By Vasili Rukhadze

What follows is one part of a cross-blog initiative that commemorates the 1991 Moscow coup and evaluates the years in between.

Break Up

Exactly fifteen years ago, on August 19th of 1991, a group of die-hard top communist officials and military commanders carried out a putsch in Moscow with the intention to overthrow the Soviet leader Gorbachev, stop his proclaimed “Perestroika” (reforms) and reanimate agonizing Soviet Union by reestablishing totalitarian-communist rule… hopeless endeavor at its core. The putsch failed within three days. Gorbachev regained reins of the union, only in several months to see the Soviets, for whose survival he and his “Perestroika” pushed so hard, ceasing its existence. Neither the August Coup, nor Gorbachev’s reforms could save the state that has been in deep political and social-economic malaise for several decades.

Moscow Putsch fastened the final and official collapse of the Soviet Union in December of 1991, four months after the failed coup. Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), formed in the same month, represented Russian dominated just a shadow of the Soviet Union, gradually bringing twelve former Soviet republics (except three Baltic states) into the commonwealth.

Countries and the societies of the Soviet Union turned out to be absolutely unprepared for independent life. For many of these societies Soviet collapse was the challenge of apocalyptic proportions, which they simply could not handle. For large part of the population it was equal to personal tragedy, for others beginning of a new, better life. However, all of them shared the exposure and the vulnerability to the new reality which they were completely unfamiliar with.

The collapse of the communist-totalitarian system gave new post-Soviet countries overwhelming task of building independent states, democratic political institutions and free market economies if they desired to catch up with well developed free world in visible future.

Looking back fifteen years after these dramatic events one can see many things clearer and make more conclusions
Read the full story »

A promising new Uzbek blog was set up some while ago. Ayollar Bekati (women’s bus-stop) discusses all things relevant to being a woman in Uzbekistan and attracts a growing readership and some vivid discussions.

Thanks to Shohruh, here are some translations of recent topics. They include:

• Domestic violence against children – a story of a kid from the UK
• Why to change your surname to your husband’s – one woman’s dilemma
• Smoking – why it is still popular?
• Getting married though matchmaking or by love – who choses which style?
• What is happiness? Is it in romantic love? – a confession of one woman
• Sexual harassment and what to do about it?
• “Am I a bad daughter?” (about a girl who wants to become an actress but her parents are against her studying, more generally it is about low value of high education these days in Uzbekistan)
• I don’t want to be the second wife! A young girl’s outcry and thought about a re- emerging tendency by some rich men to take more than one wife
• Emotional abuse by mothers-in-law (those two topics led to a wide discussion which attracted a lot of women and polarised opinions)

Thanks to Shohruh for the translation and Nick for some editing.

Recently on BBC Uzbek:

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a new wave of censorship has begun in Uzbekistan. The Neweurasia blog has now been unreachable in Uzbekistan for a few weeks now.
Read the full story »

Dalia and Ana, two alumni of the Young Caucasus Women project (which is hosted on neweurasia’s server and managed by Katy Pearce) have both contributed an article to neweurasia, making them the youngest contributors onboard.

Dalia, who is from Azerbaijan, wonders what impact the large-scale export of oil will have on Azerbaijan. Will the Caspian Sea littoral state share the fate with that of other petro-states such as Nigeria? Or can more successful examples like Norway guide the country to a more equitable and prosperous future?

Ana, who is from Georgia, praises new unified high school exams that tackle corruption in the higher education sector. Now, it seems, students can pave their way into uni by achieving good grades in their final exams rather than by paying bribes to corrupt professors.

According to the CIA World Factbook, there are only 400.000 Internet users and 20.327 Internet hosts in Kazakhstan (2005 data). For comparison – Kazakhstan has a little over 15 million people, Belarus – a little over 10 million, 1.6 million of which are Internet users. Surely, it is still more than in other Central Asian countries. This, and one more thing that Kazakh Internet users can boast about is the increasing attention of the Government to their habitat.

Shortly after the SCO meeting, Yertysbayev promised to develop the new policy on regulation of the Internet media in Kazakhstan (see China, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for regional examples). Indeed, the information security was one of the issues on the agenda of the SCO meeting, where it was decided to establish the expert groups in the member-states to figure out how to solve the common problem of increasing insecurity related to development of information technology, that can be used for “criminal, terrorist, military or political purposes that run counter to the maintenance of international security.” Well, Internet did prove to be a powerful instrument promoting regional cooperation in the end.

Before the new policy is developed, article 318, para.2 of Kazakh Penal Code on insulting the honor and dignity of the President in mass media is being invoked against some online journalists. Thus, Kazis Toguzbaev, has a case pending against him for writing an article named “Mafia Regime Covers the Murderers of Altynbek Sarsenbayev” on www.kub.kz. Funny enough, it says that the IP address is registered in Hong Kong. While going through the trial, Toguzbaev writes about his meetings with the investigator, where he tries to persuade him that KUB is a blog, not a media site, thus, para.2 is not applicable (in Russian).

