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Presenter Lev Roitman

Lev Roitman:

I have before me the latest human rights report from Human Rights Watch. From the global geography of this report, I have chosen three countries for today’s conversation - Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. We will talk about the authorities' attack on the principle of freedom of speech, freedom of information, freedom of opinion. For Russia, the authors of the report refer to data from the Moscow-based Glasnost Defense Foundation. The head of the Monitoring Service of this fund, Oleg Panfilov, participates in the broadcast from Moscow. The report's section on Belarus notes that the country "continued to slide into repressive Soviet-style policies" across the entire spectrum of human rights. Our correspondent Marat Dymov is participating in the conversation from Minsk. The press in Kazakhstan was also the target of repression. Merhat Sharipzhan, an employee of our Kazakhstan editorial office, is with me in the Prague studio.

Oleg Panfilov, in Russia at one time freedom of the press was a source of pride - achieved or, perhaps, imaginary. Today, judging by the Human Rights Watch report, there is nothing more to be proud of.

Oleg Panfilov:

Yes, unfortunately, the state that a few years ago journalists called freedom of speech, freedom of the press, is now gradually turning into what it was at the beginning of glasnost, or rather, even if journalists have learned to write boldly and quite professionally, they are now being persecuted in the same way as they were persecuted 7, 8, 10 years ago. In general, if we talk about the numbers of journalists killed in Russia in 1998, then, thank God, there are not many of them, there are “only” 11 of them so far, and I say “so far” because, as often happened, when speaking in a program that the number of those killed was small, the next day they received more information. But the number of other violations of the rights of journalists has also increased quite significantly, almost doubling. More and more often journalists began to be beaten and physically attacked. We have even identified such a trend as attacks, beatings, and death threats against the heads of independent media, primarily newspapers and television companies. Unfortunately, all this has increased several times compared to last year, and, unfortunately, recent times in Russia have been marked by the desire of Russian parliamentarians to tame the press, to ensure that supervisory boards are necessarily created for each of the two TV channels - ORT and the Second State Channel. This cannot be called anything other than censorship or a desire to revive censorship.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Oleg Panfilov. You are talking about 11 journalists killed, which, thank God, is not a lot. This score alone is scary. “Human Rights Watch,” in its report, referring to your Glasnost Defense Foundation, writes “at least 9,” but you already say 11. They give for 8 months of this year, and we are talking in December. Now - to Minsk.

Marat Dymov:

Indeed, the Belarusian authorities consistently continue their policy of suppressing free speech in the country. Moreover, now in this policy, in this struggle, the emphasis has changed a little - more emphasis is placed on the fight against the spread of the press. In particular, Belarusian customs have been very active in recent months in confiscating opposition newspapers from people who cross borders in both directions. A few months ago, Czech students were detained on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border and Belarusian opposition newspapers were confiscated from them, and just a couple of weeks ago a group of opposition representatives went to Warsaw and their newspapers were also confiscated. And each time this was explained by the fact that these newspapers contained information that discredited the honor and dignity of the president. Moreover, in this work, the authorities, as previously said, reached everyone. Thus, very interesting papers fell into the hands of journalists: similar orders from the directors of Minsk factories, prohibiting the dissemination of media that disturb workers at the enterprises. And the orders literally say directly that the perpetrators should be taken to the guardhouse, newspapers confiscated from them, reports drawn up, penalties imposed. On the other hand, what we call an ideological vertical is being built in the country. That is, the position of deputy for ideological work is being introduced in government bodies and literally in all enterprises, who must correctly guide his subordinates. And traditional methods continue: in particular, from December 1, licensing for the dissemination of legal information has already come into force in Belarus. And so at the beginning of last week, the weekly Femida Nova, a legal weekly, came out with blank spots in those places where laws should have been published, because now laws cannot be published without a license. Moreover, this newspaper did not receive a license to disseminate legal information for completely far-fetched reasons, but in fact these are political reasons. But among the most recent events, it is worth mentioning the ban on ORT correspondent Pavel Sheremet to travel to New York to receive an award from the International Committee to Protect Journalists. Pavel's suspended sentence had not yet expired and he was not released with a bonus.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Marat Dymov. You are saying that you have, in essence, ideological administrative censorship. What ideology is considered correct and acceptable?

