Media liberalisation slow, say journalists

Eight months after public protests swept away Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev, press freedom remains a key issue in the former Soviet republic, despite expectations that the new authorities would promote media liberalisation, journalists say. A recent month-long dispute between the staff and shareholders of KOORT - the first national independent television channel in Kyrgyzstan - ended with the dismissal of the channel’s director and some of its journalists. A KOORT current affairs programme that had been critical of the new authorities was also taken off the air. "We had been critical of the new government and parliament. This is why we became a target," Omurbek Sataev, one of the KOORT journalists who lost his job, said. KOORT was independent in name only and, before the change in regime, had been controlled by Akayev's son-in-law Adil Toygonbaev. The station functioned as a mouthpiece of the ex-president. After being taken over by a group of broadcasters and financiers committed to media freedom, KOORT gained a reputation for airing critical coverage of the new authorities following a shift in its editorial policy. A similar fate befell the country's largest daily, "Vecherniy Bishkek". Initially the newspaper was an opposition outlet critical of the Akayev regime. But in the late 1990s, the newspaper was taken over by Toygonbaev, allegedly to prevent anti-Akayev coverage ahead of presidential elections in 2000. The former owners claimed Akayev's son-in-law took the publication over illegally, using his connections with the former first family. After the change of regime in March, the ex-owners went to court in an effort to reclaim their property. The court ruled the outlet should be returned to its rightful owners, who included Aleksandr Kim, who runs the MSN daily - the country's second largest newspaper. MSN played a significant role ahead of and during the March events that toppled Akayev's regime. Now critics contend both major dailies are in the government’s pocket. "Two giants are in the arms of one owner. This certainly is not good for freedom of speech. MSN became pro-government after the revolution, there’s no reason to expect Vecherniy Bishkek to be any different," Bermet Bukasheva, an adviser to the parliamentary speaker, said. "It's hard to talk about freedom of speech. The transition period from one regime to another has not finished yet. I do not see any radical difference between Akayev and the new leadership. Press freedom has not increased," Bukasheva remarked pessimistically. Some journalists with state-run media claimed that their work was now more closely scrutinised than during Akayev's regime. "Surprisingly, after the leadership change, [state-run] TV only praises the government. Daily bulletins mainly report on the government and [President Kurmanbek] Bakiyev's achievements, while ignoring other social events," a reporter with the Kyrgyz National Television and Radio Corporation (KNTRC) who did not wish to be identified, said. "It means that some instructions have come from the new authorities about our editorial values, we thought the new order would be much different," the reporter maintained. Others, however, say that there have been positive changes since March in terms of media freedom, with Gulnara Mambetalieva, a KNTRC radio journalist, saying that the situation had changed for the better. "During Akayev’s rule we could not do impartial reporting. Now we do not have any restrictions," she said. "We have broadcast a variety of views on many problems that the general public are interested in. Even representatives of Akayev's family can be heard on radio, so there is no censorship," Mambetalieva maintained. Kuban Mambetaliev, head of local media watchdog group, the Public Association of Journalists, said the media in Kyrgyzstan needed to mature and that it was really a question of time before the country’s radio, television and newspapers flourished. Other observers have pointed to poverty in the Central Asian nation as a key reason for why there is little in the way of non-state media. The new government says it is committed to media pluralism. President Bakiyev plans to establish a special working group to tackle the issue. Reportedly, the group has already submitted a draft proposal for reforming government-supported media. According to the proposal, both central and local government will relinquish control and ownership of some 70 print media outlets. A legacy of the Soviet Union, many central and provincial government authorities still run or support their own newspapers. Transforming KNTRC into a public service broadcaster would involve parliament appointing a 15-member board of trustees, who would run and oversee the service, with an understanding that there would be no interference from the authorities.