The good news is that the “huge potential for human development” is also being recognised. E-Government, working well in Singapore, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and the US, is being created in Kazakhstan too. The trilingual website at www.e.gov.kz offers information categorised in life and business cycles. The life cycle includes childhood, education, youth, family, work and old age, and business cycle – planning, starting and liquidation. You can find information on the state organs, citizenry (which includes some of the life cycle), business (business cycle, respectively) and information for foreigners. Tons of information about programs, laws and regulations, for instance, if you plan to enter the University in Kazakhstan, read about applying, paying, possibly getting a state grant, and maybe a presidential scholarship Bolashak to study in, let’s say, Harvard. You can even call the Ministry of Environmental Protection to question about the recent spill of waste in the Caspian Sea, or email the Ministry of Justice, to inquire about the period of issuing of the new passport. Well, it might be a good idea not having to meet the officials but handle everything online, says blogger Alexander E. Lyakhov, who also works for Kazkommertsbank. However, he says, any official knows that he loses money with this e-government (no opportunity to be rewarded), so the idea is being opposed to at all levels.

Now that the controversial media law has been signed by the President, Information Minister Yermukhamet Yertysbayev plans to tighten control of the World Wide Web’s Kazakhstan part, according to Reuters.

Internet journalism and other loosely regulated media could harm Kazakhstan’s national security.

Yertysbaev promised to develop the state policy on Kazakh web by the end of this year. Last year they closed Sasha Baron Cohen’s website in .kz domain (back then, Dariga Nazarbayeva defended him, and this year she appeared as an advocate of media freedom too) saying that sites in .kz domain can only be maintained from Kazakhstan. It seems that this year the content of the sites will be watched more closely. This will reach out to independent or opposition newspapers that operate online, such as mizinov.net, which already moved to zonakz.net.

Together with national security, Yertysbaev is concerned with the lies in the Internet. It is now a criminal offence to libel the officials and insult the honor and dignity of the President and many journalists have been sued for that. In the past the access to some websites such as navigator.kz, kub.kz, and eurasia.ru was blocked from within Kazakhstan, through the only one Internet service provider, the state-run Kazakhtelecom.

Those who think it’s impossible to control the Internet can continue living in the world of illusions,

said Yertysbaev in an interview to Kazakhstan’s Vremya newspaper.

Now that Dariga Nazarbaeva seems to have lost the battle, Yertysbaev will surely help Kazakhstan to wake up into reality.

This entry is a translation of Dmitry’s post, originally in Russian.

While Mazhilis of the Parliament of Kazakhstan is reviewing the draft media law proposed by the Ministry of Information and Culture, the discussions revolve around freedom of speech and freedom of media. Not attempting to provide the full analysis of the issue, I would just single out two things from the observer’s point of view. The first is that we need the exact statistical information on media outlets. The second is that we need to combat the abuse of freedom of speech.

First point echoes the minister of information and culture Ermuhamet Ertusbaev, who said that

70% of media outlets provide wrong data about their circulation at registration. Only 2.5 thousand out of 7.5 thousand registered media is circulating regularly. The Ministry does not have any or has little information about other media

In the heat of the debate on freedom of speech few spoke about correct statistics and exact information on what is being issued, by whom and what is its circulation. This is important for attracting the funding of both the investors and the advertisers. Without this exact information no sensible businessman is going to cooperate with media, which would then be financed by some anonymous magnates who will also sponsor campaigns.

When discussions of similar problem occured in Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, they spoke about creating common electronic database of newspapers, journals, and periodicals, and providing access to it to everyone. Without information – there is no interest, no business and no money. No money – no competitive environment, and only those who managed to get to a crib would survive. I do not think Kazakh journalists are in favour of this scenario.

The society needs to have a way to protect itself from the abuse of freedom of speech. Unfortunately, Kazakh opposition produced certain personas, well known to everyone. They are ready to use any plot and gossip for the sake of political campaign and present it as true information. Campaigns around the murder of Nurkadilov and Sarsenbayev showed what they are able to and what conspiracy assaults they can have. These people cannot be called journalists.

If there are problems, they should be discussed contructively, based on facts. You can also criticise the government and the president, if they deserve it. But hysteria of some journalists only causes resentment.

Learn how a marshrutka gets you around, about Kazakh food and its Central Asian – USSR influence…

I run a podcast called Kazakhstan Stories:
“Life in Kazakhstan – from first hand accounts to the sounds of life (via minidisc) we will discover the joys, ingenuity and challenges from everyday life in this part of Central Asia.”

