Accreditation Only for Selected Reporters

Media-watchers have criticised a new set of rules covering accreditation and access to information for journalists in Uzbekistan, saying the move is merely designed to formalise the relationship between government and the already heavily controlled media. In addition, they say, it will provide a legal basis for the widespread practice of refusing to release information to independent reporters.



On November 28, the state media announced a government resolution that sets out to “improve the procedures for accrediting Uzbek media representatives with state agencies”. It is, the authorities say, part of a wider programme of “reforms to further democratise the activities of the media”, and the changes are intended to make it easier for journalists to access information held by state institutions.



Under the resolution, all media outlets that are officially registered in Uzbekistan can accredit their journalists to state institutions for two years at a time.



Despite the democratic aspirations declared by the resolution, media experts interviewed by NBCentralAsia doubt the new measures will improve freedom of speech in Uzbekistan, and

say the only possible beneficiaries will be those media outlets that have already gone through the rigorous selection process that comes with registration.



Media analyst Shahida Yakub says the resolution’s wording is complex and confusing, and many of its provisions are open to interpretation. For example, the government will be able to apply phrases about “access to open information” or the “objective coverage” of state institutions however it wants. So access to information will vary, and a reporter’s objectivity will be subject to challenge.



Yusuf Rasul, a journalist now based abroad, says the government’s real aim is to make it harder for “undesirable” journalists – local as well as foreign – to access information and to slim down the number of reporters granted accreditation.





There are likely to be fewer accredited journalists, as Rasul suggests. Previously, a media outlet that had accreditation could send out any reporter, but now it will have to assign one correspondent to be in contact with a given state institution.





Rasul knows from his own experience that the Uzbek government can easily deny someone accreditation if it wants.





A Tashkent-based observer is similarly critical of the new media rules, saying, “The sole aim is to create a situation where the organisation that has granted accreditation can deny access to any information that it wants to keep secret.”



Other commentators note that President Islam Karimov’s term in office runs out next year, and the new rules governing journalists may well have been introduced in anticipation of a December 2007 election. Together with a recent government decision on the registration of internet outlets, this latest step can be seen as a move to tighten the government’s control over the already subservient media.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)