Marat Dymov:

We had a very funny television program, and there was such a formulation that before developing an ideology, personnel should be guided by Christian values.

Lev Roitman:

Which ones? Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic - was this not indicated?

Marat Dymov:

Apparently, within the framework of Christian values, such actions to confiscate newspapers are a very unique kind of Christianity.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Marat Dymov. You don't know whether to laugh or cry. Merhat Sharipzhan, Kazakhstan edition of Radio Liberty. Presidential elections are planned in Kazakhstan. In this regard, an attack on openness and freedom of information?

Merhat Sharipzhan:

Unfortunately, Kazakhstan, in the short time of its relatively independent development since 1991 and nominal independence, has once again confirmed that you can deceive the whole people for some time, you can deceive some part of the people all the time, but it is impossible to deceive all the people all the time. The Nazarbayev regime (and I use the word “regime” because what happened and is happening over the past 3-4 months, in the words of one of the popular activist politicians of Kazakhstan, Dos Kushim, is not forward, but back, at least 50 years), in connection with the elections, which were completely unexpectedly postponed from December 2000 to January 10, 1999, began an attack on the media not only in the former and today's capitals, but also in all regional centers of Kazakhstan. This happened with such newspapers as “Fair”, “Soroka”, “Dat”, “21st Century” and so on. On December 3, the Almaty Arbitration Court, chaired by Judge Tatyana Barneva, declared that the Dat newspaper was bankrupt, although editor-in-chief Sharip Kurakbaev claims that he is able to publish this newspaper and even increase its circulation. The problem faced by the Dat newspaper is unique in that it is the first Kazakh-language newspaper that dared to criticize Nazarbayev and his government, including members of his family, who are also in key positions. And this newspaper began to have problems within a month of its existence, when the tax inspectorate, headed by Nazarbayev’s son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev, accused the newspaper and the editor personally of tax evasion and so on. In general, we found a lot of reasons to attack this newspaper. It seems to the newspaper “21st Century” that two bombs were exploded in its building, in its office, and these bombs were factory-made, but the investigation did not yield any results. Also, independent Kazakh-language and Russian-language newspapers cannot be published in Kazakhstan for the simple reason that publishing houses operating in Kazakhstan refuse to print them everywhere, and if a newspaper is printed in neighboring Kyrgyzstan or Russia, then when these newspapers are imported into the country, customs services again seize entire circulations. You can just remember the Soviet era. It is absolutely clear that Nazarbaev, not only through an attack on the press, but also with the help of artificially created obstacles for potential contenders for the presidency, is trying to retain power in his hands and build democracy in Kazakhstan, that is, to throw dust in the eyes of the West, which is interested in democratic transformations in Kazakhstan, since Kazakhstan is the second state in the former socialist bloc after Hungary in terms of investment per capita.

Lev Roitman:

Merhat, you mentioned financial leverage on the press, in particular in connection with the Dat newspaper. By the way, in Russia, in Moscow, Nezavisimaya Gazeta received an order from the tax inspectorate in August to pay 127 thousand dollars for allegedly undocumented expenses, including expenses for journalists’ trips to Chechnya, Afghanistan, and so on, and the editor-in-chief of this newspaper claims that this is a politically motivated decision. Oleg Panfilov, your Glasnost Defense Foundation documents and 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 is in front of me, you participated in the presentation in Minsk of a publication of your foundation, it is called “Power and the press in Belarus: a chronicle of the confrontation of 94-97.” Here we are talking about the fact that there is no freedom of speech, that there is political censorship, and yet the presentation took place. Two words about this. I beg you.

