TO: Mr Kevin Klose,
Acting President, Radio Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty
Dear Mr Kevin Klose,
We are concerned about the current situation at
the Radio “Liberty” services, which broadcast to the countries of Central Asia.
The materials of the Kazakh and Turkmen services of RFE/RL duplicate the
information contained in the government press. The time of broadcasting on
short waves to Uzbekistan has been reduced by half; labour rights of the Kazakh
and Tajik correspondents of RFE/RL are violated.
Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) – is a mass
media outlet, whose mission is to be a channel for democratic values. However,
cases of the violation of the rights of the employees and a step back from international
standards of freedom of mass media, which we see in the activity of some of the
Radio Liberty services, cause resentment among journalist and human rights
community of Central Asia.
Authoritarian leaders in Kazakhstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are not going to give up their
positions. In the beginning of May 2013 Rovshan Yazmukhamedov, an RFE/RL
correspondent in Turkmenistan, was arrested. It is rather disturbing that at
first the leadership of the editorial board suppressed the fact of his arrest.
Only four days after the arrest, owing to the persistence of the employees who
reminded the Director of the Turkmen service M. Tahir about the death of the
journalist Muradova, the director dared to announce publicly that Yazmukhamedov
was detained. Journalists’ right are being violated in Tajikistan as well.
Recently, Abdukayum Kayumzod, an RFE/RL correspondent in Tajikistan, was
refused an accreditation.
Attack on the rights of journalists
is taking place in Tajikistan as well: Tajik correspondent of RFE/RL Abdukayum
Kayumzod was refused accreditation. Despite the fact that Kayumzod has worked
for 12 years in RFE/RL and had a permanent contract with the employer and
support of the accreditation is a responsibility of the employer, the leadership
of the Tajik service of the Radio unilaterally terminated the labour contract
with Kayumzod and left him in limbo. Correspondent referred to court for
protection of his labour and professional rights. This is not the first case:
in 2012 Gulnora Ravshan, correspondent of the Uzbek service of RFE/RL covering
Tajikistan was forced to leave the country with her underage children due to
refusal of accreditation and personal threats to her. However, the leadership
of the respective Radio service did not take effective measures to protect the
rights of its correspondent.
In conjunction with the fact that
the leadership of the Tajik RFE/RL service systematically violates the labour
rights of journalists, six media organisations and one political party of
Tajikistan decided to abstain from collaboration with the Tajik service of
RFE/RL. The boycott will continue unless the correspondent of the service
Abdukayum Kayumzod is reinstated in his former job via court decision.
Analysis of the materials of the Kazakh
service of RFE/RL shows that the
crisis in the editorial staff has achieved its highest point. Since 2008, it has
been broadcasting mainly via Internet; currently the air broadcasting has
entirely stopped. Initiators of the reform did not take into consideration the
fact that in the remote districts of Kazakhstan and other countries of Central
Asia there is no access to Internet and people experience power cuts. Internet
services are not accessible for many people even in urban areas.
Materials of the Kazakh editorial board
do not always reflect the situation in Kazakhstan accurately. They do not touch
upon acute political topics and virtually duplicate the government press.
The Kazakh service of RFE/RL was actively collaborating with an Astana-based NGO “WikiBilim», an
organisation, which administers the Kazakh language section of Wikipedia at the
expense of the government. This looks like a cynical political promotion of the authoritarian
government of Kazakhstan. Collaboration with the Astana-based NGO “WikiBilim”
started right after the shooting of the peaceful demonstration in Zhanaozen
(Western Kazakhstan) in December 2011. The Kazakh service of RFE/RL publishes materials
agreeable to the authorities and then Wikipedia uses them as “reliable sources”.
The Kazakh editorial board routinely
suppresses information, which is uncomfortable for the Kazakhstan authorities.
Thus, it ignored the attempted kidnapping of an emigrant Ainur Kurbanov by the
National Security Committee during the protest in Moscow in December 2012.
However, the Kazakh RFE/RL service widely covers the official government events
and creates a positive image of Nursultan Nazarbaev and his authoritarian
regime.
At the same time leaders of the
Kazakhstan opposition are discredited. The example is the recent interview with
the public figure Bulat Atabaev (“Fear defeated by laughter” of 3 March 2013)
and Karlygash Zhakiyanova (“Karlygash Zakiyanova. Interview from Bostom” of 6
May 2013).
Since 2010 a lot of materials have been
published on the Kazakh service site propagating Kazakh radical nationalism and
chauvinism, openly insulting Russians, Uzbeks, Uighurs and Chinese. For
example, in the article «Өзбекстанда қамалған қазақ сотталып кетті» (“A Kazakh arrested in Uzbekistan has been
convicted”). Uzbekistan is presented as a country where Kazakhs are imprisoned for
being Kazakhs. Photos do not correspond to the text. Readers’ comments to this
article contain outright insults towards Uzbeks although the moderator should
not have allowed that. Thus, the editors are abusing the trust of the American
leadership, which physically cannot review the content of the site.
