KAZAKHSTAN: DRAFT AMENDMENTS TO MEDIA LAW RAISE CONCERNS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ALMATY 002074



SIPDIS



SENSITIVE



SIPDIS



STATE FOR SCA/CACEN (JMUDGE),SCA/PPD (JBASEDOW),EUR/ACE

(ESMITH/JMCKANE),DRL/PHD (CKUCHTA-HELBLING)



E.O. 12958: N/A

TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KPAO, KDEM, KZ

SUBJ: KAZAKHSTAN: DRAFT AMENDMENTS TO MEDIA LAW RAISE

CONCERNS



Ref: A) Almaty 485, B) Almaty 1750



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1. (SBU) Summary. Political parties and media defense

organizations in Kazakhstan have mounted a public campaign

opposing amendments to Kazakhstan's media law introduced to

the parliament on May 30 by Information Minister

Yermukhamet Yertysbayev. The draft amendments leave open

some legal loopholes to be exploited by opposition media

and impose other measures that could shut down defiant

outlets. The controversy highlights a public feud between

the minister, considered to be carrying out the president's

orders, and the president's eldest daughter and

parliamentarian, Dariga Nazarbayeva. Nazarbayeva has led

the Congress of Journalists in preparing their own revised

draft media law, to be presented to parliament June 14.

Neither the proposed amendments nor the draft law include

the anti-monopoly clauses or simplified registration

procedures desired by Kazakhstan's media defense advocates.

End summary.



2. (U) Following through on plans announced in April to

enforce Kazakhstan's "informational security," Information

Minister Yermukhamet Yertysbayev on May 30 submitted a

package of amendments to the Mazhilis, Kazakhstan's lower

house of parliament. The most controversial amendments

would ban anyone who had previously lost a libel judgment

from being a director of any other medium; allow media

organizations to be closed down for technical violations;

require a government license for printing houses; and

require papers to publish every three months. Media would

have to re-register upon any changes in editor, address, or

frequency of publishing or broadcasting. The amendments

would also impose a deposit of 5,000 monthly calculated

indices as indemnity against potential libel judgments.

(Note: Each MCI is 1,030 tenge; at the current rate of

exchange, 5,000 MCIs is about $39,000.)



3. (SBU) In a meeting May 19 with Helsinki Commission

Deputy Chief of Staff Dorothy Taft, Yertysbayev said the

amendments were intended to improve the quality of

journalism and ensure that only regularly publishing media

would be registered. He said that of the 6,646 currently

registered papers, only 2,438 publish, because under the

current law papers only have to publish once every six

months. He said the irregularly publishing newspapers were

opposition papers that were issued during the 2004

parliamentary and 2005 presidential elections to "slander

and offend the president." He said he wanted to change the

law so the papers publish responsibly and continually,

"like real newspapers."



Rift in Government Solidarity?

--------------



4. (U) Politically diverse parties and media organizations

have come together to publicly condemn the proposed

amendments and urge the parliament to reject them. An

appeal signed by a dozen media groups and disseminated at a

press conference June 5 described the amendments as "a step

backward toward stagnation and totalitarianism" that could

"kill freedom of speech in Kazakhstan" and "disgrace

Kazakhstan in the eyes of the world." The signatories

included the pro-government Union of Journalists, the

Congress of Journalists headed by Asar party leader Dariga

Nazarbayeva, and the media defense organization Adil Syoz

(The Just Word.) The opposition party Ak Zhol, pro-

government Asar, and the unregistered opposition party Alga

released their own statement June 6 calling the amendments

"one more bludgeon" to be used against independent and

opposition media.



5. (U) The 35 to 25 vote in parliament accepting the

amendments for consideration likewise reflected divergent

views. Showing either chutzpah or a wry sense of humor,

Yertysbayev had asked the parliament to "take pity" and

pass the amendments without discussion by June 24, because

the information ministry had had to evacuate their offices

after a fire damaged their building. However, Nazarbayeva,

Asar party member Sergey Kiselyev, and Otan party members

Dariya Klebanova and Amanageldy Taspikhov insisted on



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sending the amendments back to the government for

revisions. Addressing the parliament June 7, Nazarbayeva

said accepting the draft law for consideration would sign

"a death warrant for freedom of speech" in Kazakhstan. The

official news agency Kazakhstan Today reported that a

working group headed by Otan party member Gadilbek

Shalakhmetov would prepare comments on the draft amendments

by October 20 this year.



