OSCE slams lack of media freedom - Kazakh paper
The conditions have worsened in recent years

12/27/2001
BBC Monitoring
Source: Respublika, Almaty, in Russian 13 Dec 01/BBC Monitoring

The conditions under which the media are operating in the Central Asian states have worsened in recent years, the head of the OSCE mission in Kazakhstan told the third Central Asian conference on "Media freedom during the fight against terrorism" in Almaty on 10 December. Another OSCE representative said that there were nevertheless prospects for improvement everywhere except in Turkmenistan, where "there is no freedom of speech of any kind". An Uzbek journalist criticized his peers for only extolling the republic's achievements and said that censorship was "flourishing" in Uzbekistan. A Tajik journalist said that following the deaths of 78 journalists in Tajikistan's civil war, Tajik reporters were reluctant to take risks in covering Afghan events. The following is an excerpt from a report entitled "Does freedom of speech get in somebody's way?" published in the Kazakh newspaper Respublika on 13 December; subheadings added editorially:

The third Central Asian conference "Media freedom during the fight against terrorism" was held in the [former] southern capital [Almaty] earlier this week [10 December]. The conference focused on freedom of speech in the Central Asian region against the background of the Afghan crisis.

Freimut Duve, the OSCE representative on media freedom, stressed that all plans to support media freedom in the region involved Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan - but not Turkmenistan, since "there is no freedom of speech of any kind" in that country. Turkmenistan's development is reminiscent of the cold war, not of democracy in the making. At the same time, the OSCE office in Turkmenistan will try to step up work in 2002 and issue a special report on the state of the media in Turkmenistan.

Censorship "flourishing" in Uzbekistan

In the opinion of Sergey Yezhkov, a journalist of the [Uzbek] Pravda Vostoka newspaper, Uzbekistan has not gone far beyond Turkmenistan [in terms of the state of the media]. Laws and the media exist separately in Uzbekistan. According to the law, there is no censorship in the republic, but in fact, censorship not only exists but is flourishing. And the number of people who are involved in censorship is increasing. Any subject may be banned depending on the situation: poverty, homeless children, freezing pensioners and others. The authorities restrict people in everything with impunity. As for the coverage of the anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan, people in Uzbekistan were totally unaware of the 11 September tragedy even when the entire world was mourning over this.

The question arises, what are journalists doing in Uzbekistan? Most of them are "extolling the republic's achievements". Contests are held annually to select the masters of "extolling". The editorial staff are afraid of losing their status and the material prosperity it gives to them: the official car, flats and other things. Therefore the Uzbek journalist drew the following distressful conclusion: "Today Uzbekistan is continuing to build a classic feudal state with the relevant police regime and democratic decorations for foreign guests. And the situation is unlikely to change as long as this charade of democracy is being played out."

Freedom in doses

According to participants in the conference, it is too early to speak about the development of democracy not only in Turkmenistan but in the other Central Asian countries. What talk of democracy can there be if most politicians and officials at all levels are striving to provide better protection [for themselves] than for ordinary people. And the fact that they come in for more criticism than anyone else is not an argument. It is perfectly legal to do so and this is a kind of professional risk. Therefore when courts deal with cases of payment of fines and compensation, judges have to make sure that these are relevant and proportional since excessive compensation could be viewed as illegal restriction of freedom of speech.

According to Mr Heinrich Haupt [the head of the OSCE mission in Kazakhstan ], the conditions in which the media are currently operating in the Central Asian countries has worsened in recent years. Groups close to the ruling elite are continuing to concentrate on monopolizing the media. Those public figures who are criticized by the media often bring lawsuits against court rulings and demand payment of compensation instead of joining in a public dialogue and discussing publicized facts and opinions.

Power-wielding and fiscal agencies, administrative bodies and courts often impose technical restrictions and excessive fines on media outlets which, in turn, make the work of the media difficult and develop self-censorship in them.

There have even been cases of physical violence. In the opinion of OSCE representatives, restrictions on retransmitting foreign broadcasts and preventing access to opposition web sites on the pretext of guaranteeing national security are also aimed at limiting the freedom of journalists.

Progress in Tajikistan

Commenting on the work of the media in the conditions of the aggravated conflict [war in Afghanistan], Turgun Dikayev, a journalist of the Tajik Asia-Plus information agency, noted that the retribution campaign was not the only way of solving the problem. The tragedy could have been avoided had the international community not remained deaf to and had shown solidarity with [earlier] calls by Tajikistan to the effect that the country was not able to tackle extremism and terrorism on its own.

People in Tajikistan understand that journalists should cover all the events taking place in the country, however, in practice, it is not always possible to do so. Tajikistan was a conflict zone recently and the number of journalists killed in this "never-ending war" [the 1992-1997 Tajik civil war] reached 78, and their families are receiving allowances that are equivalent to 87 cents. Having gained experience of working in military conflicts, journalists now do not want to run the risk of being in the forefront in order to cover the Afghan war.

However, Dikayev believes that progress has been achieved in terms of both quality and quantity in the development of journalism in Tajikistan compared, with the situation in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Tajik journalists have a qualitative basis, but laws run counter to each other since they were adopted at different times. Now, with support from the OSCE, work is being carried out to draw up a new draft law on the media. In conclusion, the Tajik journalist said that the press and the [Tajik] government were eternal rivals, which is why a weak government wants to establish control over the media. The Tajik government is now gaining strength, and therefore it has to tolerate any criticism.

Journalistic ethics

The participants in the conference also discussed whether there is a need to adopt a professional code of honour for journalists. Haupt believes that supporting a code does not contradict the development of freedom of speech. Many countries have documents defining ethical principles. They contain the following principles: "to search for truth and publicize it," "to reduce harm to a minimum," "to act independently" and "to be responsible for one's words" and these documents reflect the ethical obligations of the media which promote freedom of speech but make journalists responsible for their work. At the same time, Haupt noted that independent professional organizations which can guarantee the professionalism of their staff should draw up and introduce such documents, not state administrative bodies.

[Passage omitted: a deputy of the Majlis, the lower chamber of parliament, Tatyana Kvyatkovskaya, believes that journalists need a code of ethics; the former Kazakh deputy prime minister, Dzhandosov, says that a code is an optional document]