Programs - Round Table

Lev Roitman:

Before me is the fresh human rights report of the Human Raits Raits Vech. From the golobal geography of this report, I chose three countries for today's conversation - these are Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan. It will be about the advance of the authorities on the principle of freedom of speech, freedom of information, freedom of opinion. In Russia, the authors of the report refer to the data of the Moscow Claus Protection Fund. The head of the monitoring service of this fund Oleg Panfilov participates in the program from Moscow. The section of the report on Belarus notes that in this country "continued to slip into the repressive policy of the Soviet model" for the entire range of human rights. Our correspondent Marat Dymov is participating in Minsk in a conversation. The object of repression was the press in Kazakhstan. An employee of our Kazakhstani edition Merhat Sharipzhan with me in the Prague Studio.

Oleg Panfilov, in Russia at one time was the subject of pride of freedom of print - achieved or, perhaps, imaginary. Today, judging by the report "Human Raits Raits", there is nothing more to be proud of.

Oleg Panfilov:

Yes, unfortunately, the state that journalists called freedom of speech, freedom of print a few years ago is now gradually turning into what was at the beginning of publicity, or rather, if journalists learned to write boldly and professional enough, they are now persecuted as they were persecuted 7, 8, 10 years ago. In general, if we talk about the figures of the dead journalists in Russia in the 98th year, then thank God, there are few of them, while “only“ 11, and “for now” I say because, as often it happened in the program, that the number of those killed, the next day received another information. But the number of other violations of the rights of journalists grew and quite significantly grew, almost 2 times grew. More and more often they began to beat journalists, physically to attack journalists. We even revealed such a tendency as attacks, beating, the threat of the murder of executive media leaders, primarily newspapers and television companies. Unfortunately, all this grew several times compared to last year, and, unfortunately, recently in Russia has been marked by the desire of Russian parliamentarians to tame the press, to ensure that each of the two television channels - ORT and the second state channel, must have been created by observation councils. Otherwise, this cannot be called censorship or desire to revive censorship.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Oleg Panfilov. You are talking about 11 killed journalists that, thank God, this is a little. This score itself is terrible. “Hamman Raits Vosch” in his report, referring to your vowel protection fund, writes “at least 9”, and you are already talking 11. They give in 8 months of this year, and we are talking in December. Now - to Minsk.

Marat Dymov:

Indeed, the Belarusian authorities consistently continue the policy of suppressing the free word in the country. Moreover, now in this policy, in this struggle, accents are slightly changed - a greater emphasis is on the fight against the spread of the press. In particular, Belarusian customs very actively in recent months seize opposition newspapers in people who cross the boundaries in both direction. A few months ago, Czech students were detained on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, from whom the Belarusian opposition newspapers were struck, and just a couple of weeks ago a group of opposition representatives went to Warsaw and also selected newspapers from them. And each time this was explained by the fact that these newspapers contained information that defeated the honor and dignity of the president. Moreover, in this work, the authorities, as previously said, reached everyone. So, very interesting papers fell into the hands of journalists: the same type of orders of the directors of the Minsk factories prohibiting the distribution of the media that excite the workers at enterprises. And in the orders literally so directly and it is said that the perpetrators should be delivered to the guard room, remove newspapers from them, draw up protocols, and impose a penalty. On the other hand, in the country, an ideological vertical is built, as we are called. That is, in the authorities and literally at all enterprises, the position of deputy is introduced in ideological work, which must correctly orient its subordinates. And traditional methods continue: in particular, from December 1, the licensing of the spread of legal information has already been impressed in Belarus. And at the beginning of last week, the weekly Femis Nova, a legal weekly, came out with white spots at those places where laws should have been published, because now the laws cannot be published without a license. Moreover, this newspaper did not receive a license to disseminate legal information on completely far -fetched reasons, and in fact, these are political motives. But even among the latest events, it is worth mentioning the ban on the ORT correspondent Pavel Sheremet to go to New York for the award of the International Committee for the Protection of Journalists. Paul has not yet expired the conditional sentence and was not released for the bonus.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Marat Dymov. You say that you have, in fact, ideological administrative censorship. And what ideology is considered correct, permissible?

