Media and Internet
Turkmen Journalist Dovletmyrat Yazkuliyev (Yazgulyev, Довлетмурад Язгулиев), 43, employed since 2007 with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)’s Turkmen language service Radio Azatlyk, has been sentenced to five years in prison by a court in Kahka (in the Turkmen province Akhal), after only a 2 day hearing.
The reason for his detention?
The journalist was detained on September 27th for supposedly influencing his relative to attempt to commit suicide. He went on trial on October 4th and was just charged with the maximum sentence, under article 106.2 of the criminal code. Family members were forced to sign statements about these false suicide accusations, and when they tried to revoke them in fear of the damage they would do to the detention and trial Dovletmyrat, they were unable to. However, relatives told RFE/RL “…they have “sufficient documents proving that his case is politically motivated.””
The real reason for his detention?
Yazkuliyev was one of the first journalists to cover the deadly explosion, in an Ashgabat suburb of Abadan this past summer on July 7th, against the will of Turkmen authorities.
Read the full story »
Long time award-winning American CNN journalist Larry King – the man of the Larry King Live show – visited Kazakhstan last week. With more than just oil on King’s mind – the world-renown broadcaster’s comment on ‘democracy’, and how it relates to Kazakhstan, renders as noteworthy.
King brought his journalism skills to Central Asia to moderate the KAZENERGY Eurasian Forum, which was held at the Palace of Independence on October 4-5, 2011 in Astana. Over the years, the event as been seen as significant for both Kazakhstan – a leading global producer of uranium – and the Caspian Sea region.
INTERFAX-Kazakhstan said this year “700 delegates representing major intentional oil and gas corporations and government officials from 40 countries” were expected to attend. This year the forum was aimed at celebrating 2 decades of the country’s independence. Before declaring itself independent, Kazakhstan was known as the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Kazakhstan’s Almaty-based independent news website Stan TV has recently faced an attack – which has been brewing in its essence since August. The site commonly provides video materials to the Russian-Based satellite broadcaster K+ and also provides information to the Associated Press Television News.
So, why the attack – or better said – an intensification on the attack? Because the media outlet, together with Namystan, covered a strike by oil workers in Mangystau, which was – it goes without saying – suppressed by authorities, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) informs.
On September 27th, an Almaty court ordered for the closing of the media outlet’s production studio and the dismantling of its receiver-transmitter satellite dish. And the reason – because Stan TV failed to comply with the standards of Kazakhstan’s public health inspection agency.
Photograph provided to neweurasia's Alpharabius (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: The trial of Nuri Zindagi reporter Mahmadyusuf Ismoilov has been momentarily adjourned due to “sickness” on the part of a judicial aide — although a friend of neweurasia’s Alpharabius caught the aide shopping. Were that not enough, prosecutors have opened a case against Ismoilov’s lawyer. Is this Tajik justice?
The trial of Mahmadyusuf Ismoilov, a regional reporter for the Dushanbe-based independent weekly Nuri Zindagi whom I blogged about this past weekend, was adjourned yesterday until October 29.
The apparent reason was that one of the judicial aids to judge Saodat Aliva became sick. However, an acquaintance of mine has said that she met the aid in the local market yesterday and the individual seemed healthy — certainly healthy enough to go shopping. (My acquaintance tried to take a photo of the aide using a mobile phone, which resulted in a small confrontation between them…)
Calling out sick at a key moment in a sensitive judicial process is a widespread trick here in Tajikistan, as our judges often resort to it when they do not feel that they have a clear signal from “above” about how to proceed.
Editor: The BBC’s Urunboy Usmonov is not the only journalist in Tajikistan in trouble with political authorities: local reporter Muhammad Yusuf Ismailov (Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov) is facing 16 years in prison for reporting about corruption. neweurasia’s Alpharabius warns that Ismailov’s international obscurity makes him a softer target than Usmonov — and his case more dangerous for independent media in Tajikistan.
The news has been chocking: prosecutors have demanded a 16-year jail term for a journalist just because he wrote the truth about social problems and corrupt authorities. They accuse him of “inciting ethnic tensions”, “insulting officials”, and “extortion”. The next court hearing is scheduled for this Monday, October 3. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, if convicted, Ismailov will be the first journalist to suffer this in Tajikistan in a decade.
