independence is a nice word and everyone uses it and tailors it to his or her own understanding. We have to define it» — Dariga Nazarbayeva, Khabar Agency.
• «We have to retrain journalists to restore their original role. We are a building block of civil society. We have to do this as a trade union with a social status. We know that if we are not there, 70 per cent of the journalists (in Russia) will earn less than $100 a month» — Vsevolod Bogdanov, chairman, Union of Journalists, Russia.
• «In this day and age it is almost impossible to control the media because, with the internet and satellite television, people will have access to information. I think forces of nature will force countries to have more openness in the media» — Riz Khan, Rizkhan Productions, United States.
• «Democracy is something general and the media is the oxygen. In most post-totalitarian countries, governments and the media shape themselves in a delicate, sensitive way on both sides. We can reach values if we overcome these conflicting points» — Vladimir Rerikh, advisor to the chair of the Board of Directors on Development, Khabar Agency, Kazakhstan.
• «The media is oppositional by nature» — Vladimir Rerikh
• «There is no censorship (in the Russian media) but there is self-censorship. This is a new concept in Russia» — Andrey Kolesnikov, PR director, FKB; member of the Creative Board of the League of Right Political Parties; columnist Izvestiya newspaper (Russia).
• «Freedom of expression is something we have been focusing on so much. But freedom of expression might be different in different countries. Some countries have different levels of development» — Ashot Djazoyan, general secretary, International Journalist Unions Confederation (Russia).
• «We are the vehicles of information. We are not the information» — Yuri Goligorsky, editor, Central Asia and Caucasus Service, BBC World Service.
• «There were aspects of the Soviet press that were terrific. You just had to know how to read it. The question was who is behind this, what is the secret message? These are a very sceptical people» — Anthony Robinson, London Financial Times, founder of Vedomosti, Russia’s independent business newspaper.
• «A market economy can only work if market participants are well informed. Individuals who have freedom in the market place to make choices also demand freedom in political life» — Charles Frank, former vice-president European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (UK).