Kazakhstan

In a reply to CPJ's protest letter regarding the politicized imprisonment of journalist Igor Vinyavsky, Kazakhstan's General Prosecutor's Office said the prosecution wasn't retaliatory nor related to his journalism. CPJ publicly appealed to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev after his country's security service, the KNB, raided Vinyavsky's newsroom and apartment, confiscated reporting equipment, and imprisoned the journalist for two months. The KNB also harassed and interrogated Vinyavsky's family and local journalists who protested against his incarceration.

New York, April 19, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today's attack on a reporter in Kazakhstan and calls on authorities to immediately investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Unidentified assailants shot and stabbed Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a journalist with the independent newspaper Uralskaya Nedelya, in Uralsk, a city in western Kazakhstan, as he returned home from work at around 10:30 p.m., Akhmedyarov's chief editor, Tamara Eslyamova, told CPJ today. Eslyamova said the journalist was in surgery late today.

Igor Vinyavsky, editor of the independent weekly Vzglyad, was freed from a Kazakhstan prison on March 15 on the orders of an Almaty court, according to news reports. The journalist had spent two months in pretrial detention after being arrested by the KNB, Kazakhstan's security service, news reports said.

The convictions of three men in the 2009 murder in Almaty of prominent Kyrgyz journalist Gennady Pavlyuk was a bright spot in Kazakhstan's otherwise grim press freedom record. The government had yet to reform its media laws in line with international standards, despite its promises to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE. To the contrary, the upper chamber of parliament approved a bill in December requiring international broadcasters to register with the government and imposing limits on foreign content aired by local cable carriers. Editor Ramazan Yesergepov continued to serve a three-year prison term on fabricated charges of collecting state secrets after a local court denied him early release. In November, an Almaty court convicted reporter Valery Surganov on defamation charges stemming from an article alleging police improprieties; the court imposed severe restrictions on his movements as penalty. The cases were a sobering reminder of the cost of critical journalism. In April, President Nursultan Nazarbayev won a fourth term in an election so uncompetitive that he took 95 percent of the vote, according to official results. OSCE monitors criticized the restrictive media climate in the run-up to the vote.

Dear President Nazarbayev: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed by the ongoing crackdown by Kazakhstan's security service, the KNB, against independent journalists. The imprisonment of Vzglyad editor Igor Vinyavsky and interrogations of independent reporters by KNB agents appear to be reprisals for critical reporting on government policies, including a December 2011 confrontation in which authorities killed civilians.

New York, February 2, 2012--The Kazakh security service, or KNB, must immediately cease intimidating Oksana Makushina, deputy editor of Golos Respubliki, and return reporting equipment confiscated today from the independent weekly, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

New York, January 26, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today's court ruling against Igor Vinyavsky, editor of the independent weekly Vzglyad, and calls for his immediate release.

New York, January 24, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the detention by the Kazakh security service, or KNB, of Igor Vinyavsky, editor of the Almaty-based independent weekly Vzglyad, and calls for his immediate release. Vinyavsky was detained in an ongoing crackdown by the KNB on critical media and opposition activists, which also involved a raid on independent broadcaster Stan TV.

New York, December 20, 2011--Authorities in the Mangistau region of western Kazakhstan have attacked and detained independent journalists and blocked access to news outlets to suppress coverage of unrest there, news reports said. The Committee Protect today called on Kazakh authorities to allow the media unfettered access.

Stark regional differences are seen as jailings grow significantly in the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of journalists are held without charge, many in secret prisons. A CPJ special report