Kyrgyz Round Table Assists Education Debate

Recommendations made during IWPR round tables on children’s education will be included in a parliamentary commission report on how Kyrgyz laws on the rights of minors are being implemented.

In the latest IWPR round table in January – attended by Education Minister Abdylda Musaev – there was discussion of proposals to introduce school boards to ensure transparency and accountability of funds accumulated from parents’ contributions.

“We will discuss recommendations proposed at the [IWPR] round tables by representatives of the schools and by rights defenders with legal experts in the parliament,” Sultanalieva said. “Recommendations aired will be definitely included in our report and possibly in [proposed] legislation.”

Members of the parliament, representatives of school administrations, parents and NGOs and took part in the January 25-26 meeting.

The aim was to raise pressing issues in children’s education and to allow a dialogue between interested parties, and the results may feed into parliament’s work on the subject.

The event was the culmination of a series of such meetings across the country, in Talas and Tyupe in northern Kyrgyzstan and in the southern city of Jalalabad.

According to Guljamal Sultanalieva, who heads a temporary commission looking into how Kyrgyz laws on children’s rights are being implemented, recommendations aired during the IWPR round tables will be included in the commission’s report and may subsequently be submitted to parliament for discussion.

“We will discuss recommendations proposed at the [IWPR] round tables by representatives of the schools and by rights defenders with legal experts in the parliament,” Sultanalieva said. “Recommendations aired will be definitely included in our report and possibly in [proposed] legislation.”

Issues raised during public discussion included the difficulty of getting a school place for children of internal labour migrants from impoverished southern regions who have settled around the capital, Bishkek, because they lack a resident permit.

There was also discussion of the systematic absence from schools of pupils who help out in family-run businesses in the agriculture or tourism sectors.

The head of the League for Protecting Children’s Rights, a public foundation, Nazgul Turdubekova, said the authorities were taking note of the issues raised at the round tables.

“The most important thing that we want to change is the attitude of government bodies to this issue. It was very telling that the [education] minister took part in [the January] round table. This is a good sign as previously we were ignored,” she said.

Kalicha Umuralieva, a consultant for the public foundation Our Right, said she was pleased the minister backed proposals for boards of governors at the January round table, “It was good to see bureaucrats recognising civil society.”

Musaev told the event, “I am glad to see that we are moving from mutual reproaches and accusations towards constructive cooperation.”

In another recent coup for IWPR, the Kyrgyz ombudsmen has said he is considering the inclusion of IWPR reports examining the pressures facing investigative reporters on the agenda of a soon to be created advisory body dealing with the protection of journalists’ rights.

IWPR reports about an increase in brutal attacks on reporters have focused attention on the dangers affecting Kyrgyz media community, which have gone underreported in the local press, according to rights activists and media experts.

The reports were Kyrgyzstan: Concern Over Journalists’ Safety, published in February, and Kyrgyz Journalism Under Pressure on All Fronts, published in March.

The reports gave examples of the way reporting has been hit, and brought to the attention of the Kyrgyz ombudsman how investigative journalism is gradually disappearing.

IWPR reports about an increase in brutal attacks on reporters have focused attention on the dangers affecting Kyrgyz media community, which have gone underreported in the local press, according to rights activists and media experts.

Commenting on the two IWPR articles on the subject, ombudsman Turusunbek Akun said, “IWPR is raising an important issue. Very few media outlets in Kyrgyzstan provide coverage about the problems of the safety of journalists. That is why your articles play a big role in pushing forward the issue of journalists’ rights and media freedom.”

The new advisory body, the Public Council for the Protection of Journalists, is due to be set up in April by the Institute of the Ombudsman. It will bring together about nine journalists, editors and the heads of media NGOs. It will make recommendations on pressing issues in the Kyrgyz media and hope to attract the attention of law enforcement and other state agencies.

Akun said it would quickly identify topics for discussion.

“The issue of journalistic investigations [which IWPR raised] could be included on the agenda,” Akun said.

Referring to murders of Kyrgyz journalists Gennady Pavlyuk (2009), Almaz Tashiev (2009) and Alisher Saipov (2007), which have been linked to their reporting work, Kubar Otorbaev, director of Azattyk Media NGO, said that journalists in Kyrgyzstan are forced to exercise self-censorship.

“Journalistic investigations are on the verge of disappearance,” Otorbaev said. He cited a number of reasons behind the trend, including a political situation that does not favour free media; a lack of support from the owners of media outlets for journalists conducting investigations; and a lack of investigative skills.

Otorbaev expressed concern about the way Kyrgyz journalism is developing, “All the indications are that more and more journalists in Kyrgyzstan are opting for light topics. They write press releases or report news that is found in the yellow press.”

“They do it to survive,” Otorbaev said.

The deputy editor of the newspaper Osh Shamy, Gulzat Gazieva, said reports like IWPR’s played an important role in informing the wider public about the state of the Kyrgyz media and the challenges it faces.

Gazieva cited pressure put on Osh Shamy as an example of how local media ignored incidents, “Several times we have published news in our newspaper about our correspondent being beaten up, as well as about a spent bullet casing being sent to our office, but many media outlets have not reported it. They just ignored it.”

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, centre in Bishkek also noted IWPR’s contribution to raising the issue of journalists’ safety.

“IWPR ... is taking up a message of concern to millions of readers and is prompting society not to ignore the problem of the safety of journalists in Kyrgyzstan,” said Burul Usmanalieva, an adviser on media and public relations with the OSCE centre.

The editor in chief of the newspaper Moskovskiy Komsomolets in Kyrgyzstan, Ulugbek Babakulov, also welcomed IWPR’s work in attracting attention to the safety of journalists and the state of investigative journalism.

He said the next steps in providing protection for those who work in the media is for journalists themselves to unite and to spur the authorities to react to attacks against journalists.