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FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND MASS MEDIA IN KAZAKHSTAN

A Survey of the Press in Kazakhstan and Russia
An abridged version

This publication is an overview of a study titled 'Freedom of speech and mass media in Kazakhstan', which explores the outlook for the press in Kazakhstan and Russia and came out in Moscow in 1998. It was conducted by the Interdisciplinary studies center “Volkhonka, 14” as part of an Integrated program for comparative studies of political cultures across what was once the Soviet Union. It had the information backing of the Eurasia Information and Analysis Center. Its unabridged, 133-page version in Russian, Freedom of speech and mass media in Kazakhstan, was published in Moscow in 1998.

Currently, the press and, accordingly, the survey in question are preponderantly concerned with the state of and prospects for mass media in Kazakhstan. Coming under review are areas such as media's relations with government, as detailed in the sections, Law and mass media and Government and press, as well as with business, as presented in the section, Journalism as entrepreneurship, and with Russian mass media, as tackled in the section, Foreign presence in the Kazakh information marketplace. Elucidating glimpses are furnished of interplay between the Russian and Kazakh languages in the press and on TV, as outlined in the Language and media section. The section, Mass media and upcoming elections, zeroes in on media's stance on the early presidential elections in Kazakhstan.

These issues had a wide exposure in the Kazakh press between April and October, 1998, as they had in Russian press outfits eager to foster the independence of mass media in Russia and other post-Soviet nations.

All these topics are facing up to the common challenge to the mass media, its sources and prospects for self-reliant journalism to carry on as a paramount underpinning of any democratic society.

Law and Mass Media

On April 30, 1998, Kazakhstan's Attorney General brought criminal charges citing infractions of the law, On the press and mass media. A statement by the press service of the Attorney General's office referred to 273 established cases of the law's infringement, notably 'dissemination of unsubstantiated reports, alongside pronouncements injurious to the honor and dignity of citizens in the republic,' as well as articles 'meant to foment strife and controversy over the nation's statehood and sovereignty and an ostensibly impending carving-up of the republic by friendly neighbor countries and their covert bellicosity'. [Karavan, May 8, 1998] The statement further makes much play with press reports derogatory to the republic's citizens, among them officials and entire government institutions:

... articles are on the loose defamatory to citizens of this republic, individual government agencies and their officials.

There have been uncovered facts involving tampering with the Constitution-mandated right of citizens to privacy and secrecy of telephone communication. [Karavan, May 8, 1998]

The Attorney General reckoned all that sufficient grounds to launch criminal proceedings.

The text of the statement caused no end of queries from journalists and lawyers alike. To start with, it is unmatched in international legal practice yet for criminal charges to be brought against all mass media without exception. At the outset, spokesmen for the Attorney General's office would not identify the publications currently under its legal scrutiny, which naturally invited suspicions of an overtly punitive nature of this browbeating move. 'What is supremely suspect about the Attorney General's decision is primarily those accused not being fittingly identified,' contends T. Kaleeva. [Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, May 15, 1998]

Further on, apart from setting a legal precedent, the Attorney General's statement is riddled with discrepancies. For one thing, he urges expert examinations, which could allegedly be valid only as part of criminal proceedings; for another, legal infringements have already been pinned down, 273 of them altogether in 1997 alone. Why the need for those expert probes, one wonders. Next, if specified breaches of law were properly established, why no criminal action was taken on a case-by-case basis? Lots of press reports are finding the statement rather wanting in its essentially legal purview; and, third, its charges are grounded less in legal minutiae than in purported moral criteria and values:

Revealingly enough, the Attorney General, who, given his status, should be a top-notch lawyer, altogether winked rebukes by the country's many distinguished legal experts over flimsy juridical evidence for taking to court all Kazakh mass media in one fell swoop and keeping secret the names of particular offenders.

Moreover, in his address, Yuri Khitrin adjudged the newsmen's actions not on grounds of legality or otherwise, but along moral or otherwise lines. [S. Kozlov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 17, 1998]

The sole meaningful explanation of all that is that the criminal lawsuit against the mass media had an overtly political rationale behind it.

Were the Attorney General's office to go to court over wrongdoing by particular journalists and their particular publications, the case would be an intrinsically legal one. But since the Attorney General's office is instigating criminal proceedings against all mass media rolled into one, this is a downright political action; much the same goes for the office's later charges of the freedom of speech being taken liberties with.

