03 Dec 14 | Campaigns, Kazakhstan, Statements
The injunction banning distribution and publication of ADAMbol, a popular opposition magazine in Kazakhstan, is a clear violation of freedom of press and free expression.
The magazine has been accused of engaging in “extremist war propaganda” by Almaty City’s Department for Internal Policies. Some activists believe the magazine has been targeted over its coverage of Ukraine’s Maidan protests. In addition to ordering the closure of the magazine, the injunction from Almaty district court on 20 November also demands the confiscation of all printed copies of the magazine.
Cracking down on media is a well known tactic for authorities to silence dissent and stifle debate — and one Kazakhstan has made good use of in recent times. Since late 2013, over 30 media outlets have been closed in the country, over various administrative code violations or allegations of extremism.
Index calls on Kazakhstan’s authorities to end the assault on the media and respect their citizens’ right to free expression.
24 Dec 13 | News and features, Religion and Culture
Art is one of the most prominent forms of freedom of expression, allowing people to express their thoughts through song, dance, prose and theatre. It is not uncommon across the world for performers to be attacked as a form of censorship, ultimately silencing what they are trying to say.
Ala Yaacoub- Tunisian rapper, two years imprisonment
Tunisian rapper Weld El 15, real name Ala Yaacoub, was sentenced to two years in prison after posting a song online in which he insulted and threatened police.
Yaacoub, 25, told AFP that in the rap, entitled The Police are Dogs, he used the same terms that the police use to speak about the youth: “The police have to respect citizens if they want to be respected. I am afraid because in a country like Tunisia the law is not applied; you can expect anything.”
Some of those involved in the production of the music video for the rap, including director Mohamed Hedi Belgueyed and actress Sabrine Klibi, were handed suspended sentences of six months. Yaacoub was freed a month after his trial and given a suspended six-month term.
Tunisia was the first country to be hit by the ‘Arab Spring’ after which a moderate Islamist-led government was elected after the overthrow of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Since then there has been an increase in ultra-conservative Islamists, Salafists, who have been campaigning for greater public piety in Tunisia.
Aron Atabek – Kazakh poet, 18 years imprisonment
In 2007 Aron Atabek was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment following his involvement in a 2006 protest against an attempt by Kazakh authorities to flatten a shanty town; the protest ended in violent clashes and the death of a police officer.
Whilst in jail Atabek wrote poetry and prose relating to the clash which was later smuggled out of his prison and posted online. The authorities, not happy with this, sentenced Atabek to two years in solitary confinement, serving one year until November 2013. This type of punishment, in which he was watched under 24 hour video surveillance, was nothing new to the poet having spent two years in solitary confinement previously for refusing to wear a prison uniform.
Since leaving solitary confinement and returning to his previous prison Atabek’s family are still yet to have any contact with him.
Malian musicians- 12,000 singers and musicians banned from working
Islamic militants first announced a ban on music in the north of Mail in 2012; since then the ban has spread to nearly two-thirds of the country, a country from which artists such as Ali Farka Touré, Rokia Traoré and Salif Keita have witnessed global success.
After armed militants sent out death threats nearly 12,000 musicians found themselves out of work, with some facing exile, as instruments were destroyed and live venues shut down. The 2013 Festival in the Desert, a world famous Malian music event, was moved to neighbouring Burkina Faso and then later postponed due to security risks.
Fadimata “Disco” Walet Oumar was forced to flee as the conflict in Mali developed: “Life without music is not possible … I would rather die than never be able to perform, create or listen to music again in my life.”
The state of emergency has been lifted in the country and the Islamists driven out of the north of the country by the help of the French. But refugees returning to the country don’t yet believe that Mali’s problems are over.
Tunisian actors
Nineteen actors in the Tunisian city of El Kef were attacked by Salafist Muslims only to be arrested themselves by police under claims of ‘indecency’.
Whilst performing at a small theatre, to help raise funds for another venue that had been burnt down in an arson attack, the group of actors were attacked by the militant group. The performance, entitled “Guetlouh” (They Killed Him), was a tribute to opposition politician Chokri Belaid, who was assassinated in February by suspected Salafists.
The charge for indecent behaviour carries a sentence of up to six months imprisonment in Tunisia.
Lena Hendry
‘No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka’ was shown on Channel 4 in 2012, drawing in more than double the viewers of a 11pm broadcast despite the graphic content it showed. The ITN team behind the documentary went on to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Lena Hendry, on the other hand faces jail for organising a private screening of the documentary during a human rights event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Hendry was charged on 19 September for her involvement in the screening of the documentary on 9 July 2013 under the Film Censorship Act 2002, in connection with the screening of a video which was not vetted and approved by the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia. If convicted she faces a fine of between $1,576 and $9,455, up to three years in jail or both.
The Magistrates’ Court scheduled a final procedural hearing for 17 March 2014, and set the trial dates for 31 March to 4 April 2014. Lena Hendry is bringing a High Court appeal challenging the charges.
22 Jan 13 | Uncategorized
In recent weeks, Kazakh authorities closed down almost all independent media, and gave prosecutors new, wider legal powers against free speech. Protests against these latest attacks must go hand-in-hand with the defence of prisoners of conscience such as the poet and writer Aron Atabek, say his family and friends.
They warn that Atabek’s latest sentence — two years of solitary confinement for “insubordination” to prison authorities, on top of the 18 years he is serving for “orchestrating mass disorder” — puts his life in danger.
In mid-December, as Atabek was transferred back to the Arkalyk prison in Kostanai region to serve the two years, his son Askar Aidarkhan wrote to international campaign groups urging them to protest against his ill treatment.
