Media rights group looking to assist journalist's appeal

The French media rights organisation Reporters Without Borders (RWB) told IRIN on Tuesday that it was going to offer support to a prominent Kazakh journalist who has appealed against his conviction on charges of raping an underage girl. Lawyers for Sergei Duvanov filed an appeal on Friday against his January conviction on rape charges for which he was sentenced to three and a half years in jail, said one of the journalist's lawyers, Vitaly Voronov. "We are glad an appeal has been launched but not optimistic that anything will change if the appeal is heard in the same courts that convicted him," Soria Blatmann of RWB's Europe desk said. The case against Duvanov has raised concerns about media repression in Kazakhstan, where there has been a wave of violent attacks against independent journalists and the free press over the past year. The 50-year-old editor of a human rights watch bulletin and the author of articles on government corruption, Duvanov has faced repeated problems with the authorities. He was investigated for allegedly insulting the honour and dignity of the president after writing articles examining allegations that President Nazarbayev and his entourage had funneled money into secret Swiss bank accounts. "We're not sure yet what we can do to help Duvanov's appeal, we're working on a strategy now," Blatmann said. Sometimes RWB funds lawyers to represent accused journalists as well as launching media campaigns to bring the case to international attention. The United States and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have also expressed concern over the handling of Duvanov's case.