Media watchdogs pessimistic about new press law

Media and rights groups are painting a gloomy picture of the possible consequences of a new Kazakh press law, describing it as a step backward for freedom of expression in the Central Asian state. "I think this law will seriously complicate the situation of freedom of speech in Kazakhstan," Evgeni Zhovtis, head of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law (KIBHRRL), told IRIN from the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty. "This law puts all Kazakh media under the strict control of the state. It restricts the activity of those media outlets that don't only praise authorities and gives a lot of levers to the government to persecute, even eliminate, 'disagreeable' independent media," Tamara Kaleeva, head of Adil Soz, a local media freedom watchdog, told IRIN from Almaty. Their comments follow a series of recent appeals from both international and national media groups urging the Kazakh leadership to cancel the controversial media law that was approved by the country's parliament on 18 March. The date also coincided with the appeal of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum (WEF), international bodies dealing with media freedom, to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev to veto the new law. To become effective the law needs to be signed by Nazarbaev. "We are turning to you on behalf of the WAN and WEF, representing 18,000 editions in 101 countries, to express our deep concern about the media law adopted by the parliament and call on you to reject it in its current form," the appeal said, adding that the new law contained provisions which violated freedom of expression. Zhovtis, one of the fiercest critics of the new law, pointed out that the law had unclear definitions and gave the authorities the power to interpret various articles of the law differently, giving grounds for subjective rulings on various issues and providing the opportunity to put pressure on independent or opposition outlets. Another criticism raised by the activist is that the law contradicts international norms and standards. "The law strictly restricts the number of information sources that the Kazakh media can refer to in order not to be suited [at law]," Zhovtis said. According to the new law, a media outlet can neither refer to another media [source] nor to official documents of other states and even international conventions. And if it does so, the responsibility for the published context solely rests with the media [outlet]. "This law stipulates that UN conventions are also not official documents because it says that only documents issued by the Kazakh state bodies are official. It is a nonsense," he said. The rights activist cited the desire of the authorities to keep thing under control ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election as the main motivation for passing the new law. "The authorities cannot just shut down media outlets and therefore they are searching various technical possibilities to control this process," he maintained. This being the case, both activists were pessimistic about any solution. "I am rather pessimistic about the international community's ability to influence the situation because all international organisations - including the OSCE [Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe], EU, Human Rights Watch and international press groups - made statements against this law. So did Kazakh media groups and political parties." Kaleeva agreed, saying that almost everything had been tried in an effort to get the new law overturned. "We think that all our objections and proposals [regarding this law] would be ignored by the president as they were ignored by the parliament," she said pessimistically. "I simply don't see any other ways of influencing [the situation]," she conceded. "We are more thinking about how to survive after this law. Life goes on and we have to look forward."