Oleg Panfilov:

I think that the presentation probably took place only because in those days the administration of the President of Belarus was busy wanting to cancel the strike planned by the trade unions. And it so happened that the presentation was attended by the editor-in-chief of Novye Izvestia Igor Golimbiovsky and the deputy editor-in-chief of Moscow News Lyudmila Telen, and I think that it would not suit the presidential administration or law enforcement agencies to create a scandal with the participation of such famous Russian journalists. The presentation did take place, it did not take place in a very official building, it was attended mainly by independent journalists. I can also say that it was quite hard work, which took a whole year, because we put 4 years of monitoring material into a six-hundred-page book, and we did it deliberately to show what happened to the Belarusian press since the summer of 1994, 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 1994. And I could once again say a big thank you to all my Belarusian colleagues who helped compile and publish this book. As for what Merhat said and the situation in general in the CIS, we are now most concerned about the situation in Kazakhstan precisely because it has sharply worsened and will, apparently, worsen with the start of the election campaign and with the presidential elections in 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 from Moscow, but from the new year we will create a correspondent network of monitoring services within Kazakhstan, in almost all major regions, in order to monitor violations of freedom of the press, violations of the rights of journalists in Kazakhstan. As for other countries, I would still like to highlight the best situation, and no matter how implausible it may look, the best situation is still in Kyrgyzstan. And this is due, firstly, to the fact that the authorities of Kyrgyzstan quite clearly understand what the press is doing, and all the conflicts occurring in this country, or almost all, they all take place in a civilized manner, and are mainly dealt with in the courts.

Lev Roitman:

Thank you, Oleg Panfilov. Naturally, the truth does not cease to be the truth because it is old - everything is known in comparison, in particular, the situation in Kyrgyzstan. Recently, you and I took part in a human rights seminar in Cholpon-Ata, and when you look at the situation from inside Kyrgyzstan, in any case, when those who live in this situation, our Kyrgyz colleagues, assess the situation from the inside, then everything looks much less rosy. 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 too - this is the reality, when we compare - it is relatively prosperous. Although, according to the international classification, Kyrgyzstan is classified as only partially free countries. By the way, just like Russia.

Marat Dymov:

Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank Oleg and his colleagues for the truly heroic work they did in collecting, systematizing and preparing materials from the book that we were talking about. This is indeed a very respectable, serious publication that refutes the arguments of the Belarusian authorities that everything is normal in Belarus, that human rights are not violated in Belarus, and the freedoms of journalists are not violated. This book contains everything, all the most important, most important violations. And I would like to quote a phrase from the foreword by Alexei Simomnov, chairman of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, that “if the struggle continues, it means that freedom of speech is still alive.” And I want to say again that it is partly alive thanks to international support, including the support of our Russian colleagues.

Merhat Sharipzhan:

I would like to point out that the only successful media in Kazakhstan are those that do not dare to criticize the government or are under control. For example, one of the leading television companies "Khabar" is headed directly by the daughter of the president himself, Dariga Nazarbayeva, who previously stated that for ethical reasons, since her father is a candidate for the presidency of Kazakhstan, she leaves this post for 2 months, leaving in her place Mr. Roerich, who, to put it simply, is her man. Naturally, nothing will change from this. I would like to note that Oleg was right when he said that the situation in Kazakhstan will worsen. It seems that even after Nazarbayev (and no one doubts this anymore) will be president again. He did everything to become one. The West is told that democracy takes place in Kazakhstan. For example, last week on Thursday, Kazakh Foreign Minister Kasymzhomar Tokayev said at an OSCE meeting in Oslo that not a single newspaper, not a single magazine, not a single channel or radio station in Kazakhstan had been closed in recent years due to political considerations, again hinting that there were some financial considerations. But all this is fiction, and people, both observing the situation in Kazakhstan from the outside and living in Kazakhstan, understand perfectly well that the true face of the existing regime is a little different. I would also like to note that it is in the OSCE that the situation in Kazakhstan is strongly criticized, the attack on the media is criticized, and the very holding of elections outside the schedule is criticized. I would also like to note James Rubin’s statement at the US State Department, made two weeks ago. But all this was reported only by Radio Liberty and some other radio stations from abroad. Nobody dared to say anything about it inside the country. The only American organization USAI disseminated this information, but this information was in Russian, and the Kazakh-speaking population again remained under an information blockade.