KAZAKHSTAN
MAY 4, 2005
Posted: May 17, 2005
Respublika Delovoye Obozreniye
CENSORED
The Kazakh Culture, Information, and Sports Ministry ordered the closing of the leading opposition weekly Respublika Delovoye Obozreniye (Republic Business Review).
Galina Dyrdina, the weekly's deputy editor, said the paper would appeal the May 4 closure order in court. The order contained no explanation of the reasons behind the closure, the weekly's staff said.
The newspaper's lawyer, Sergei Utkin said the ministry has no legal authority to order the shuttering. He said Kazakh law allows only the newspaper's owner or a court with proper jurisdiction to close down a publication, according to the news agency Interfax.
The order stems from a civil lawsuit against the weekly's owner, the Bastau company, which was also ordered closed, Oksana Makushina, a Respublika Delovoye Obozreniye staffer, told CPJ in a telephone interview. The lawsuit, in turn, stemmed from an interview with Kazakhstan-born Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky that was published January 20 in Respublika Analitichesky Yezhenedelnik (Republic Analytical Weekly), an supplement of the newspaper.
Zhirinovsky criticized the delineation of the Kazakhstan and Russia border, questioned Kazakhstan's legitimacy to statehood, and denied the existence of the Kazakh language.
In March, the Information Ministry filed a civil suit at the Almaty economic court against Bastau, accusing the company of inciting ethnic hatred by publishing the interview. Bastau lost the suit and was ordered closed. The company appealed, but last week the Almaty city court upheld the economic court's verdict.
In an effort to save the paper by legally separating from Bastau, Makushina told CPJ that Respublika Delovoye Obozreniye had changed owners in March. It informed the Information Ministry about the change prior to the lawsuit, Makushina said, but the Ministry never acknowledged receiving the information.
Some observers commented that the move to close down Respublika Delovoye Obozreniye—one of the few Kazakh publications to criticize President Nursultan Nazarbayev—was an attempt to silence the popular weekly ahead of presidential elections due in December.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
Posted October 17, 2005
Epokha
Svoboda Slova
Zhuma-taims
Apta.kz
Azat
Soz.
CENSORED
Six newspapers that have covered an opposition candidate's presidential campaign were prevented from publishing their current editions, according to local and international press reports. Managers at the private printing company Vremya-Print in the financial capital of Almaty refused to explain why they would not publish Epokha, Svoboda Slova, Zhuma-taims, Apta.kz, Azat, and Soz.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his allies routinely pressure private printers not to publish independent newspapers, and they regularly stifle critical news reporting with politicized lawsuits and criminal investigations, according to research by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Nazarbeyev, who has ruled for 16 years, is running against Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, the candidate of the opposition alliance, "For a Fair Kazakhstan," in the December 4 election. The six newspapers, with a combined circulation reported at 400,000, are among the few media outlets that have reported on Tuyakbai's campaign. At least some are sympathetic to his candidacy.
Editors for the newspapers said at a press conference on Monday that other printers were also refusing them services, the Russian service of the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.