Access it via my blog www.kazakhstanstories.blogspot.com or paste into a podcatcher (ex. iTunes) the RSS feed http://www.switchpod.com/users/kazakhstanstories/feed.xml

According to the latest survey of the Freedom House a year after the revolution the freedom in the press in Kyrgyzstan remains restricted.
This announcement makes us feel a little odd wondering why, on earth, this long awaited process of democratization of mass media in the country never overcame a period of stagnation.
It’s really hard to explain why revolution that seemingly contained a promise for all mass media suffering from oppressions under Akaev’s government never brought real and long awaited freedom to journalists in the Kyrgyz republic.

As an executive director of the TV channel NTS that strives to survive and retain its right on the independent opinion and coverage Andrey Tsvetkov, for instance, admits that old practices of intimidating phone calls and indirect threats from officials are again very much in place. He emphasizes: “Authorities keep interfering into mass media business trying to manipulate journalists. Regretfully we still have this small group of people who are being in power or close to power consider themselves the smartest and the most sophisticated ones. They feel that they are in charge of defining our way of work and thinking. As a journalist I simply cannot stand that. It seems that these new spin-doctors think that all journalists are idiots as if we ourselves are not responsible for what we cover and how we do that.”

Can there be any remedy in this case? This question was addressed by the participants of the media forum “Advanced mass media or corrupt journalism” that was initiated by Internews Kyrgyzstan in cooperation with Bishkek Business Club.

In the course of the discussion participants were trying to come up with the solution in order to reconcile two main functions of journalism – being an unbiased carrier of information and being a player at the financial market in the country where only the fittest can survive.
Different options were suggested in this case with forum’s panelists emphasizing that the shift in the public perception of the role and abilities of mass media to serve its audience and to get profits simultaneously should be made.

As media experts kept emphasizing the notions of “bad” and “good” journalism are to be replaced with notions of efficiency and inefficiency in mass media. The idea here is to turn journalism into a profitable business thus contributing to the Kyrgyz press becoming independent in terms of finances. The financial independence will supposedly lead to the potential ideological independence of journalism in Kyrgyzstan. To back up their opinions participants of the forum were using different examples media units that turned into successfully functioning business structures. But we shouldn’t fall into the trap of generalization here.

It’s still arguable whether mass media functioning as successful businesses can still carry the functions of “pure” journalism with its orientation on unbiased reporting. The main fear is that the bias based on economic reasons can even be stronger than the ideological one.

Welcome to another roundup of news on press freedom and censorship in Central Asia and the Caucasus. To start us off, here’s a useful primer from RFE on the region’s bureaucratic controls on journalists.

May 3rd marked World Press Freedom Day, and the Committee to Protect Journalists released a report to mark the day, listing the world’s 10 most censored countries. Unsuprisingly, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan make the list – the report features the fact that Turkmen newsbroadcasters, “…begin each broadcast with a pledge that their tongues will shrivel if their reports ever slander the country, the flag, or the president.”

Also in Turkmenistan, two RFE journalists who had been jailed for ‘hoolinganism’ have been freed, but only on the condition that they stop working for the station. RFE has a useful chronology of the arrests, and the intimidation of their other local journalists.

In more positive news, the Turkmen novelist and journalist Rakhim Esenov has been awarded a PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. Esenov’s novel The Crowned Wanderer was banned after the Turkmenbashi found it to be ‘historically inaccurate’, and Esenov himself remains under virtual house arrest in Ashgabat.

Meanwhile, one year after Andijan, the suppression of independent media in Uzbekistan continues. Sobirdjon Yakubov, a journalist jailed a year ago on subversion charges, has been released for ‘lack of evidence’. His imprisonment was widely condemned at the time, moving one English writer to poetry.

In Kazakhstan, opposition journalist Kenzhegali Aytbakiyev has been severly beaten by unknown attackers. The newspaper he worked for, Ayna-Plus, was recently closed by the authorities because of its coverage of government corruption. In addition, Kazakh Minister of Culture and Information Yermukhamet Yertysbayev has attacked two local news stations, accusing them of putting “the national leadership under pressure” by asking unwelcome questions over the assassination of opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev.

Across the border in Kyrgzystan, the director of the country’s oldest independent TV station, Pyramid TV, has been receiving death threats, possibly related to a dispute between the channel and associates of the ousted President, Askar Akayev. Pyramid TV has had similar threats in the past, and in December 2005 its offices were attacked by a 20-strong gang.

Moving on to the Caucasus, two leading Georgian TV journalists have been jailed, supposedly for trying to extort money from a ruling party politician. Reporters Without Borders calls the evidence against them ‘thin’, while the journalists claim they have been the victim of a set-up.

Pressure on independent media has been increasing, both from the authorities and from business tycoons. The recent news that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is buying a large share in the Georgian TV channel Imedi has provoked a mixed reponse. One local expert pronounced, “that professional standards in Georgia are so low, that any possible bias, real or perceived, introduced by News Corp. could not make things worse.”