It should be made amply clear from the word go that the very notion of freedom-of-speech abuses is a political rather than legal category. Freedom is either there or nowhere. If the freedom of speech is abused to the detriment of society, the culprit is not that freedom per se but quite particular offenders. Efforts to eradicate such abuses should deter that freedom being truncated in the process. [A. Bisenbayev, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, July 25, 1998]

Yet another spur to the Attorney General's statement was his wish to revise the current Law on the press to adjust it to quite likely political and economic upheavals:

This leads one to interpret the emergence of that odd criminal case as being designed to bring the media to heel. An ideal rationale for revising the existing Law on the press would be dismissing it as a non-starter and conducive to a supposedly unremitting polarization of the press. [N. Drozd, Panorama, May 8, 1998]

Once the statement was out, journalists started seeking clarification from the Attorney General's office and other official bodies, chiefly from the information and public accord ministry. Later on, Attorney General Yu. Khitrin himself offered his explanation. The swelling tumult in the press, and not in Kazakhstan alone, compelled the officials to superficially ease their strictures. Ye. Ovchinnikov, head of the Attorney General office PR section, reassured the public that the inquiry would be utterly aboveboard, and yet declined to identify the particular publications and journalists under investigation. Worse still, he intimated that the infractions themselves would be kept under the lid for an indefinite time:

We will desist from making public the facts we might look into, as you yourself could describe or appraise that the next day as slighting the press in the eyes of the public... This won't do either. These facts could be mentioned only once the persons concerned are found guilty beyond all doubt, all the particulars of the case are clarified, and the case itself is brought to court. [Ye. Ovchinnikov, Karavan, May 8, 1998]

A.Sarsenbayev, information and public accord minister, sounded way more lenient on the matter at hand. Asked whether newspapers, magazines, and TV companies could be closed at the prompting of the Attorney General's office, he ruled out any such eventuality.

- I'm primarily convinced that the country's president cannot be expected to sanction such a political onslaught on domestic mass media, taking credit as he does for making them genuinely free, in stark contrast with our neighbors...

Even despite some mass media outlets hazarding printing or airing materials prejudicial to ethnic relations and preaching violence, cruelty, pornography and suchlike, criminal proceedings could be launched solely against the media found in breach of law. So should the Attorney General's office take them to court charged with particular instances of freedom-of-speech abuses, the move would barely spark off outrage among the media community but would rather facilitate democratic headway. [A. Sarsenbayev, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, May 14, 1998]

The minister's mention of yet only presumed views of the country's president on the matter placed quite a divergent slant on the situation. A while later, the Attorney General made an appreciable climbdown in his standoff with the press. Addressing the parliament and talking to a KazAAG interviewer, Yu. Khitrin pointedly stressed his office actually took exception only to a relatively inextensive list of articles, ten or so all told, carried by some national papers. What unsettled him most, it appeared, was P. Svoik's article, Kazakhstan – Russia: Is a fresh alliance in the offing?, carried by Karavan, alongside its another publication, one of a private telephone talk by Kazakstanskaya Pravda's editor-in-chief and publisher A. Aimbetov, which had the authorities steeped in opprobrium:

Speaking in parliament on the government hour slot, the republic's Attorney General suggested holding a round table and inviting for it media people to more extensively review the criminal charges brought in alleged cases of Law- on-the-press malfeasance.

'In my capacity as Attorney General, I am disinclined to meddle with anyone's rights,' stressed Yuri Khitrin, adding he will check on a range of printed materials. He nonetheless refereed only to P. Svoik's article carried by Karavan, Kazakhstan – Russia: Is a fresh alliance in the offing? 'I appropriately took the newspaper and the author to court. I will not insist on closing the paper down, it will suffice to fine it to make it see reason...'. [G. Nurgaliyeva, Karavan, May 29, 1998]

The Attorney General altogether relented following president Nazarbayev sounding off his official stand on the matter:

Noteworthy in this regard is the unequivocal line taken by the information and public accord ministry regarding the Attorney General's criminal lawsuit against the mass media. Justly enough, the ministry took it as breaching the law the Attorney General's office itself urged the media to abide with in the first place. The information and public accord ministry is being democratic in this issue, which is quite a hopeful development. More hope still was held out by president Nazarbayev in stressing his resolve to deter any encroachments on the freedom of speech. [A. Bisenbayev, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, July 25, 1998]