Marat Dymov:

We had a very funny television program, and such a wording sounded there that, before the development of ideology, personnel should be guided by Christian values.

Lev Roitman:

What? Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic - was it not indicated?

Marat Dymov:

Apparently, in the framework of Christian values, such actions on the seizure of newspapers are a very peculiar Christianity.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Marat Dymov. You don’t know - laugh or cry. Merhat Sharipzhan, Kazakhstani edition of Radio Liberty. In Kazakhstan, presidential elections are planned. In this regard, an attack on publicity, to freedom of information?

Merhat Sharipzhan:

Unfortunately, Kazakhstan in a short time of its relatively independent development since the 91st year and nominal independence once again confirmed that you can deceive the whole people, you can always deceive some part of the people, but all the time it is impossible to deceive all the people. Nazarbayev regime (and I use the word "mode", because what has happened and is happening over the past 3-4 months, in the words of the appropriate of the appreciation of the popular activists-politicians of Kazakhstan Dosa Kushima, this is not ahead, but back for at least 50 years), which were completely unexpectedly moved from December 2000 to the 10th of the 99th year, began to advance at the media not only in the media not only in the media not only in the media not only in the media Former and today's capitals, but also in all regional centers of Kazakhstan. This happened to such newspapers as "Fair", "Magpie", "Dates", "21st century" and so on. On December 3rd, the Alma-Ata Arbitration Court, chaired by Judge Tatyana Barneva, announced that the Dat newspaper is bankrupt, although the editor-in-chief Sharip Kurakbaev claims that he is able to produce this newspaper and even increase the circulation. The problem that the DAT newspaper faced, and is unique in that this is the first Kazakh -language newspaper, which dared to criticize Nazarbayev and his government, including his family members, which are also at key posts. And this newspaper began problems after a month of its existence, when the tax inspectorate, headed by the son -in -law of Nazarbayev Rakhat Aliyev, accused the newspaper and personally the editor of tax evasion and so on. In general, they found a lot of reasons to step on this newspaper. What seemed to the newspapers "21st century", in its building, two bombs were blown up in her office, and these bombs were factory, and the investigation did not give any results. Also, newspapers, independent Kazakh -speaking, Russian -speaking in Kazakhstan, cannot be published for the simple reason that publishers working in Kazakhstan refuse to print them everywhere, and if the newspaper is printed in neighboring Kyrgyzstan or in Russia, then, when they are raising the country's territory, customs services are arrested by entire circulations. You can just remember the Soviet time. It is completely clear that Nazarbavev, not only with the help of an attack on the press, but also with the help of artificially created obstacles of potential applicants for the president’s post, is trying to maintain power in his hands and build democracy in Kazakhstan, that is, to let the dust in the eyes of democratic transformations in Kazakhstan, since Kazakhstan is the second state in the former socialist lag after Hungary after investigation of investments on the execution of investments Soul.

Lev Roitman:

Merhat, you mentioned financial levers of pressure on the press, in particular, in connection with the newspaper "DAT". By the way, in Russia, in Moscow, the “Independent Gazeta” was ordered by the tax inspectorate in August to pay 127 thousand dollars for allegedly undocumented expenses, including the costs of journalists' travel to Chechnya, to Afghanistan and so on, and the editor -in -chief of this newspaper states that this is a politically motivated decision. Oleg Panfilov, your fund protection fund documents, monitors violations not only in Russia, but also in other countries of the former Soviet Union. Recently, as far as I know, and the book in front of me, you participated in the presentation in Minsk of the publication of your fund, it is called "Power and the press in Belarus: the confrontation chronicle of the 94-97th years." Here we say that there is no freedom of speech there, that there is political censorship, and nevertheless, the presentation took place. Two words about it. I beg you.

