Welcome to another roundup on regional freedom of the press.

The major news on media freedom from the Central Asian region in the past month is the death in Turkmen custody of the RFE correspondent Ogulsapar Muradova, who was sentenced to six years in prison in August. Although Turkmen authorities claimed the reporter died of natural causes, it seems more likely that she died under torture.

Her death has been condemned by the UN, the UNHCR, and Human Rights Watch, as well as many other international organisations. There are now fears for her family, who are now being held inncomunicado. Reportwers without Borders is gathering signatures for a petition calling for an investigation, as well as the release of the two other activists jailed at the same trial.

In Kazakhstan, two suspects have been arrested over the recent murder of a French journalist in Alamty. The Kazakh authorities maintain his death was unrelated to his work.

On the Kazakhstan country weblog, Leila looks how blogging is taking off there, and how it could be affected by media laws.

Across the border in Kyrgyzstan, the opposition have charged that state television has presented a biased view of the recent drug planting scandal in which President Bakiev’s brother allegedly attempted to frame oppostiion leader Omurbek Tekebaev.

Also in Bishkek, Pyramid TV, Kyrgyzstan’s oldest independent station, was temporarily put off air by an arson attack in which two technicians were also beaten up. The station is reguarly critical of Bakiev’s administration and this is not the first time it has been attacked.

RFE has a useful primer on Uzbek pro- and anti-government websites, and reports that “Uzbekistan’s security services are actively blocking websites they dislike, a category that includes virtually all of the above-listed sites that publish anything critical of the government.”

However, the Uzbek authorities are also capable of more traditional methods of censorship. One of the few remaining independent journalists in Uzbekistan, Jamshid Karimov, who also happens to be President Karimov’s nephew, was apparently framed on bribery charges and has since been committed to a Samarkand psychiatric hospital. The Uzbek authorities have used the same technique to deal with human rights activists, and the sending of dissidents to psychiatric hospitals was pioneered during Soviet times.

Our final piece of news from Uzbekistan is that the newspaper ‘Tasvir+TV’ is being investigated for publishing articles which offend ‘the Uzbek people’s mentality’. The articles in question look at the sexuality of Tchaikovsky and sexual relations through history. There’s also a great piece of doublethink in the article from an Uzbek official - any sanctions taken against the paper ’should not be regarded as restrictions on media freedom’.

EurasiaNet reports that the Tajik authorities are clamping down on independent media in the run-up to the Presidential election - even as President Rahmonov’s speeches get star billing. The OSCE has launched a web portal on the Asia Plus site in order to give all candidates balanced coverage.

The OSCE has also been busy in the Caucasus. Both the Yerevan and Baku offices of the organisation have issued press releases expressing concern following recent attacks and lawsuits against journalists.

One of the lawsuits in question is that against Azeri newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev, who was sued for libel by former interior minister Ramil Usubov. Another Azeri journalist, Sakid Zahidov, has just been sentenced to three years in jail on dubious drug charges.

Finally, here’s a look at the role of television in Georgia’s municipal elections, being held tomorrow. The recent Russian spy scandal has been heavily covered in Georgian media, and some believe the coverage will work in the Government’s favour.

An Easy Guide to Blogging by Nathan Hamm

This introductory guide acts as a very good starter for newcomers to the world of blogging. Sections include: ‘What is a Blog?’, ‘The Blogosphere’, ‘Why Blog?’, ‘Building a Successful Blog’, ‘Writing a Successful Post’ and ‘Ethics’.

Available in English | Russian | Uzbek

Safe Blogging & Online Privacy Made Easy

There are already a few freely available guides to online privacy and safe blogging, but we at neweurasia and Transitions Online seek to provide a succinct, easy-to-understand summary for those who wish to blog anonymously.

Available in: English | Russian | Uzbek

Our new resource section is here, and it also features a growing list of external documents.

Open Source will be hosting a podcast discussion on remittances this Thursday, and they are interested in the Central Asian perspective on this issue. So if you are intrigued by the subject of remittances (“the new foreign aid?� they ask) and know something about the situation in Eurasia, head on over. They are looking for testimonies and first-person accounts.

Are remittances better suited to help small communities than aid, or are they just signs that aid is failing? What does it mean that workers are making these kinds of sacrifices, and what will it mean when governments learn to depend on those sacrifices? Are remittances a viable development strategy?

Welcome to the second roundup of news on press freedom in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

We’ll start in Kazakhstan, where the radical opposition newspaper ‘Juma Times’ has been ordered to close. The paper was charged with insulting the ‘honour and dignity’ of President Nazarbayev in the run-up to last year’s elections.

Gulzhan Yergaliyeva, the editor of another opposition newspaper, Svoboda Slovo, has been jailed for holding an ‘unsanctioned demonstration’ on the death of Altynbek Sarsenbayev. Yergaliyeva has gone on hunger strike to protest against her imprisonment.

On the Turkmenistan blog, Peter reports on the March 7 arrest of two RFE/RL Journalists. As of March 10, their whereabouts are still unknown, and the telephone lines to all other RFE/RL correspondents in the country have been blocked.

The Tajik Ministry of Communications is aiming to tighten control over internet service providers and international telecoms, through a plan to route all telephone and intenet traffic ‘Unified Communications Center and Information Resource Unit’. However, there are doubts as to whether the Government’s plan is feasible.

Nick discusses a new resolution from the Uzbek Government which strenghtens the regulations on foreign journalists on the Uzbekistan blog.

