Concern following assault on journalist

The French-based NGO Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) has called on the Kyrgyz government to identify the perpetrators of an attack on a journalist in the capital, Bishkek on 17 January. "This is a warning to all free journalists to stop writing articles about corruption in the political sphere and in the presidential family," Soria Blatmann of RSF's Europe desk, told IRIN from Paris on Monday. Alexandra Chernykh was attacked in the city centre while on her way home, accompanied by her 11-year-old daughter. She was hit violently on the head; fortunately her condition is not life-threatening, according to RSF. "We ask you to take all possible action to identify those responsible for this attack and to bring them to justice. This attack represents a new assault on the freedoms of an independent press and on opposition groups in Kyrgyzstan, which continue to face systematic and unacceptable pressures," Robert Ménard, the RSF secretary-general, stated in a letter addressed to Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev. Chernykh was working for the independent daily Moya Stolistan when she was attacked by two unidentified people. Her mother, Rina Prizhivoit, renowned for her investigative work on corruption, is the paper's political editor. Prizhivoit told RSF she believed the assailants had been targeting her rather than her daughter, they could have mistaken her daughter for her. "This act is a clear attempt at intimidation against me. Its intent is to scare me so that I stop writing," she said. This is the latest example of media suppression to come to public attention in the Central Asia region. The last was in Kazakhstan, where an opposition journalist, Sergei Duvanov, is on trial. He was charged late last year with raping a 14-year-old girl in October, on the eve of a US lecture tour on media freedom and human rights in Kazakhstan. A well-known critic of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, he was investigated earlier in 2002 for "offending the honour and dignity of the president", a serious crime in Kazakhstan. The investigation stemmed from an article he had written accusing Nazarbayev and his family of corruption. This followed an admission by Nazarbayev that he had spirited away US $1 billion to a Swiss bank account without parliamentary approval. RSF is also involved in this case in that it is supporting Duvanov's lawyers. "The situation in Central Asia is very bad. Turkmenistan is the worst, and is a black hole for information. In Kyrgyzstan, opposition and independent journalists are under systematic pressure," Blatmann asserted.