Muhammad Yusuf Ismailov (Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov) was arrested in November 2010 after publishing a story earlier that summer in the now-defunct Dushanbe weekly Nuri Zindagi about widespread abuses by local authorities in the Asht district of northern Tajikistan [Ed.: Alpharabius has provided us pdf copies of the article in question which you can download at the bottom of this post]. It was very good, fact-based investigative reporting.
Today, Ismailov, 51 years old, ill and physically disabled, has been in jail for more than 10 months. There was some hope that he might have been released when the government issued the recent amnesty to commemorate 20 years of Tajikistan’s independence, but this failed to happen (instead, I’m told that prosecutors had offered to reduce the sentence they are seeking from 16 years to 14 — how “kind” of them!)
The crux of the case against Ismailov are two sets of testimony: one from 12 state employees of the Asht district government, the other from the Tajikistan Language Committee. According to Nuri Zindagi’s chief editor, Dzhuma Mirzo, several witnesses have changed their testimony in favor of the defendant. Meanwhile, the Committee argues that perhaps the Ismailov crossed the line and should be held accountable for inflammatory and extortive rhetoric. In my view, this argument is simply not true. Let’s look at this point by point.
While literature in Turkmenistan is being celebrated on one hand, on the other hand, it continues to be unsurprisingly suppressed – granted this is a regime wherein media is completely controlled by the state and where there is a severe lack of freedom of expression via books.
This month, Turkmenistan hosted their fifth annual book fair in Ashgabat, with the motto “The Book – The Way To Cooperation and Progress“, where thousands of titles on science fiction, economy, culture, history and others were said to be found on stand.
A total of 9 dozen organizations and companies from some 25 countries gathered in Turkmenistan for the event. Of the foreign representation at the International Book Forum, the Russian Federation held a leading role.
Read the full story »
In Uzbekistan, photography – and other forms of media relations and human rights activities – are carefully watched and monitored by the state.
On September 15th, Gulshan Karayeva and Nodir Ahatov – members of an unregistered Uzbekistan’s Human Rights society – were held by authorities for 10 hours for their act of photographing injustice, for “… taking pictures of schoolchildren picking cotton in the southern Kashkadarya region.”
The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Uzbek Service quotes activist Karayeva saying:
“We saw the fourth-graders picking the cotton as we were monitoring allegations of child labor in our region.”
“[The students] pick cotton from the early morning till the afternoon and then they are supposed to go to school afterward.”
Freedom of artistic expression – social, economic and political – is currently being celebrated in Kazakhstan.
Today, September 18th, is Almaty Day – and in celebration – the streets of this Kazakh city are revisiting the wonder-years via photographs and music.
At Shokan Valikhanov square, in front of Almaty’s Science Academy, between Kyrmangazy and Kunayev streets, the “Almaty Beinesi” photo exhibition can be found.
Tengrinews.kz quotes Akmurza Rustambekov, President of Architects Union, saying:
“All these unique buildings and facilities gave Almaty its own style. Almaty was called Mecca of Soviet architecture and the chronicles of the city are very precious for its citizens.”
BarCamp 2011 was certainly the topic of the past weekend among so called Internet activists of Kyrgyzstan and some countries of Central Asia. People who usually do their communication through chats, skype calls, comments, tweets and likes gathered in Bishkek to talk in person and discuss latest developments in Web 2.0, open source software, applications and what not. Official website of the event says that more than 1100 people registered for the conference. However, my estimates of real attendance is 500-600, which is also a good indicator for our region. Here is my traditional photo story about the event.
Central Asia’s wealthiest country is well known to be Kazakhstan, with its oil-oil-oil. And thought the country’s media isn’t upholding a great reputation in some aspects, hence “blocking websites to battle religious extremism”, it is indeed prospering in other aspects, hence news that the country will welcome Forbes magazine to its list of available medias.
Kazakhstan is the 18th country to receive a local language edition of Forbes, the first Central Asian country to receive the iconic US international business magazine, and the third country to receive it on the list of former Soviet countries after Russia and Ukraine.
Forbes will be the first international financial news brand to come to the area. And to highlight this media-milestone, Miguel Forbes, Forbes Television and Licensing President was quoted by Business Wire saying:
“Forbes Kazakhstan is an important addition to our growing footprint in the region.”
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