The developments to follow, though, belied that seemingly eased-off pressure on the press. Just as the latter pushed for an apology from the Attorney General's office, there surfaced the Law on the national security of the Republic of Kazakhstan, signed by the Kazakh president on June 26, 1998. It held out the likelihood of pre-trial closures of newspapers and TV and radio stations. Press comment was unvaryingly resentful:

The Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan in no uncertain terms lays down the following:

'Article 20. 1. The freedom of speech and creativity is guaranteed, while censorship is proscribed.' For all that, this overriding constitutional fundamental has been also repealed de facto and de jure. The press has been gagged by invoking... 'the national information protection guidelines.' Article 22 of the law On national security basically rescinds the Law on the press and other mass media. This is being pulled off by two 'shots' as it were, one to the heart and the other to the head, just in case. The former is being 'fired' by Article 22, part 5, clause 3: 'It is prohibited to divulge departmental and other information bearing on the national interest.' Instead of following that through with proscribing disclosures of 'confidential, top classified, and like data, the legal experts with the president at their helm are straightway banning 'revelations' of whatever information there is, for, obviously, it will now be up to officials themselves to rule on which information 'relates to the national interest.' No one will be in a position to dispute this as reinstating CENSORSHIP in Kazakhstan in violation of the Constitution and the law On the press. [E. Nurshin, XXI vek, July 17, 1998]

Even at the outset of the 'media affair', a string of press reports in Kazakhstan pinned it down as being plainly stage-managed:

There is no ruling out that all the subsequent moves in this scenario have been meticulously rehearsed, and the president will step in to clinch the matter in the right place and at the right time. It might happen in the run-up to Journalism Day on June 28, or, possibly, thereafter. [N. Ishmukhametov, Express K, June 2, 1998]

Indeed, the president's views were aired at a specified time. Furthermore, current political arrangements in Kazakhstan make it impossible for the Attorney General to give the go-ahead to such an eye-catching criminal case all on his own. This offers an extra argument for the case being painstakingly masterminded:

The Kazakh press and a few public organizations took this move as a bid to cow the press and make it more tractable and loyal to the powers that be. Some experts even claimed that the republic's Attorney General is not all that a self-contained political figure to hazard engineering such a criminal case. [M. Ustyugov, Karavan, July 10, 1998]

It is not altogether unlikely that the entire razzle-dazzle was conceived and sanctioned in the highest reaches of power, as overtly underscored by some Russian press reports:

This is yet another such foray against the press in the republic unleashed at the president's bidding. The first time round those targeted were Russian media representatives accredited in Kazakhstan implicated in what is referred to as the 'chieftain Gunkin affair' in the fall of 1995. They never had criminal charges brought against them, though, at the end of the day. [S. Kozlov, Nezavisimaya gazeta, June 17, 1998]

Regarding the reasons for such an involved propaganda ploy, a few of them readily come to the fore. For one thing, the Kazakh president comes to stand surety for the freedom of speech yet another time; for another, there is now an opening to adjust or repeal the Law on the press altogether; next, the strident backlash in the press enables identifying loyalist publications and otherwise. Last but not least, this is a most opportune pretext to show the press exactly who is running the show ahead of early elections, which are already in the making.

Mass Media and Upcoming Presidential Elections

Mr. Nazarbayev lacks effective media – Putting the squeeze on independent media via the Attorney General’ s office and the revenue service – Mounting tenders for frequencies to close down maverick radio stations and television networks – Buying up independent private publications by proxy – Banning printing offices from business with independent-minded newspapers and illegal seizure of their editions – Threats of violence against newspaper staff – Pro-government media are overrunning the information space

There have been many articles overtly linking the 'Attorney General's press case' to the election campaign. The relevance the mass media has for Kazakhstan bears repeating: as lots of entrenched electioneering tacks are all but a spent force across the country's vast expenses, the print and electronic media are nearly the sole viable means of swaying voters' choice one way or the other. In his article, ‘Equaling pen with dagger. All journalists are under criminal investigation now,’ S. Borisov points out: 'The presidential race is already on, as evidenced by the information field being weeded of "undesirable shoots" belittling the image of the No 1 candidate.' [Obshchaya gazeta, July 9-15, 1998]

