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NOTE TO READERS: Youth movements played a critical role in recent revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, while new groups are appearing in Russia and Central Asia, much to the dismay of leaders there. "The Power of Youth" is an ongoing RFE/RL webpage that looks at the rise of political youth movements. See http://www.rferl.org/specials/youth/
The news media are under severe duress in virtually all of the countries of the former Soviet Union. In the former Soviet republics of Central Asia this condition is particularly acute.
The troubled state of Central Asia's news media is put into perspective by data from Freedom House's annual survey of press freedom. All of these countries fall into the category of "not free." Most disturbing, however, is the countries' trajectory. All of these lands, save Tajikistan whose ratings have improved since the end of that country's violent civil war, now enjoy less press freedom than they did a decade ago.
The tools of media manipulation and control range from the subtle to the brutal. Already marginalized independent media confront a range of obstacles, from unusually vigilant tax inspectors to physical violence, including the killing of journalists.
This systematic abuse results in a massive information gap that warps the development of these societies and deprives its citizens of the free flow of information that can bring about democratic progress.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the state television broadcast facility was of particular interest to protesters in Kyrgyzstan, who last month jettisoned the regime of then-President Askar Akaev. The protesters' taking of the airwaves released the information spigot that had been all but closed to the opposition during campaign leading up to the recent flawed parliamentary elections.
The authorities in Tajikistan, which also held parliamentary elections in February 2005, undertook their own campaign to rein in media. Citing alleged tax violations, the authorities shut down several newspapers, including "Adolat," "Odamu Olam," and "Ruzi No." Peter Eicher, chief of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said of the Tajik authorities' treatment of the news media that "it seems to represent a pattern of government interference with independent media and this has an effect which undermines democratic elections."
On the heels of recent events in the neighborhood, Uzbek authorities have reportedly initiated criminal proceedings against Internews, a media assistance organization, signaling another effort to limit independent media development in that highly closed country.
Turkmenistan, among the most repressive states in the world, is sui generis. The government controls all media, which is used principally as an instrument to promote the personality cult of the country's president, Saparmurat Niyazov.
The authorities in these countries seek to manage the news and deny information to their citizens with good reason. Without exception, the news on these regimes' governance performance is not good. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the authorities in all five former Soviet Central Asian republics have been mired in corruption and unable to deliver essential political goods to their people.
Shining a light on these problems would of course have a salutary impact. A free flow of news and information could precipitate a demand for greater responsiveness to societal needs. Such responsiveness is, however, something Central Asian leadership has shown little capacity or willingness to entertain. As events in Georgia, Ukraine and, now, Kyrgyzstan tell us, average citizens already have come to expect better governance from their leaders, despite the best efforts of these very same leaders to keep them in the dark.
The main features of media control include deep involvement of presidential family and close associates in ownership and management positions at broadcast and print news organizations.
In Kyrgyzstan, independent broadcasters have been virtually all owned or under the control of forces close to President Akaev, including his son-in-law and other family members. The print press has been a similar story, frequently practicing self-censorship in its political coverage.
Kazakhstan boasts a more modern media landscape, but print and broadcast outlets of import are owned or controlled by financial interests and parties affiliated with the regime. President Nursultan Nazarbaev's daughter, Dariga Nazerbaeva, controls major television channels. She also exerts significant influence over several major newspapers.
To meet the range of serious challenges that loom - corruption, economic development and security among them - Central Asia needs its own information revolution, which would be a key catalyst for moving forward the democratic reform process. Events in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan suggest that the democratic impulse has real traction. Despite the best efforts to control information, word of mouth and new technology is inexorably conspiring to spread the word about democratic developments, even to the most remote corners of the former Soviet space.
Unlike in the Middle East, the citizens of Central Asia do not enjoy access to the dynamic and catalytic media outlets the likes of Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya that are beamed via satellite into households throughout the politically repressive Mideast region.
This suggests that Central Asia's media reform will need to take root from within.
Toward this end, on 1 April 2005 Kyrgyzstan's media and NGO community made a public appeal for the creation of a working group that would draft legislation to establish independent public television and radio. The transformation of the country's state-controlled National TV and Radio Corporation into a genuinely independent, public station would set a valuable precedent in the region.
In Kyrgyzstan, expectations are very high, perhaps unreasonably so, for achieving swift and comprehensive reforms. Kyrgyz citizens and the outside world alike should hold no illusions about the magnitude of this challenge. The recent turn of events in Kyrgyzstan, as regards the media sector, could represent an important first step and sorely needed breath of fresh air on what is now a grim information landscape.
