Anger as Kazak Parliament Approves Web Restrictions

Media rights activists in Kazakstan have been joined by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, in a last-ditch attempt to block legal changes that would subject the internet to the same restrictive regulations as the domestic media.

Efforts to persuade the Kazak parliament not to approve what has been described as “internet censorship” came to an end on June 24 when the lower chamber, the Majilis, passed a set of amendments to current laws on media, national security, and communications.

The changes mean the internet is governed by the same rules that already apply to print and broadcast media, banning the publication of classified information, terrorist or extremist propaganda, pornography and calls for the overthrow of the government, forbidding foreign nationals from using the web for electioneering or calling on workers to strike, and allowing the authorities to block access towebsites based abroad if their content is deemed to contravene national laws. Finally, internet service providers can now be required to gather personal data on their customers.

Journalists, media rights activists and web users fought long and hard against the changes, with a coordinated campaign of lobbying and public action led by the Free Internet movement. (See Kazak Campaigners Battle Internet Curbs, RCA No. 578, 28-May-09).

The OSCE, which Kazakstan is to chair in 2010, has also spoken out against the amendments.

Objectors are now left with the slim hope that the tougher internet controls can be averted if President Nursultan Nazarbaev can be persuaded not to sign off on the bill.

On June 26, 12 journalistic groups and associations wrote to Nazarbaev asking him to veto the law.

“The law that parliament has passed… will significantly damage Kazakstan’s image as the vanguard of democratic change in Central Asia, just as our country is about to chair the OSCE,” said the letter. “There isn’t a country in the world that regards internet content in its entirety as media. Only totalitarian countries make wide use of crude website blocking.”

The letter came a day after the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, wrote to Nazarbaev asking him not to sign the amendments. He said they would curb freedom of expression and ran counter to Kazakstan’s commitments to the OSCE and to international standards.

On the day the law was passed, June 24, around 50 fifty journalists and opposition party members gathered in Almaty to protest about the legislation before parliament. They wore gags round their mouths to symbolise their concerns that freedom of expression is under threat.

Their demonstration was regarded as “unsanctioned” as organisers had twice been refused authorisation to hold it.

“Why can’t we hold a rally to mark national Journalism Day [June 28]?”asked Tamara Kaleyeva, head of the free speech group Adyl Soz. “Is this what we’ve come to?”

Journalism in Kazakstan was now in an “unacceptable, critical position”, she said, listing media bankruptcies, high-cost defamation lawsuits, and the use of criminal law in libel cases.

Another leading media rights activist, Rozlana Taukina, who heads the Journalists in Trouble foundation, says the internet curbs form part of a wider context of ever-tightening media legislation.

“The country is moving towards a situation where the press becomes a mouthpiece for ideological propaganda,” she said.

Because the print and broadcast sectors were traditionally easier for the authorities to control, the internet became one of the few alternative sources of information in Kazakstan in recent years.

“We currently have one more or less free resource, the internet. It has not yet been regulated as heavily as print media, which are often dependent on publishing houses,” said Yevgenia Plakhina, head of the Free Internet movement.

Backers of the bill say the changes are needed to prevent the internet being used for criminal purposes, and also to protect individuals from defamatory comments.

Kuanyshbek Yesekeev who heads the government’s information and communications agency and is a supporter of the bill, says website owners should be responsible for the content they host.

“People can express their opinion, but it mustn’t damage anyone personally,” he told CNews, a news site about IT developments. “Blog owners will also bear responsibility for information and comments posted on their web pages. As for chatroom, each one will have to have a moderator who deletes obscenities posted by visitors.

Some analysts think there is a chance President Nazarbaev will not give final assent to the legislation because of the embarrassment this might cause ahead of Kazakstan’s OSCE chairmanship.

“It makes sense to take a wait-and-see approach,” said Eduard Poletaev, editor-in-chief of the Mir Yevrazii news magazine and also an active blogger. “In terms of our international image, the approval or non-approval of the bill will be seen as a sign of how democratic the authorities are. But conservative officials might influence the president into signing the law”.

Adil Jalilov, the head of the International Journalism Centre and an active participant in the Free Internet movement, fears Nazarbaev will sign off on the legislation, although he hopes he will not.

If it happens, he said, “it will mean that fear of compromising material about the authorities appearing on the internet outweighs the desire to live up to international requirements.”