According to some analysts, by the summer of 1998 Mr. Nazarbayev's sway over the mass media was nowhere near the influence he enjoyed within the power structure, which augured ill for his presidential reelection chances. The point is that government media, which implicitly follow the authorities' line, are a poor match for their independent counterparts in terms of impacting the voters:

Mr. Nazarbayev has everything going his way to win through, save influential mass media. Government-run newspapers, radio, and TV, which lack the common touch, could do him a nasty electoral turn. [B. Gabdullin, XXI vek, January 30, 1998]

This conundrum was tackled, aside from political pressure brought to bear via the Attorney General's office, by concerted organizational and economic ploys. To illustrate, the use of the aforementioned frequencies tenders resulted in the closure of a few high-profile independent radio and TV stations:

The electronic media had a grueling time with a radio and TV frequencies tender the government sponsored in January, 1997. This was a thinly veiled political purge, with the added benefit for the latter of replenishing its coffers at the expense of private companies...

The tender board selected by the government was empowered to hand-pick bidders for radio and TV channels which proved not just financially sound but loyal to the power structure. This led to several television companies, earlier noted for pulling no punches uncovering various abuses of power and readily offering slots for opposition figures, being stripped of their channels and forced into self-liquidation.

In April, 1997 ... the human rights bureau adopted a statement, saying in part: 'The tender for radio and TV frequencies severely circumscribed the information leeway and the freedom and dissemination of information, therefore markedly curtailing citizens' right to freely choose the information they want and substantively truncating the pluralism of the media’. [Delovaya nedelya, May 22, 1998]

The authorities are making extensive recourse to checking the tax returns of iconoclast publications, forcing some printing houses to turn their backs on independent newspapers and even removing editions without appropriate legal warrants:

Aside from blanket tax police check-ups, one viable means of leashing some free-minded publications is getting government-controlled printing houses to refuse them their services. Precisely such was the case with the Ekonomika segodnya [Current economic review], which carried a range of critical materials, following which a printing office in the town of Talgar backtracked on its business deal with the paper (which is now down and out, its founder taking himself abroad). [Delovaya nedelya, May 22, 1998]

On Monday, October 25, subscribers in the cities of Aktyubinsk, Atyrau, and Aktau failed to get the latest issues of the Dat, Yarmarka, and XXI vek newspapers. Several persons, having produced some notoriously-looking red identification cards, seized the consignments of those newspapers right in those cities' dispatch centers. Thereafter the newspapers vanished in thin air. [G. Kalymbetov, XXI vek, October 29, 1998]

Another pretty potent tool in forcing media's hand was buying up, now and again by proxy, independent publications and making them politically compliant:

In advance of the elections the authorities are going all out to secure the outcome they crave. The shrinking of the 'independent' information latitude is yielding further ground to the pro-president media outfits, which are getting ever more numerous. According to data furnished by the Karavan newspaper, the founder of the Europe plus Kazakhstan radio channel Rakhat Aliyev is the republic's chief tax officer. That could be saying a lot for the enterprising young fellow if not for the fact that he is the husband of Dariga Nazarbayeva, and, consequently, Mr. Nazarbayev's son-in-law. Only a short while ago, the Novoye pokoleniye newspaper changed hands, and Mr. Aliyev is rumored to be pulling its strings as well. [Sh. Isakova. Rossiya, July 03, 1998]

After being sold off, the newspaper Kovcheg, which earlier used to be dubbed 'our own', has turned just a shade too liberal to be true, and unrelievedly humdrum to boot. Karavan and KTK, which also changed hands, are making something of a political about-turn. Dat has had the tax screws turned on it.

All the rest of the publications pointedly billed by Khitrin, Musayev, and Suleimenov as little less than enemies of the people are keeping afloat at the moment, but for how long? [N. Savitskaya, My, August 13, 1998]

Press reports indicate that nothing short of open violence is being used to scare the media into submission. In one such instance, a bomb was thrown into the editorial office of the XXI vek weekly.

Noteworthily, in debating the pros and cons of presidential elections, most analysts concurred that Nazarbayev's assurances to the contrary, the elections would be held early, projecting them for late 1998 or early 1999. Among the reasons adduced were a likely economic slump in Kazakhstan by the turn of the century, presidential elections in Russia placing a new figure at the helm less inclined in Nazarbayev's favor, along with the mounting posture of other presidential hopefuls, above all Akezhan Kazhegeldin.