The Long and Winding Road to a Revised Media Law

-------------- ---



6. (U) The Congress of Journalists, the Information

Ministry, and the media defense group Adil Syoz have spent

several years trying to reach a consensus on a revised

media law. In April 2004, a draft was so widely criticized

that President Nazarbayev vetoed it, after the

Constitutional Council declared it unconstitutional.

Altynbek Sarsenbaiuly, the Information Minister at the

time, then prepared a draft that set limits on libel

claims, abolished criminal libel prosecutions of

journalists, and included significant anti-monopoly

provisions. Dariga Nazarbayeva's Congress of Journalists

submitted a version to the Information Ministry for review

in October 2005. Their draft proposed a one-year statute of

limitations for libel suits and a 5% cap on damage claims,

but lacked anti-monopoly clauses. (Note: Media report that

Nazarbayeva will submit a draft law to parliament on June

14, but it is unclear whether the draft has been changed

since October of last year.)



7. (SBU) Adil Syoz protested publicly in November 2005 that

their suggested additions to the Congress of Journalists'

draft law were ignored, including a ban on media

monopolies. Adil Syoz had also proposed that media should

only have to inform the information ministry to become

registered, and if confirmation were not received with 30

days, they should be able to begin publishing. The ministry

would thus have to respond promptly to new registration

requests and would be unable to ignore - or prevent - the

establishment of new outlets. Another omission concerned

the requirement for immobile, proprietary TV and radio

broadcast towers that can only be installed by the state

Kazteleradio corporation. Adil Syoz had asked that simpler

modular towers be allowed, to avoid mandatory installation

by Kazteleradio. In his conversation with Taft, Yertysbayev

said both the Adil Syoz and Congress of Journalist draft

media laws were good, but he said he was a pragmatist and a

realist and knew which one parliament would ultimately

approve.



Yertysbayev Sets the Free Speech Bar a Little Bit Higher

-------------- --------------



8. (SBU) Comment: Yertysbayev insists that he wants to

defend freedom of speech and the rights of journalists to

publish. It is, however, his own definition of "journalism"

that he is defending when he draws a distinction between

"truthful and objective information" and "slandering the

head of state" (Ref A). Some of the amendments, if passed,

would be used to silence media that dared to criticize

those in power. Requiring newspapers to publish every three

months rather than every six will have no appreciable

affect. Newspapers like Respublika (aka Assandi Times) and

Zhuma Times (aka DATa Nedeli, SolDAT, etc.) have managed to

keep publishing by registering names of future newspapers

to replace those that were shut down in libel suits.

However, the $39,000 deposit against potential libel

judgments is a very serious hurdle that lower budget

opposition newspapers would not be able to clear. Such

smaller, independent newspapers would be the most likely to

be found guilty of "insulting the dignity and honor of the

president" and would lose their deposit. Another amendment

would prohibit their editors from publishing again.



9. (SBU) Comment, continued: Nazarbayeva has fueled the

firestorm over the proposed amendments, most likely to

generate public sympathy for the battle ahead when

Yertysbayev tries to turn official Khabar TV, in which

supposedly she has a large investment, into Kazakhstan's



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first public television station (Ref B). Her outrage over

Yertysbayev's amendments obscures the fact that the

Congress of Journalists' draft law also leaves out key

provisions on simplified registration and anti-monopoly

clauses that media rights groups insist upon. Yertysbayev

told Taft that Kazakhstan's media have improved greatly

compared to Uzbekistan or those from Kazakhstan's days as a

Soviet republic. With such a low standard of comparison,

Kazakhstan is likely to progress slowly toward a more

democratic ideal of media independence.



Asquino