New Media Law Will Rein in Online News
Thursday, 3 May, 2007
New Media Law Will Rein in Online News
Thursday, 3 May, 2007
A bill drafted by deputy Alisher Sabirov amending the media law to classify internet websites distributing “mass information” as media was submitted for parliamentary review in late April.
Earlier in the month, parliamentary speaker Marat Sultanov expressed concern about anonymous comments posted on Kyrgyz websites, saying there should be “barriers” to remarks that incite animosity between regions and ethnic and faith groups, or that call for violent regime change.
According to Internetworldstats.com, Kyrgyzstan has the highest per capita number of internet users in Central Asia, with 5.2 per cent of the five-million population accessing the web on a regular basis.
Marat Tokoev, head of the Public Association of Journalists, says imposing regulations on websites will hold back the development of the Kyrgyz internet as an information-sharing medium.
The proposed law implies that online news outlets will have to conform to state registration rules, which Tokoev said would be extremely difficult to do given the nature of the internet.
The Institute of the Media Representative, a non-government watchdog, issued a resolution on April 27 saying, “The distribution of information via the internet …cannot be limited to the territory of any one country, so we believe that from a legal point of view the registration of websites as media outlets will correspond neither to international practice nor to common sense.”
Political observer Turat Akimov says any attempt to control what is published on the internet is pointless because the established legal checks applied to traditional forms of media cannot be applied.
“What worries members of parliament most of all is that information discrediting them can appear on internet forums,” said Akimov.
However, Nadyr Momunov, director of the Kabar news agency, thinks all anonymous comments should be banned as a form of control.
“The level of political culture and awareness in our society unfortunately makes it necessary to adopt the law on websites that members of parliament are proposing,” he said.
Other commentators believe the internet remains the only place where people in Kyrgyzstan can express their opinions freely, and the medium should not be squeezed.
“During the April [opposition] demonstrations we saw that it was only websites that were able to cover the course of political events can immediately and realistically, while other media were one-sided,” said NBCentralAsia political expert Mars Sariev.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
