Kazakh journalists worry as new media rules come into force

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN — Media watchdogs and journalists in Kazakhstan have raised fears that new regulations governing reporters, adopted outside a new media law, leave room for authorities to obstruct access to information and limit journalists’ ability to work.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the media law in June, expanding the definition of media subject to the law to include “internet resources” without specifying what that means. Many journalists distribute information on such channels as Telegram, YouTube and Facebook, which are separate from their accredited outlets.

The law allows the Culture and Information Ministry, which oversees media, to set the rules for accrediting journalists. The regulations, which came into force last month, limit journalists to publishing information in outlets to which they are accredited, preventing them from publishing it in other outlets, and require them to comply with new and unspecified “rules and regulations established by accrediting organization.”

Two violations of the rules can lead to suspension of accreditation for six months.

“Any document adopted by a government body, including the Ministry of Culture and Information, undergoes legal expert examination. This means all provisions, all points, comply with the constitution and don’t contradict laws,” Culture and Information Minister Aida Balayeva told journalists this month after they raised concerns over the legality of the new regulations.

“When we see that we drift away from the topic of a press briefing and, in fact, our briefings and news conferences shift to some other planes … when there is improper behavior by journalists — here we need regulation,” she said.

Astana-based freelance journalist Tamara Vaal, who writes for the country’s leading vlast.kz news site and other outlets, said in a Facebook post that the rules “are a violation of the constitution, direct censorship and a ban on the trade of journalist.”

In addition, she said, what the ministry is doing “is nothing but ultimately killing the profession” — journalists in Kazakhstan frequently must supplement their regular income with work for outlets other than the news organizations to which they are accredited.

“Not only do these rules ban us from raising additional income, but also they deprive us of our job because just two violations of rules and regulations and you lose your accreditation for six months,” Vaal told VOA.

Vaal said in her post that journalists write for several outlets because “they want to have children, save up for home and live a life at the end of the day, but this is not possible, unfortunately, on just one wage.”

Vaal and others VOA spoke to cite the constitutional provisions banning censorship and ensuring citizens’ rights to access information and to work.

Ainur Koskina, another Astana freelance journalist, said she believes the requirement that journalists write for only their accredited outlets would hurt journalists working outside the current and former capitals of Astana and Almaty.

“They write for several outlets, and thanks to this, they can ensure a decent existence for themselves. This opportunity has now been taken away from them. I am afraid local journalism will go extinct, first of all, because of these accreditation rules,” Koskina told VOA.

In a statement issued in July when the rules were put up for public discussion, the Almaty-based Adil Soz International Foundation for Freedom of Speech Protection said the new accreditation rules implied that information received from government bodies was not the public domain and was protected by copyright, so it should not be distributed to third parties.

“Adil Soz believes that the rules regulating the work of journalists and media should facilitate access to information, not complicate it,” the statement said.

Karlygash Jamankulova, the head of Adil Soz, told VOA that media outlets and journalists — as employers and employees, respectively — could regulate their labor relations themselves and decide whether journalists could work for other outlets. She suggested that while the new rules were vague, it remains to be seen how they would be implemented and how they would affect journalists.

“This kind of issue cannot be disputed by public organizations,” she said. “It should be journalists themselves who can take it to court, and if we will have this kind of journalist in Kazakhstan, we are ready to stand by [that journalist] and provide all required legal support.”

The head of the Media Qoldau, or Support, legal service, Gulmira Birzhanova, cited what she believes is a recent tendency toward tightening media legislation in Kazakhstan.

“Accrediting organizations, which are state-owned companies along with government bodies, will establish their own rules and regulations, and I am afraid this could be used against journalists in the future,” Birzhanova told VOA.

Vaal concluded: “This is a very bad trend, and I don’t know what future holds for Kazakh journalists.”