This is not all. “New Liberty” says:
“Promises of the President of the corporation Radio Liberty Steve Corn to
conquer new audience turned into the appearance of the ugly gutter press,
obscene, vulgar, and racist. Since August 2012, on the internet site of the
Kazakh Radio service “Liberty” a new video project has been launched. At first
glance, it looks like a satirical overview of clumsy amateur video records or
faulty professional video clips, but in fact this is a humiliation of the
readership of the site and morals. Executives of this video project are young
Kazakh actors Nurmakhan Mukhauly, Nurjan Erkinuly, Abyl Esentai, Makhambet
Beibitshilik base their creativity on obscenity, racism, homophobia, promotion
of dirty sex and low quality gutter press”.
Mr Kevin Klose,
Developments at the Radio Liberty
(RFE/RL) touch upon the interests of all audience of the radio: be it a lonely
mother of a prisoner or a student or a correspondent of your radio working in
the field.
Lately, fundamental rights of the citizens
of Central Asia are being violated under the pretext of “global security”. However,
this important problem is directly related to the human rights and liberties.
Access to reliable information is of
critical importance to the audience of Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) to maintain its
trust to the Western democracies and to the American democracy, in particular.
Therefore, we kindly and earnestly
ask You:
– to
create an independent commission to examine the situation at Kazakh, Tajik,
Turkmen, and Uzbek services of Radio Liberty in order to objectively evaluate
the extent of observance of the principles of freedom of expression,
professional rights and journalist ethics, Charter of RFE/RL. It is necessary
to find materials on the RFE/RL sites, which do not correspond to the said
criteria, for which it is necessary to engage experts with the knowledge of
relevant languages;
– to conduct
objective investigation and find out why multiple complaints of the employees of
the Kazakh service of RFE/RL against its
director Edige Magauin and his deputy Galym Bokash also sent to the former
President of RFE/RL Steven Korn, to BBG and to the permanent revision service
of the Department of State have been ignored;
– to see to
it that labour rights of the employees of RFE/RL are respected and to review the decisions on selective
dismissal of a number of correspondents (Kazakh service: Saida Kalkulova,
Nazira Darimbet, Sagat Batyrkhan, Ukulyai Bestai, Sultankhan Jussip; Tajik
service: Abdukayum Kayumzod; Turkmen service: Nazar Khudaiberdy Jakhan, Guvanch
Gere, Oguljamal
Yazlieva, Murat
Nurgeldy);
– to pay
attention to the fact that Kazakh and Turkmen RFE/RL services frequently duplicate unreliable information obtained
from official governmental sources;
– to
objectively evaluate the extent, to which the principles of the freedom of
expression and journalist ethics are observed by the services broadcasting to
Central Asia, whose main objective is to provide alternative information to the
audience;
With
respect,
Nadejda
Atayeva, President, Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, France;
Vyacheslav
Mamedov, Chair, Non-governmental Organisation “Democratic Civil Union of
Turkmenistan”;
Nouriddin Karshiboyev, Chairman,
National Association of Independent Mass Media of Tajikistan (NANSMIT),
Tajikistan;
Arif Yunus, Candidate of Science (PhD, History), Head of the
Conflictology and Migration Department of the Institute of Peace and Democracy,
Expert of the International Network of Ethnology Monitoring and Early Conflict
Prevention, and of the Independent Research Centre on migration in CIS and the
Baltic States; expert of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia;
Lyudmila Kozlovskaya, President, Open Dialogue
Foundation, Poland;
Sergey Ignatyev, Representative in the USA, Association for Human Rights in Central
Asia;
Dmitry
Belomestnov, Representative in Russia, Association for Human Rights in
Central Asia;
Dinara
Khakimova, Representative in Sweden, Association for Human Rights in
Central Asia;
Alisher
Abidov, Representative in Norway, Association for Human Rights in Central
Asia;
Leyla Yunus, Director, Institute of Peace and
Democracy in Azerbaijan, Laureate of the International Theodore Hacker Prize for honesty and political courage;
RFE/RL listeners added
their signatures:
Emin Eminov, Sweden
Nazira Abzalova, Sweden
Aliya Alieva, Sweden
Shakhnoza Nоirova, Sweden
Rokhea Rok, Sweden
Saida Babaeva, Sweden
Tamila Rakhimova, Sweden
Nujin Tasci, Sweden
Arslan Aliev, Sweden
Fuad Babaev, Sweden
Arsen Aliev, Sweden
Yuriy Moroz, Sweden
Peri Mamedova, Sweden
Esma Arfaoui, Sweden
Lyudmila Trushinskaya,
Sweden
Vasif Budaqov, Sweden
Feruza Isametdinova, Sweden
Anfisa Dumas, Sweden
Alisher Ravshanov, Sweden
Maria Lindbarg, Sweden
Mаrina Eriksson, Sweden
Aresn Aliev, Sweden
Gafar Arslanov, Sweden
Dilshod Mamedov, Sweden
Diana Kolchukova, Sweden
Elshan Mamedogli, Sweden
Emin Gurbanov, Sweden
Lina Danilova, Sweden
- Collection of signatures is
continuing
