The New-York-based Committee to Shield Journalists (CPJ) has known as on Kazakh authorities to “completely” examine a number of latest assaults towards journalists within the Central Asian nation.
In a assertion dated January 24, the CPJ stated Kazakh officers ought to “maintain all these accountable to account, and make sure that members of the press are in a position to work safely.”
“Whereas Kazakh police ought to be applauded for his or her swift work in apprehending suspects in two latest assaults on journalists, authorities should make sure that all of the latest situations of harassment towards the press are completely investigated and that those that ordered them are held to account,” Gulnoza Mentioned, the CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, stated.
On January 19, unknown people coated the door of famous journalist Vadim Boreiko with development foam. Boreiko, who runs the favored Giperborei YouTube channel, stated the assault was linked to his journalistic actions.
A day earlier than that, a well-liked new web site, Ulysmedia.kz, needed to droop its operations following a hacking assault. The web site’s chief editor, Samal Ibraeva, instructed RFE/RL the assault was most certainly linked to the web site’s skilled actions, including that the web site had confronted a number of related assaults in latest months.
Earlier that week, the house door of Gulnara Bazhkenova, chief editor of the Orda information web site, was additionally coated with development foam for the third time since September. Bazhkenova instructed the CPJ that investigators had apprehended two younger folks in November who admitted to a few of the assaults, however those that ordered them to take action haven’t been recognized.
Different assaults have included the torching of 1 journalist’s automobile and the breaking of glass doorways at media places of work, together with on the Elmedia tv channel, which has been vandalized six occasions since final 12 months.
The themes of the assaults have been writing and reporting about Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the primary anniversary of the violent dispersal of anti-government protests that became mass unrest that left not less than 238 folks, together with 19 regulation enforcement officers, lifeless.
On January 20, presidential spokesman Ruslan Zheldibai stated President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev, who has initiated a collection of adjustments since final 12 months’s lethal protests to create a “new Kazakhstan,” has ordered regulation enforcement to research all assaults on journalists.
“Authorities’ rhetoric a few ‘new Kazakhstan’ will stay empty phrases until they can guarantee journalists’ security,” the CPJ’s Mentioned added within the assertion.
The CPJ additionally stated it had requested Kazakhstan’s Data Ministry and Inside Ministry to remark the scenario confronted by the journalists, however had but to obtain a solution.
Final week, the embassies of a number of Western international locations urged the Kazakh authorities to research the assaults.
