Kyrgyz Reporters Stand up to “Political Pressure”
Staff at the normally compliant TV and radio company say they are being discredited by pressure to produce biased reporting.
Kyrgyz Reporters Stand up to “Political Pressure”
Staff at the normally compliant TV and radio company say they are being discredited by pressure to produce biased reporting.
Journalists working for Kyrgyzstan’s national broadcaster have expressed concern at what they say is political pressure on them to produce reports heavily biased against the opposition.
Their protest - news of which appeared in local media late on March 22 - is seen as unprecedented in a country where state-run media outlets generally purvey the government line unquestioningly, and especially during the current political crisis have been used to launch tirades against the opposition movement.
A statement of concern has been signed by about 90 journalists employed by the Kyrgyz National Television and Radio Corporation, KTR. They have asked for a formal response from KTR managers.
The head of KTR’s own trade union, Beyshenbek Bekeshov, told IWPR that the concerns centred on government officials who were interfering in the station’s news agenda.
"We the undersigned believe that everyone in society should conduct their work in line with the legislation. It is the business of journalists to cover events in the country objectively. Resolving conflicts is the business of the authorities," said the joint letter, a copy of which Bekeshov had.
Bekeshev said that in particular, the “group of KTR journalists are unhappy that State Secretary Osmonakun Ibraimov has recently been using airtime in pursuit of his political goals".
For example, he said, recent editions of the talk show Sayasat (Politics) which was led by Ibraimov did “great harm” to KTR television’s reputation, he said. Ibraimov has hosted Sayasat on a number of occasions, and he himself as well as some of his guests have made some harsh remarks about the opposition.
Although the post of state secretary is not itself senior in the hierarchy, Ibraimov recently appears to have taken on a role in articulating official ideology.
Bekeshov said KTR had lost a great deal of credibility as a result of this kind of hostile coverage of the opposition, whose stronghold is currently in the southern Kyrgyzstan cities of Osh and Jalalabad.
"Our correspondents now have the doors to the south closed for them forever. They [southerners] have given up on us. Yet the south represents half of our state," he said.
Kyrgyzstan’s media ombudsman, Shamaral Maichiev, who is positioned independently of government, welcomed the reporters’ action, saying, “If journalists themselves won't stand up for their rights, who will? It's great that they have appealed to their management."
The chairman of KTR, Syrtbay Musaev, confirmed that he had received the journalists’ letter and said he had discussed it with State Secretary Ibraimov and also with President Akaev’s press secretary, Abdil Segizbaev.
"They responded by saying they needed to think about it. Our correspondents are unhappy that the state secretary has access to live airtime, but his status accords him the right to use the airwaves to disseminate information of national importance.”
The TV boss went on to give two differing reasons why KTR was failing to cover developments in southern Kyrgyzstan, “As for the lack of information from the south, our local correspondents have had their equipment destroyed by some participants in the protests. Why did we not cover these events for so long? The state bodies decided it was unnecessary to focus public attention on this, so that the public would not get unduly agitated. Since we are in state television, we followed the orders of state bodies."
Outside the KTR building, the usual staff vehicles parked outside were absent, because employees had been warned that disturbances were possible.
When IWPR put the allegations of political interference to presidential press secretary Segizbaev, he responded in conciliatory terms while stoutly defending his colleague Ibraimov.
“At such a complex time, sometimes emotions gain the upper hand and all of us – and that includes me – make inadvertent slips…. Maybe we really do interfere in television journalism, and [if so] I apologise to the KTR journalists,” he said.
The state broadcaster’s control of the major terrestrial TV and radio stations places it in a unique position, with far more resources and geographical reach than any of its small commercial rivals.
Critics have accused KTR of acting as mouthpiece for a government that has grown increasingly concerned by the mounting protests, which started out as localised demonstrations over alleged irregularities in the recent parliamentary election but have since solidified into a movement demanding the resignation of Akaev.
Kuban Mambetaliev, who heads the non-government Public Association of Journalists, said KTR was demonstrating the same one-sided position it had taken during the disturbances that followed the shooting of demonstrators in Aksy three years ago, even though it had been roundly criticised by a commission of inquiry at the time.
“They persist in maintaining that same attitude,” he said. “They show live programmes and talk shows in which they wheel on pensioners and veterans to denounce people just like in the Stalinist period. They identify ‘enemies of the people’ and call for them to be punish, exterminated and burned.
“When voters from the south - the people taking part in the mass protests - watch this kind of thing, it makes them indignant and furious.”
Mambetaliev concluded, “Even the KTR journalists have run out of patience. The state secretary comes and acts as programme director. The TV company is becoming a mouthpiece for him and other representatives of the authorities. The journalists’ reaction is a healthy one."
Ernis Mamyrkanov, the head of the Osh Media Centre, noted how the perception of bias had incurred the hostility of opposition supporters, "I can cite you several facts that are indicative of attitudes towards state television. During the demonstrations and disturbances in the south, the people simply drove away the KTR journalists, breaking their expensive digital cameras.”
The controversy highlights the critical role KTR has played since non-state media were virtually squeezed out in the run-up to the election, leaving media consumers with few if any alternative sources of information.
There are commercial TV stations but they broadcast over a limited geographical range and their editorial policy tends to be subject to the will of owners with no desire to upset the authorities.
Most TV viewers can see Russian channels, but Kyrgyz opposition leaders have recently criticised the coverage out of Moscow, for example reports that banks were being robbed in opposition-held areas.
Many radio listeners have traditionally tuned into the Kyrgyz language service of Radio Liberty, known as Azattyk, and the BBC. But in late February, three days before the first round of voting, Azattyk was taken off the local broadcast frequencies it used, ostensibly because the state regulator wanted to auction off these frequencies. BBC rebroadcasts from local transmitters have suffered a series of outages, officially for technical reasons but often coinciding with interviews with opposition leaders.
The Independent Printing House, a United States-sponsored publishing venture designed to help independent print media, found itself without electricity shortly before the election. A February 24 statement from the US embassy said that the failure to restore the power supply was “part of the current pre-election pressure on free media in Kyrgyzstan". The print house ran a partial service on its own generators, but it took until March 8 for the mains supply to be restored.
Meanwhile, the most influential opposition newspaper Moya Stolitsa Novosti continues to have only a limited print run, after suffering a series of setbacks in apparent retaliation for reports critical of Akaev. The president says he plans to sue the paper for libelling him and his family.
Even the internet is under pressure, with the independent Akipress news agency reporting that its site www.akipress.kg has been under attack since March 20. Opposition websites based abroad and the popular Russia-based news portal www.centrasia.ru have been inaccessible in Kyrgyzstan for almost a month because of similar attacks.
Ainagul Abdrakhmanova is IWPR programme coordinator in Kyrgyzstan. Sultan Jumagulov is a BBC correspondent in Bishkek.