Since being jailed in 2007, Atabek has frequently been deprived of proper food and water, access to fresh air and sunlight, as well as access to sports facilities and writing materials. He has also had manuscripts confiscated.
Atabek became a dissident writer and political activist in Soviet times, and has been a vocal critic of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev since then. In December 1986 he participated in the Zheltoksan demonstration, the first open protest against Soviet dictatorship to be held in Kazakhstan, and afterwards campaigned for the truth about those killed when the security services broke it up.
In 1992, shortly after Kazakhstan became independent, Atabek was given political asylum in Azerbaijan after publishing opposition newspapers. He returned to Kazakhstan in 1996 and since then published novels, plays and poems as well as political articles critical of the government.
Atabek’s 18-year jail sentence was imposed in 2007 after he took up the case of shanty-town dwellers at Shanyrak outside Almaty whose homes were destroyed in a violent, illegal police operation. Twenty-three other activists and shanty-town dwellers were jailed for between one and 14 years on a variety of charges.
Atabek’s family sees a pattern of protest and reaction. In 2007, the shanty-town dwellers resisted the Almaty authorities’ attempts to destroy their community — and Atabek was punished for supporting them. In 2011, oil workers in western Kazakhstan staged nine months of strikes and protests, culminating in the massacre of 16 of them by police at Zhanaozen — and retribution has been visited on politicians and media who highlighted the strikers’ plight.
Askar Aidarkhan, Atabek’s son, has said that “what is happening in Kazakhstan now [in the aftermath of the Zhanaozen massacre] follows on from what happened at Shanyrak”.
Shanyrak became a sanctuary for homeless families during the rapid expansion of Almaty in the early 2000s. It is estimated that when it was destroyed it comprised more than 2000 dwellings with up to 10,000 residents.
The notorious clearance of Shanyrak took shortly after the promulgation on 5 July 2006 of the law “On Amnesty and Legalisation of Property”. The city authorities, citing shanty-town dwellers’ failure to register their properties correctly, ordered them to leave. Atabek and other oppositionists argued that the real reason was that the authorities wanted to make the land available to property developers.
Atabek lobbied parliamentarians, wrote articles, organised petitions and reminded the shanty-town dwellers of constitutional rights that protected them. But pleas by Atabek and other activists went unheeded. The police tried to clear the shanty-town forcibly, and a violent clash ensued in which an officer died. A round-up of activists followed.
Atabek was tried and convicted in October 2007 of “orchestrating mass disorder” — despite there being no evidence that he was nearby when the clashes occurred. He was offered a pardon in exchange for admitting guilt, but he vehemently refused.
The poet has continued to write in prison, detailing illegal and inhumane prison conditions on his website, which was set up by friends and family to whom he sent his writings. He has faced constant restrictions on visitors and had manuscripts confiscated. Before his current two-year sentence solitary, Atabek served a previous two-year period in a punishment cell (February 2010 to February 2012), for refusing to wear a prison uniform and other offences against prison rules.
Atabek’s son said in an email message to friends and supporters that his father’s health is suffering, and that he feared for his father’s life after the recent on-line publication of a book by him criticising Kazakh Nursultan Nazarbayev and other powerful figures in Kazakhstan.
18 Jan 13 | Asia and Pacific, Opinion, Uncategorized
Kazakh prosecutors last month achieved international notoriety, as they sought to close eight newspapers and 23 web sites, and sued Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LiveJournal.
Journalists in the country fear that this latest crackdown will destroy the limited amount of pluralism that still exists there.
On 4 December, a Kazakh court banned the online news channel Stan, accusing it of violating country’s laws on extremism and national security. Only a week earlier, on 27 November, the court ordered the suspension of publication and distribution of opposition newspaper Vzglyad. Two other papers, Respublika and its affiliated weekly, Golos Respubliki, have also been suspended pending verdicts in their cases.
They are all accused of spreading extremist views and inciting civil strife through their coverage of December 2011 violence in Zhanaozen. Months of protests by striking oil workers in this western town ended with police gunning down unarmed civilians, leaving 16 dead.
In another case, the court ordered publication of the independent news website Guljan to be suspended and the access to it blocked.
Extremism charges levelled against media outlets are worrying. The ruling could have dangerous implications for their staff — if authprites decide to move against individuals — as this is a serious crime that can lead to substantial penalties. Previously, the authorities’ traditional method of muzzling media was dragging them into libel cases.
The latest move against more than 30 media outlets will effectively put an end to independent reporting from inside the country. Kazakhstan is beginning to look more and more like neighbouring Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Independent media is non-existent in all three countries, which were listed amongst the bottom nine performers for political rights and civil liberties in 2012 report by the US-based rights watchdog Freedom House.
In the first nine months of last year, the only data available so far, there were 16 criminal prosecutions under criminal law including ten libel cases, according to monitoring by Kazakh media advocacy group Adil Soz. There were also 15 attacks on reporters; 34 cases when journalists were prevented from doing their job and access to more than 100 websites was either temporarily restricted or blocked.
Over the last three years authorities have toughened legislation regulating various parts of media. Last year, the broadcast law was adopted resulting in TV and radio being completely monopolised by the state. In 2009, Kazakhstan’s media law was changed to make internet content subject to the same controls that apply to conventional print and broadcast media. In addition, despite a decade long lobbying by media activists defamation still exists as a criminal offence.
Kazakhstan’s poor rights record was reflected in 2012 Press Freedom Index by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders where the country ranked at 154th place out of 179.
In the face of multiple challenges — including failure to stabilise the economy, a rise in protests linked to industrial disputes, and power struggles within the Kazakh elite — the country’s leadership is in a vulnerable place, and this is likely to contribute to a downward spiral in media freedom, as the country is now focused on survival, rather than keeping up the appearance of a commitment to democracy.