Journalism as entrepreneurship

The emergence of an information marketplace – Government subsidies to the media to keep them in check – Media's property is being monopolized and the freedom of speech comes under threat

The buying up of newspapers and high-profile radio and TV networks is highlighting the most salient feature of present-day media in post-Soviet nations – journalism is now a business where big-audience publications are making strides, while the less attractive ones could fold up any moment. The issue of government subsidies and the resulting pressure for their recipients to shift their political allegiance is being viewed as a hurdle to the media's self-sufficiency:

...A factor shaping to a crucial degree the existence and evolution of mass media in transitional economies is the marketplace... For one thing, hardly all media managers are capable of keeping their operations profitable for any length of time, the more so that many of them have been inured to lavish government subsidies in past years. Precisely such media outfits are the hardest pressed for survival. Given that, some of them are fast turning catchpenny operations touting for more custom, while others are out to scrape through by enlisting commercial partners, these latter having their own political ax to grind. [Zh. Bolatova, E. Zhunsov, Delovaya nedelya, June 5, 1998]

Ordinarily, the government-run media in Kazakhstan are being outsmarted by private ones in terms of expeditious news coverage and its discerning analytical angle. The latter took only a short while to fashion an information industry of their own:

With not a single budget tenge to hand, no tax incentives, or other bonuses, and lacking means of manufacturing paper and telecommunications facilities of their own, the 'independent' media built up nearly from scratch an entire business far and away superior to the government-managed sector. [Delovaya nedelya, April, 4, 1998]

Advanced democratic nations have their multiplicity of prospective and actual media owners securing the freedom of speech to an appreciable extent, while things are the other way round in Kazakhstan, where a single, Nazarbayev's, clan has overrun most of the media there:

One long-standing dictum has it that the notion of freedom is only a relative one, the more so with regard to media in less democratic countries whose owners are keeping in with the rulers.

The degree of freedom enjoyed by Karavan and KTK used to be sizable enough, but how will they fare under their new masters? And who are they, after all?

The former owner of Karavan and KTK was reportedly forced to sell them off, given the situation at the Issyk winery.

Still this version ill accords with reports that Karavan and KTK were vied for by Kazhegeldin and Co., who were nonetheless outbidden by ostensibly 'more brawny' rivals.

Among those to have purportedly taken over Karavan and KTK figures president Nazarbayev's daughter Dariga and Co., while some conjecture that both Karavan and KTK ended up with Mr. Berezovski. [V. Makalkin, Nachnem s ponedelnika, July 16, 1998]

The new owners of independent media are being kept out of the public gaze; moreover, they prefer to lie low, this enabling garbling the information dished out to the electorate.

Language and Media

The national status of the Kazakh language and media shaping up as an information marketplace – Language policy and sustained ouster of Russian-language media – The standards of journalism in Kazakhstan – The Law on languages as yet another subterfuge to hem the media in

The media's market dimension surfaced in rather an unlikely area of interplay between the government, Kazakh, language, and the non-government Russian one. The government language policy to crowd the Russian language out of public communications and government management is being thwarted by the Kazakh language's 'unmarketability.' Self-contained and prosperous commercial print and electronic ventures are using the Russian language, while their Kazakh-language counterparts rely for their existence exclusively on government subsidies, which are, obviously, insufficient to keep them going:

The financial squeeze proved the most deleterious to the Kazakh-language press. Preposterously enough, in pledging their backing for the government language, the authorities, in point of fact, left the national press to sink or swim. [A. Kotseruba, Karavan, June 26, 1998]

Everything coming out in Kazakh entirely depends on the government for survival. There are a number of Russian-language publications and TV channels relying on their finances alone. [A. Pronin, Obshchaya gazeta, August 13-19, 1998]

Whatever the case may be, the government's sustained language policy is increasingly denying the Russian language time on the airways and squeezing out Russian-language publications.

One matter of live controversy now is the quality of Kazakh-language journalism, which is playing financial havoc with the media using that language:

...Khabar's Kazakh-language transmissions have long been voluminously fueling the flames of a crass ineptitude currently devouring the entire fabric of Kazakh-language media operations. Last year I, a Russian-speaking Kazakh, and Ye. Raushanov, a Kazakh poet of repute, kept stressing in various publications, including the selfsame Karavan, that the Kazakh-language Khabar was unrelievedly below par. We made a pointed reference in this regard to M. Sadykov, who, quite simply, is unable to mouth half the Kazakh phonemes. Quite unruffled, though, Khabar managers promoted this pen-pusher to the stewardship of its office in the new capital.