Meanwhile, in further bad news for RFE/RL, two former Uzbek employees have attacked the service. Rakhmatzhan Kuldashev, the ex-head of the Tashkent bureau, is demanding $20,000 compensation from his former employer, claiming that ‘Humiliation and poverty are all I got for my faithful service’. Another ex-correspondent, Khusniddin Kutbiddinov, has written an open letter in which he states that the Uzbek Government is ‘much more humane’ than RFE/RL.

In Azerbaijan, an opposition journalist was brutally attacked. Fikret Huseynli, who has been threatened in the past for his work on exposing corruption in the Azeri Governemnt, was left in a critical condition. The attack came almost a year after the still unsolved murder of journalist Elmar Husneyov.

Journalists in Georgia suffer from a different type of threat to their work. The media owners who control many major outlets appear uninterested in encouraging investigative journalism, fearing that it may damage their market position and relations with the Government.

Finally, here’s an interesting report on RFE/RL on increasing coverage of previously-taboo religious issues by non-traditional media sources, including the internet, in Central Asian countries.

Welcome to the first of what will be a semi-regular roundup of news on press freedom and freedom of expression in Central Asia. We’ll start with the recently-published Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index for 2005, which provides some useful background on the subject. Out of 167 countries surveyed, none of the ‘Stans manage into the top 100 - Kyrgyzstan leads in 111th place, followed by Tajikistan at 113, Kazakhstan at 119 and at Uzbekistan at 155, with the ‘black hole’ of Turkmenistan scraping in at 165. Only Eritrea and North Korea fare worse.

As if to prove the point, the Turkmenbashi has just personally sentenced a journalist to eight years in prison - apparently for ‘treason’. In brighter news, the OSCE has recently been making efforts to encourage journalism in Turkmenistan, but so far only in the environmental field.

In Kyrgyzstan, the independent media have been suffering from a “wave of threats and intimidation”. There’s evidence for this from IWPR’s report that the Bishkek prosecutor’s office has warned newspapers which criticise President Bakiev may face legal action. In addition, journalists have rallied to support the editor of the newspaper ‘Kyrgyzstan Flag’, who was sacked for being too independent. His replacement? The head of the Government’s PR department.

Kazakhstan’s main printing company, which happens to be owned by President Nazarbayev’s sister-in-law, Svetlana Nazarbayeva, has refused to publish seven opposition newspapers. Kazakh television viewers will also soon have a new channel to watch. However, don’t expect huge ratings - it will be run by Otan, the main pro-government party.

In Tajikstan, James recently discussed how the Communications Ministry has been cracking down on local independent broadcasters. That has now been followed up by the suspension of BBC FM broadcasts, supposedly for ‘administrative reasons’. More on this from James and Tajik Boy here and here.

The IREX Media sustainability report on Uzbekistan has already been covered by Nick in detail. In a further blow to what remains of the free Uzbek press, journalists have not permitted at trial of the opposition leader Sandzhar Umarov.

Finally, RFE/RL recently carried an interview with the head of Reporters Without Borders’ post-Soviet section, regarding the rather dim prospects for press freedom in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in 2006.

Two stories have caught my attention lately, one of them thanks to Nathan’s superb collection of daily links. Uzbekistan released new numbers regarding internet penetration and mobile phone usage that are interesting to read. RIA Novosti has the article, according to which in 2005, 855,000 people were online (a 32.9% increase from 2004), and 1.15 million people used mobile phones (a 100% increase from 2004).

Uzbekistan, with a PPP GDP per capita of $1,800, does not compare badly to countries with similar economic raw data, at least from what I can briefly skim over at the CIA.

In terms of a Central Asian perspective, this PDF from a presentation given during an OSCE conference on the Internet in Central Asia and the Caucasus, can give provide some comparative data:

Percentage of Population Using Internet at Least Once a Week in Central Asia, 2005 Figures:
• Kazakhstan: 9% (2002: 3%)
• Kyrgyzstan: 3% (2003: 2%)
• Tajikistan: 4% (2003: 1-3%)
• Turkmenistan: 1% (2001: .1%)
• Uzbekistan: 3% (2003: 2%)

One hindrance to regular internet usage is the financial aspect: Internet is still prohibitively expensive in many countries of the former Soviet Union. According to BakuToday, internet is cheapest in Azerbaijan. You’ll surf for $0.15-0.40 per hour in any of the internet cafés, and the speed of the connection is relatively fast.

The OSCE conference paper again has some more comparative data:

Kazakhstan: dial-up is as low as $ .40/hour and at Internet café is $.50 – 1.92/hour. Average monthly salary $220/month.
Kyrgyzstan: dial-up is as low as $ .20/hour and at Internet café is $.50 – 1.00/hour. Average monthly salary $40/month.
Tajikistan: dial-up is as low as $ .50/hour and at Internet café is $.50 – 1.50/hour. Average monthly salary $30/month.
Turkmenistan: dial-up accounts still almost impossible to obtain. Internet at some hotels is about $2/hour. Average monthly salary $75/month.
Uzbekistan: dial-up is as low as $ .50/hour and at Internet café is $.50 – 1.00/hour. Average monthly salary $35/month.

I remember walking through Ashgabat, looking for a hotel with internet access. The Sheraton (if I remember correctly) had two computers in a closet, and a technician had to come first to get us connected. Had you exchanged your dollars into manat using the official exchange rate, one hour of slow internet would have set you back about $20. Luckily, as we exchanged our money on the black market, it meant we had to pay only about a quarter of that.