(Christopher Walker is director of studies at Freedom House.)
NOTE TO READERS: Youth movements played a critical role in recent revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, while new groups are appearing in Russia and Central Asia, much to the dismay of leaders there. "The Power of Youth" is an ongoing RFE/RL webpage that looks at the rise of political youth movements. See http://www.rferl.org/specials/youth/
UN REITERATES DEMAND THAT BELARUS ALLOW ENTRY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ENVOY. The UN Human Rights Commission, meeting in Geneva on 14 April, asked Belarus to agree to a visit from a special UN envoy to investigate numerous allegations of human rights violations, Reuters reported. According to the news agency, the commission expressed "deep concern" that senior government officials had been implicated in the disappearances of three political opponents in 1999 and a journalist in 2000. The resolution was supported by the EU, United States, and Ukraine but opposed by Russia and China. Last year, the United States and the European Union co-sponsored a similar resolution, which raised concern about the disappearance of political opponents, electoral irregularities, and the beating and detention of demonstrators and journalists after the October 2004 parliamentary elections (see "RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report," 19 November 2004). JAC
UKRAINIAN INTERIOR MINISTER SAYS CHARGES LIKELY AGAINST YANUKOVYCH. Ukraine's Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko said during an internet conference on the "Ukrayinska pravda" website (http://www.pravda.ua.com) on 14 April that criminal charges will probably be brought against former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Lutsenko said, "It looks like we've found the main vein which was feeding the pro-power candidate's presidential election campaign -- the so-called charitable foundations." According to Lutsenko, the charges that are likely to be filed against Yanukovych are not connected exclusively with improper financing of his presidential election campaign. Asked about whether charges will be brought against President Viktor Yushchenko in the bankruptcy case of Ukrayina Bank, Lutsenko said such charges are not ruled out "but are within the competence of the Prosecutor's Office." Yushchenko, speaking to reporters in Dnepropetrovsk on 14 April, said that he is prepared to initiate a case on the bank, with which he "had four years of professional and honest work." JAC
UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION PARTIES SIGN AGREEMENT WITHOUT MEDVEDCHUK. The leaders of four opposition parties, Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych, Progressive Socialist Party head Natalya Vitrenko, Derzhava party leader Hennadiy Vasylyev, and New Democracy party leader Yevhen Kushnaryov, have signed a communiqué outlining the principles under which they will seek to form a wide coalition of opposition forces, Interfax-Ukraine and proua.com reported. According to the document, the leaders charge that "persecution of uncooperative media, administrative pressure on businesses and the use of the courts, the prosecutors, the Security Service, and the Interior Ministry to attack opposition politicians and citizens" are all currently ongoing under the present administration. According to Interfax, United Social Democratic Party (SPDU-o) leader Viktor Medvedchuk did not sign the communiqué as the press service of the Progressive Socialist Party had reported earlier. Aleksei Mustafin, a member of the SPDU-o's political council, said that party's politburo will possibly examine this question but he doubted the party will join the effort. JAC
UKRAINIAN REPRIVATIZATION POSSIBILITY WHETTING APPETITE OF RUSSIAN CAPITAL. "Fakty" reported on 14 April that the prospect of reprivatization of some Ukrainian enterprises is attracting the interest of a number of Russian financial-industrial groups. For example, Dmitrii Chernyavskii, chairman of the Russian investment firm, Avrora Capital, told reporters in Kyiv recently that the Russian companies Severstal and Evrazholding are potential competitors in any new tender for shares in Kryvorizhstal steel mill. Severstal is also reportedly interested in obtaining the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical industrial complex, Zaparozhstal, and other enterprises. Evrazholding is interested in Pavlohradugol, Ukrstalkonstruktsiya, and Luhanskugleavtomatika. In February, Yushchenko said that in the coming weeks the government would review the privatizations of 30 to 40 enterprises (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 15 February 2005). JAC
MOLDOVA RATIFIES THREE GUUAM AGREEMENTS. The Moldovan parliament ratified three agreements of the GUUAM regional group ahead of that organization's summit meeting in Chisinau, Infotag reported on 14 April. In addition to ratifying the GUUAM Charter, which was signed in July 2001 in Yalta, lawmakers passed an agreement aimed at creating a free-trade zone and one creating an Information Bureau, both of which were signed in July 2002. GUUAM comprises Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. "Regional cooperation within the GUUAM framework is an element of globalization and is not aimed against other countries," Deputy Foreign Minister Zinaida Chistruga said. In the wake of revolutions that overthrew pro-Moscow governments in Georgia and Ukraine, some observers believe GUUAM could become a counterweight to the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). BW
The news media are under severe duress in virtually all of the countries of the former Soviet Union. In the former Soviet republics of Central Asia this condition is particularly acute.
