Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009europe and central asia: kazakhstanconflict between Russia and Georgia was a failed litmus test for national television.The networks were either silent about the report’s findings or chose to aironly conclusions favorable to the Georgian side. The report, written by seasoneddiplomat Heidi Tagliavini and issued in October, found that while Russia createdvarious provocations and escalated the war, Georgia bore responsibility forinstigating the conflict with its shelling of Tskhinvali. The EU report also calledon the media to curb xenophobic sentiments and to provide a balanced view ofall sides of the conflict.In an op-ed piece published in The Guardian of London, the opposition leaderBurdzhanadze said administration policies had ensured that coverage of theEU report was one-sided. While opposition voices can get a hearing in newspapersand on cable television, Burdzhanadze said, their impact is diminished dueto presidential control over national broadcasting. For two-thirds of the country,national television channels are the only media available, “and all are directed bythe president’s inner circle,” he wrote.In a survey of media developments published on the news Web site OpenDemocracy, analyst Robin Llewellyn described the politicization of television inGeorgia, with broadcasters providing either intensely pro-government or prooppositionviews. “The problem with Georgian broadcasting,” journalist GiorgiAkhvlediani told Llewellyn, “is that we now have a plurality of views, but it iseither very pro-government, or very anti-government, with nothing in between.”The Georgian Orthodox Church, long revered in Georgian society, wasdrawn into a battle with the media in October as one of Saakashvili’s closest supporters,Tea Tutberidze of the pro-government Liberty Institute, a Western-supported,university-based nonprofit that played a key role in the Rose Revolution,posted satirical videos of Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia on the social networking siteFacebook and on the video-sharing site YouTube, animating his image to make itappear he was mouthing attacks on the president. The Georgian patriarchate hadearlier criticized Saakashvili for precipitating the war with Russia. Saakashvilidenounced the irreverence and sparked fears of censorship by saying he “won’t letanyone misuse the principles of freedom,” local press reports said.After raging the previous year, a cyberspace war in which Russian hackerswere attacking Georgian government and civil society Web sites subsided duringmuch of 2009. The battle re-emerged in August as Russian denial-of-service attackson a Georgian blog caused hours of outages on the popular social networkingsite Twitter and a slowdown of Facebook that affected millions of users. Internetaccess in Georgia is limited mainly to those in the capital, with penetrationestimated by the International Research and Exchanges Board at only 7 percentthroughout the country.A Russian reporter was harassed as a result of rivalries between the twocountries. On September 18, CPJ urged Georgian authorities to drop trumpedupforgery charges against Besik Pipia, Tbilisi bureau chief for the Russian newsagency RIA Novosti. RIA Novosti told CPJ that Pipia’s case coincided withGeorgia’s denial of entry to two Russian journalists invited to attend a publicforum on post-conflict relations. After CPJ’s advocacy, the case against Pipia wasdropped.KAZAKHSTANThe authoritarian government of this central asian nationbrazenly defied international standards for freedom of expression even as it preparedto assume chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operationin Europe, the Vienna-based human rights and security agency. As part oftheir bid to lead the OSCE in 2010, President Nursultan Nazarbayev and hisgovernment pledged to bring the country’s repressive media laws into compliancewith global standards. Instead, Nazarbayev signed into law a measure that placesexpansive new restrictions on Internet expression, requires online service providersto collect client information for authorities, and further extends censorshiprules for all media. Authorities jailed critics and filed politicized lawsuits thatsought to shut down critical news outlets, but reported no progress in investigatingassaults on independent reporters.When the government introduced its purported media reform bill to parliament’slower chamber, the Mazhilis, in January, officials said it would facilitateinformation-sharing on the Web and establish Internet users’ rights and obligations.Kuanyshbek Eskeyev, the head of Kazakhstan’s state communicationsagency, which developed the bill, was quoted in press reports as saying that thenew legislation was aimed atprotecting Kazakh citizens’constitutional rights.Local press freedom advocatescalled the legislationdraconian, telling CPJ that itgave authorities even greaterability to silence domesticdissent and block internationalcriticism. Althoughlawmakers allowed independentmedia experts to submitsuggestions, few such ideast o p developments»»Repressive media law takes effect, setslimits online.»»Politicized lawsuits threatenindependent newspapers.2010key statisticYear that Kazakhstanassumes chairmanshipof OSCE.178179