...Under the latest Law on languages, Kazakh should be on a par with Russian and evolve over time as a full-blown multifunctional means of communication. Still, on this issue, too, the power structure evinces its irredeemable impotence, flouting a law of its own making...

...The Kazakh-language press, which stands or falls by government subsidies, is papering over the cracks and, to tell the unvarnished truth, is plain unable to make sense of things, and therefore is either keeping mum, or plaintively commiserates with the decline of some out-of-the-way village or other, or is giving us the bunkum of the likes of, 'Surely Russian isn't deemed a great language for that simple reason alone that there are 220 million Russians around now?' (see Kazakh adebiet!, August 26, 1997). [D-n Naiman, Biz-My, April 4, 1998]

Government agencies are falling back on the Law on languages as yet another tool of reining the media in:

The tender board decides on taking one of the TV channels in Shymkent off the air, the subterfuge for such a drastic move being that this channel contravenes the Law on languages. In the event, Ms Taukina notes, tender boards would not make allowances for non-government electronic media often lacking the funds to dub feature films and other material into the national language. Bafflingly, too, government TV outlets, propped up though they are by budget subsidies, are falling foul of this law as well. [S. Ismailova, Delovaya nedelya, July 10, 1998]

Foreign Presence in the Kazakh Information Marketplace

Russian media in Kazakhstan have their leeway ebbing off – Russian media in Kazakhstan and the freedom of speech

Until recently, Russian press publications and TV channels had a wide exposure in the information marketplace in Kazakhstan. The authorities have long been looking at it askance, more recently taking off the air nearly all Russian TV networks save ORT and clamped some crippling constraints on major Russian publications:

We, 'normal' independent media and patriots of our nation, are wary of the inroads by Russian and other foreign mass media in the Kazakh information marketplace and the government's anti-democratic measures against self-reliant electronic media possibly reversing the democratic headway in Kazakhstan,' was a stirring message by ANESMI president Rozlana Taukina at recent press conference in Almaty...[V. Lapshin, Vremya po Grinvichu, May 6, 1998]

The Russian newspapers Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Trud, and AiF, which used to publish in Kazakhstan, had their circulation curtailed there back in 1994. ORT telecasts were reduced from nineteen hours daily to fourteen-and-a-half hours, while RTR was blacked out altogether. Mayak was given short shrift in January this year. [S. Smetanina, Kommersant, June 7, 1998]

Remarkably, too, Russian media in Kazakhstan not infrequently serve as information windows on the world, as the power structure in Kazakhstan is increasingly bringing local media to heel:

...Another thing to watch for is that, on balance, the people are taking their cue not from the government-supervised media, after all; they are far and away more influenced by Moscow-based publications, some of which are now and then given to lashing out not only against the president's daughter in her official capacity but the president in his own right. There is little likelihood of anything like an U-turn in this regard any time soon. [D-n Naiman, Biz-My, April 21, 1998]

Government and Press: The Intricacies of Their Interplay

More constraints on availability of information – Compliant versus nonconformist journalists – Keeping the lid on the media: access-barred information, denial of printing facilities and government subsidies, financial screenings, exorbitant taxes, lease rights, legal harassment – Censorship of the media oriental style

The relations between government agencies and the media are anything but cloudless. Granted, the former keep on urging the need for an independent press as a social institution. In one such instance, Dariga Nazarbayeva, who presides over the Khabar government TV company, thus counters charges of the country's media being increasingly leashed by the government:

'I have a huge personal ax to grind in this country's press carrying on unmuzzled. The career of my father won't last for ever, and I'm keen for a press I could plead with for help, if need be.' She owned to remembering all the time the fate of those who fell from grace while at the pinnacle of power in this once undivided country. [T. Netreba, Argumenty I fakty, July, 1998, No 27 9924)]

What happens in real life is that unaffiliated media have a grueling time wresting information from government bodies:

For months on end, a Karavan correspondent sought access to some government reception or something, though to no avail. Without much prevarication, government PR officers would explain that away by there routinely not being enough room at such gatherings not just for independent media people but for their government media colleagues as well. [G. Nurgaliyeva, Karavan, June 5, 1998]

