Press freedom conditions deteriorated significantly ýn Kazakhstan during 2002. Direct criticism of the president, his family, and his associates is considered seditious, and the government’s growing persecution of the media has increased self-censorship. Furthermore, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has consolidated his control over the airwaves and newsstands ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections, scheduled for 2004…
Emboldened by the growing number of U.S. troops in the country, President Askar Akayev has used the threat of international terrorism as an excuse to curb political dissent and suppress the independent and opposition media in Kyrgyzstan. Compliant courts often issue exorbitant damage awards in politically motivated libel suits, driving even the country’s most prominent…
Press freedom is generally respected in the United Kingdom, but CPJ was alarmed by a legal case in which Interbrew, a Belgium-based brewing group, and the British Financial Services Authority (FSA), a banking and investment watchdog agency, demanded that several U.K. media outlets turn over documents that had been leaked to them. The case threatened…
New York, March 28, 2003—The Medeu district court in the southern Kazakh city of Almaty convicted two men this week of setting fire to an opposition newspaper’s offices last May. The court sentenced Meirbek Uristenbekov and Mukhitdin Abdualiyev to three years in prison and ordered them to pay a total of 952,000 tenge (US$6,270) in…
New York, March 11, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disappointed that today’s decision by Kazakhstan’s Almaty Regional Court in the city of Taldykorgan, north of Almaty, upheld the prison sentence of prominent independent journalist Sergei Duvanov. On January 28, Almaty’s Karasaisky District Court sentenced Duvanov to three-and-a-half years in prison for allegedly raping…
New York, January 30, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disappointed by the prison term handed down on January 28 to prominent independent journalist Sergei Duvanov by the Karasaisky District Court in the southern city of Almaty. The court sentenced Duvanov to three-and-a-half years in prison for allegedly raping a minor. Duvanov’s colleagues and…
New York, October 29, 2002—CPJ is deeply concerned that Sergei Duvanov, a prominent 49-year-old journalist known for his criticism of Kazakh authorities, was arrested on October 27 on suspicion of raping a minor. The journalist, who remains in detention, has been officially charged, the opposition party Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan reported today. Duvanov has denied…