Kazakh government intolerant of independent journalists
By Anne-Sophie Lechevallier Posted Oct 1 2002
“You know why we’re doing this.”And: “Next time we’ll make you a cripple.” Sergei Duvanov, a Kazakh journalist, listened to these threats, and the next thing he knew, he was in a hospital. He had been assaulted by three unknown masked men outside his apartment in Almaty on the evening of Aug. 28. After being repeatedly stabbed and beaten, Duvanov was hospitalized with a concussion and trauma to the skull. Although nothing was stolen, Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, said, “Coming on the heels of Dunavov’s courageous reporting and in light of the Kazakh government’s general intolerance of independent media, it is difficult to dismiss this attack as a simple act of hooliganism.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe representative on the freedom of the media, Freimut Duve, has asked the government of Kazakhstan to bring to justice those responsible for the attack on Duvanov. “I urge the Kazakh Government to take all necessary steps to investigate this outrageous act,” Duve wrote in a letter to the Kazakh foreign minister, Kasymzhomart Tokayev.
Known for his struggle for human rights in Kazakhstan, Duvanov was sued last July by the general prosecutor’s office for “insulting the honor and dignity of the President” in his Internet postings. Duvanov was questioned for three hours by the National Security Committee (KNB) after his May 6 article, “Silence of the Lambs,” accused President Nursultan Nazarbayev and several Kazak officials of hiding more than $1 billion in state money in a Swiss bank account.
Duvanov is the editor of a weekly bulletin, the International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law and stood for election as a candidate in the Republican People’s Party of Kazakhstan, according to reports from the online journal, The Analyst.
Duvanov’s case is not an isolated one. Lira Baiseitova, former editor of the independent Respublika newspaper is no stranger to intimidation. Baiseitova lost her 25-year-old daughter, Leila, last June. Her daughter died after being arrested for heroin possession. Official reports allege that she was suffering from withdrawal and committed suicide. Nonetheless, Reporters Without Borders and Damocles Network published the reported results of a fact-finding mission in order to establish the link between Leila’s death and the professional activity of her mother. Coincidentally, the day before her daughter’s death, Lira Baiseitova had published an interview in the Soldat newspaper confirming that the president and several other Kazak officials held Swiss bank accounts.