Press reports are making the point of the government's information blackout making things difficult not only for the media but for the authorities themselves in widening the gulf between them and the general public. This is yet another tack as well to haul in censorship, if appropriately dressed up. Keeping information under wraps is just one of a multitude of ways to keep the media at bay. Expounding on the 'odd dialogue' between the power structure and the media, the Delovaya gazeta weekly furnishes a nearly exhaustive list of such coercive methods:

The ploys to keep the media docile are eminently varied... Government agencies are keeping themselves impermeable to outside scrutiny; attempts by nonconformist media to pry out confidential government data or put their own twist on it not infrequently land them in trouble with appropriate authorities...

Aside from that, printing offices in Kazakhstan, much as in other transitional economies, are in varying measure controlled by the government. Quite often, the latter can keep the screws on the media by setting prohibitive prices on such offices' services, denying them altogether for their ostensibly not being up to par to fill the bill, and suchlike.

Upgraded all along have been economic coercion devices to gag the media and the political drift of their printed and aired material. Among those are things such as granting incentives or withholding them; financial strictures such as inordinate taxes, tariffs, alongside financial check-ups, the lot; use of property and lease arrangements; and, last but not least, legal pressure on the media by dint of a variety of laws and legal enactments as well as lawsuits on grounds only glancingly covered by legislation bearing on the media. [Zh. Bolatova, E. Zhunusov, Delovaya nedelya, June 5, 1998]

To all intents and purposes, the Kazakh president has managed to clamp on the nation a political censorship of sorts, though not as overtly as, say, in Byelorussia or Turkmenistan, to prevent it catching the eye of international human rights envoys. It's been none the less quite bruising for all that:

The president has contrived to introduce a virtual censorship in all Kazakh media, while keeping the general public's resentment over that to a minimum...

Formerly, Mr. Nazarbayev used to leave the press rather to its own devices...

Over time, though, the latter has grown noticeably less laudatory of his rule, not least for economic considerations. As time went on, the crisis kept unabated, the nation finding itself ever more rocked by strikes, hunger marches, and mass rallies. The authorities countered by putting the squeeze on, nothing short of outright violence against opposition leaders, like in the case of Pyotr Svoik. Naturally enough, the media took the president to task for that, but not for long...

The chastising was off following an article carried by the Ekonomika segodnya newspaper and questioning Mr. Nazarbayev's acumen to astutely run the nation. It further dropped hints of his purported overseas bank accounts. The backlash was immediate, the paper going to the wall. Other refractory media outlets had other punitive measures reserved for them, notably countless raids by tax inspectors. Mr. Nazarbayev went on the record as saying he would not put up with journalists meddling with current legislation – the way he interpreted it himself. In June, parliament passed a national security law effectively bringing in censorship in the country. To top that off, at the Attorney General's urging, any authorized government agency is empowered to suspend operation by whatever media outfit 'eroding national security.' The media have been so tightly muzzled, as argued by independent journalists, they can ill afford not just to bark but even to whimper as it were. [A. Ospanova, Segodnya, August 31, 1998]

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The collection features a range of articles by Russian experts with in-depth accounts of challenges the media's free expression has to square up to . In his work, 'The post-Soviet press: The mythology of freedom and unfreedom,' A. Rubtsov homes in on two notions of media freedom and independence now current within the Commonwealth of Independent States: the mass media are free to do as they please, inasmuch as is possible in a democratic country, and that they are downright venal, being in the pay of private owners. Claims by Kazakh authorities of president Nazarbayev taking credit for the domestic media being unreservedly free have no substance to them. Conversely, unaffiliated Russian and Kazakh media outlets have a better deal on this score than their government-run counterparts. A. Baranov's article, 'Media freedom and the exigencies of the day,' maintains that the appreciation of freedom as a resource to be apportioned at will, ingrained as it is in post-Soviet mentality, breeds unfreedom. The ladling out of 'freedom of speech' across the Kazakh information spectrum unremittingly generates censorship. Next, an interview with noted Moscow lawyer G. Reznik spotlights predicaments in relations between legal bodies and the media community.

This series further brings forth the collection, 'Moving the Kazakh capital as treated by the press and policy studies' (M., 1998). About to see the light of day are two exploratory studies, 'National problems in Kazakhstan' and 'Political leaders in Kazakhstan on the eve of elections.'