The troubled state of Central Asia's news media is put into perspective by data from Freedom House's annual survey of press freedom. All of these countries fall into the category of "not free." Most disturbing, however, is the countries' trajectory. All of these lands, save Tajikistan whose ratings have improved since the end of that country's violent civil war, now enjoy less press freedom than they did a decade ago.
The tools of media manipulation and control range from the subtle to the brutal. Already marginalized independent media confront a range of obstacles, from unusually vigilant tax inspectors to physical violence, including the killing of journalists.
This systematic abuse results in a massive information gap that warps the development of these societies and deprives its citizens of the free flow of information that can bring about democratic progress.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the state television broadcast facility was of particular interest to protesters in Kyrgyzstan, who last month jettisoned the regime of then-President Askar Akaev. The protesters' taking of the airwaves released the information spigot that had been all but closed to the opposition during campaign leading up to the recent flawed parliamentary elections.
The authorities in Tajikistan, which also held parliamentary elections in February 2005, undertook their own campaign to rein in media. Citing alleged tax violations, the authorities shut down several newspapers, including "Adolat," "Odamu Olam," and "Ruzi No." Peter Eicher, chief of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said of the Tajik authorities' treatment of the news media that "it seems to represent a pattern of government interference with independent media and this has an effect which undermines democratic elections."
On the heels of recent events in the neighborhood, Uzbek authorities have reportedly initiated criminal proceedings against Internews, a media assistance organization, signaling another effort to limit independent media development in that highly closed country.
Turkmenistan, among the most repressive states in the world, is sui generis. The government controls all media, which is used principally as an instrument to promote the personality cult of the country's president, Saparmurat Niyazov.
The authorities in these countries seek to manage the news and deny information to their citizens with good reason. Without exception, the news on these regimes' governance performance is not good. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the authorities in all five former Soviet Central Asian republics have been mired in corruption and unable to deliver essential political goods to their people.
Shining a light on these problems would of course have a salutary impact. A free flow of news and information could precipitate a demand for greater responsiveness to societal needs. Such responsiveness is, however, something Central Asian leadership has shown little capacity or willingness to entertain. As events in Georgia, Ukraine and, now, Kyrgyzstan tell us, average citizens already have come to expect better governance from their leaders, despite the best efforts of these very same leaders to keep them in the dark.
The main features of media control include deep involvement of presidential family and close associates in ownership and management positions at broadcast and print news organizations.
In Kyrgyzstan, independent broadcasters have been virtually all owned or under the control of forces close to President Akaev, including his son-in-law and other family members. The print press has been a similar story, frequently practicing self-censorship in its political coverage.
Kazakhstan boasts a more modern media landscape, but print and broadcast outlets of import are owned or controlled by financial interests and parties affiliated with the regime. President Nursultan Nazarbaev's daughter, Dariga Nazerbaeva, controls major television channels. She also exerts significant influence over several major newspapers.
To meet the range of serious challenges that loom - corruption, economic development and security among them - Central Asia needs its own information revolution, which would be a key catalyst for moving forward the democratic reform process. Events in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan suggest that the democratic impulse has real traction. Despite the best efforts to control information, word of mouth and new technology is inexorably conspiring to spread the word about democratic developments, even to the most remote corners of the former Soviet space.
Unlike in the Middle East, the citizens of Central Asia do not enjoy access to the dynamic and catalytic media outlets the likes of Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya that are beamed via satellite into households throughout the politically repressive Mideast region.
This suggests that Central Asia's media reform will need to take root from within.
Toward this end, on 1 April 2005 Kyrgyzstan's media and NGO community made a public appeal for the creation of a working group that would draft legislation to establish independent public television and radio. The transformation of the country's state-controlled National TV and Radio Corporation into a genuinely independent, public station would set a valuable precedent in the region.
In Kyrgyzstan, expectations are very high, perhaps unreasonably so, for achieving swift and comprehensive reforms. Kyrgyz citizens and the outside world alike should hold no illusions about the magnitude of this challenge. The recent turn of events in Kyrgyzstan, as regards the media sector, could represent an important first step and sorely needed breath of fresh air on what is now a grim information landscape.
(Christopher Walker is director of studies at Freedom House.)