Oleg Panfilov:

I think that the presentation took place, probably, only because in those days the administration of the President of Belarus was busy with the fact that she wanted to cancel the strikes outlined by trade unions. And it so happened that the presentation was attended by the editor -in -chief of the New Izvestia Igor Golimbiovsky and the deputy chief editor of Moscow News Lyudmila Teen, and I think that the presidential administration or law enforcement would not have a scandal with the participation of such famous Russian journalists. The presentation really took place, it did not take place in a very official building, it was mostly independent journalists. I can also say that this was a rather hard work that took a whole year, because we accommodated the material in the six-part book, monitoring for 4 years, and did it intentionally to show what happened to the Belarusian press since the summer of the 94th year, when President Lukashenko came to power. And before that, the Belarusian press had problems, but they were not so frequent, and the most difficult times came in the summer of the 94th year. And I could once again say many thanks to all the Belarusian colleagues who helped to collect and release this book. As for what Merhat said and the situations in the CIS generally said, we are now most worried about the situation in Kazakhstan precisely because it has sharply worsened and will worsen, apparently, with the beginning of the election campaign and with the election of the President of Kazakhstan in January next year. The situation is very reminiscent of what has happened in Belarus over the past few years. Therefore, now we will not only closely monitor Moscow, but from the New Year we will create a correspondent network of monitoring service within Kazakhstan, in almost all large areas, in order to monitor violations of the press of printing, and the violations of journalists in Kazakhstan. As for other countries, I would still like to highlight the best situation, and no matter how it looks, maybe implausible, but the best situation is still in Kyrgyzstan. And this is due, firstly, with the fact that the authorities of Kyrgyzstan clearly understand what the press is doing, and all the conflicts taking place in this country, or almost everything, they all go in a civilized manner, mostly understand the courts.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Oleg Panfilov. Naturally, the truth does not cease to be true from the fact that it is old - everything is known in comparison, in particular, the situation in Kyrgyzstan. Recently, we were participants in the human rights seminar in Cholpon-Ata, and when you look at the situation from the inside of Kyrgyzstan, in any case, when those who live in this situation, our Kyrgyz colleagues, evaluate the situation from the inside, then everything looks much less pink. That is, in comparison, Kyrgyzstan is relatively prosperous, but of course, the rights of the press, the rights of journalists, the right to freedom of information and freedom of speech are violated there - such a reality when we compare - this is relatively safe. Although, according to the international classification, Kyrgyzstan is one of only partially free countries. By the way, however, like Russia.

Marat Dymov:

Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank Oleg and his colleagues for the really heroic work that they did to collect, systematize and prepare the materials of the book that we talked about. This is really a very solid, serious publication that refutes the arguments of the Belarusian authorities that everything is fine in Belarus, that in Belarus the human rights are not violated, the freedom of journalists are not violated. This book collects everything, all the most important, most important violations are collected. And I would like to quote the phrase from the preface of Alexei Simonov, chairman of the publicity protection fund, that "if the struggle continues, this means that freedom of speech is still alive." And once again I want to say that it is partly alive thanks to international support, including thanks to the support of our Russian colleagues.

Merhat Sharipzhan:

I would like to note that in Kazakhstan, only those media that are not dared to criticize the government or are under control are well. For example, one of the leading Khabar television companies is headed directly by the daughter of President Dariga Nazarbayeva, who said earlier that her father is a candidate for the presidency of Kazakhstan, she leaves for 2 months, leaving Mr. Roerich in his place, who, if they speak, is a person. Naturally, nothing will change from this. I would like to note that Oleg was right when he said that the situation in Kazakhstan would deteriorate. It seems that after Nazarbayev (and no one doubts it) will be the president again. He did everything in order to become them. The West states that democracy takes place in Kazakhstan. For example, last week on Thursday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Kasymzhomar Tokaev in Oslo at the Osbs said that not a single newspaper, not a single magazine, not a single channel or radio station in Kazakhstan have been closed in recent years, again hinting that there were some financial considerations. But all this is a fiction, and the people, as those who observe the situation in Kazakhstan from the outside, and living in Kazakhstan, perfectly understand that the true face of the existing regime is a little different. I would also like to note that it is in Osbes that the situation is very criticized in Kazakhstan, the offensive on the media is criticized, and the election itself is criticized outside the schedule. I also note the statement by James Rubin in the US State Department, made two weeks ago. But all this was reported only by Radio Liberty and some other radio stations from abroad. Within the country, no one dared to say about this. The only American organization Yu-E-Ai-hey has spread this information, but this information was held in Russian, and the Kazakh-language population again remained in the information blockade.