Aqil Xalil
Mourners at Alisher Saipov's funeral in October 2007
The father of slain journalist Alisher Saipov is accusing Uzbek President Islam Karimov of complicity in his son's murder.
Avas Saipov insisted to RFE/RL in an interview that Karimov ordered and financed the killing of his son, with the assistance of Kyrgyz intelligence officials.
He said Karimov must be held personally responsible for the 2007 shooting, which took place in broad daylight in downtown Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan.
He alleged that the murderers received help from Kyrgyzstan's Interior Ministry and the State Committee for National Security (GKNB).
"All I know is that Islam Karimov is responsible for Alisher's death; it was done on the orders of Islam Karimov," Avas Saipov said. "People paid by Islam Karimov in Kyrgyzstan -- officers of the Interior Ministry and the GKNB as well as government officials -- provided assistance."
He offered no evidence to support his charges against Karimov or the Uzbek and Kyrgyz security officials.
Vocal Critic
Alisher Saipov was editor in chief of the Uzbek-language political weekly "Siyosat" (Politics) and was shot dead shortly after leaving his office in October.
Speculation quickly arose suggesting that Uzbek security forces had ordered the killing of the 26-year-old ethnic Uzbek.
Saipov, a Kyrgyz citizen, also contributed to Voice of America and RFE/RL. He wrote about corruption in the upper echelons of power in Uzbekistan and also criticized cooperation between the Uzbek and Kyrgyz governments, writing that Uzbek intelligence officers were operating freely in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Saipov also covered alleged rights violations against Muslims in the Ferghana Valley, which lies in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan as well as Tajikistan. He often interviewed members of banned religious groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Saipov reported on the bloody events in May 2005 in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijon. He visited a refugee camp in Kyrgyzstan and interviewed Uzbek refugees who fled Andijon after government troops opened fire on peaceful protesters, killing hundreds.
Before he was killed, Saipov told his friends he had received death threats.
He also was a target of an Uzbek state-media campaign that carried numerous reports about Saipov, calling him an "enemy of the Uzbek nation" and accusing him of destabilizing the situation in Uzbekistan.
'Politically Motivated'
A representative for the Moscow-based rights group Memorial has implicated Uzbek intelligence agents in Saipov's death, saying the motive lay in Uzbekistan's presidential election in December 2007.
Memorial's Vitaly Ponomarev told a news conference in the Kyrgyz capital in November that "we have information from certain sources -- on an unofficial level -- that the Kyrgyz special services have received from their Uzbek colleagues information that this [killing] was politically motivated."
Alisher Saipov (courtesy photo)
Avas Saipov said his son's reporting on sensitive issues is the reason politicians in both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan wanted him dead.
"The [Kyrgyz] Interior Ministry and special services collaborated with Uzbekistan's secret service and were involved in [Alisher's killing]," he said. "Why were they interested in this? Because they did not like the truth."
Earlier this month, Saipov sent an open letter to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev. He wrote that the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry's offices in Osh "became the headquarters of Uzbek intelligence" and "some Kyrgyz officials work for Uzbekistan." Saipov expressed hope that Bakiev would keep his promise and find those responsible for the killing. A day after Saipov's murder, Bakiev announced that he would personally oversee the investigation into the killing, and promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Saipov told RFE/RL that he was waiting for the president's response. "Will he respond or not? It is up to him," he said.
"Alisher was a citizen of this country [Kyrgyzstan]. I am also a citizen of this country. I point out that he and I have been citizens who fulfill all the duties of citizenship. As such, I wrote a letter to the president," Avas Saipov said. "[Alisher] was born on this soil, he drank water here. He was a patriot of Kyrgyzstan in the true meaning of the word. Thank God he remained one until his death."
Saipov despairs that his son's murderers will never be found. "Honestly, I don't believe the case will ever be solved," he said, charging that some high-level Kyrgyz officials do not want those who masterminded the murder to be found.
Broader Fears
The concerns voiced by the slain journalist's father come amid international criticism of the growing state control over media in Uzbekistan and even Kyrgyzstan.
On June 4, President Bakiev signed amendments to Kyrgyzstan's press law that media watchdogs, including Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, have said jeopardize the independence of the country's media.
In Uzbekistan, state-controlled regional television stations in the Ferghana Valley aired a program in mid-June that made sweeping allegations against RFE/RL's Uzbek Service journalists and divulged personal details about their families.
On June 7, Solijon Abdurahmanov, one of few independent journalists working in Uzbekistan, was arrested in his native Nukus in the western part of the country. Abdurahmanov, who is also a former RFE/RL contributor, was accused of drug possession.
RFE/RL Uzbek Service correspondent Hakimjon Husanov contributed to this report from Bishkek
Miklos Haraszti
Already on the rocks
The legislation seeks to impose curbs on the Internet -- the last outpost of uncensored information and free exchange of ideas in one of the world's most authoritarian countries.
The bill, which was submitted by the government on June 10, was endorsed in its first reading by the Chamber of Representatives within a week. The speed with which it was rushed through the lower house reportedly surprised even some legislators well accustomed to rubber-stamping documents coming from the presidential administration or government. "But this has already become a tradition," Belapan quoted one lawmaker as saying after the vote. "There's no help for it."
The bill was supported by 93 lawmakers in the 110-seat legislature and opposed by one. It proved impossible for journalists to determine the identity of the rogue legislator following the secret ballot. Colleagues speculated that the dissenting vote might have been the result of someone pushing the wrong button on the voting machine.
The nonstate Association of Belarusian Journalists (BAZh), which desperately seeks to prevent the independent media sphere in Belarus from shrinking to naught, sent individual letters to all the lawmakers last week, asking them to discuss the media bill jointly and in public; but to no avail. Additionally, on June 16, BAZh sent a 17-page commentary on the bill with reservations and remarks to the Chamber of Representatives. There was no positive response to this move either.
BAZh Chairwoman Zhanna Litvina tells RFE/RL's Belarus Service that the authorities are deaf to any dissenting views regarding this particular piece of legislation. The authorities' "goal is understandable, clear, and precise -- to pass the law as soon as possible," Litvina says. "Therefore the existence of a different opinion or view is not needed by anyone."
BAZh lawyer Andrey Bastunets explains to RFE/RL that the new media bill introduces several groups of new restrictions regarding the operation of the media in Belarus in comparison with the current media law, which has been in force since 1995.
First, media outlets are required to reregister with the Information Ministry every time they change their legal address.
Second, the bill makes it possible for the authorities to shut down a media outlet following just one warning issued by the Information Ministry or a prosecutor (the 1995 media law provides for such a move after two warnings).
Third, the bill defines "media" as forms of the distribution of information in print, online, and in electronic formats. It also authorizes the government to issue regulations regarding the registration of online media outlets and their operation. The BAZh is afraid that the government might introduce state registration for all online sites and block access to those that fail to obtain such a license.
Natallya Pyatkevich, deputy head of the presidential administration, argued on June 16 that the new media law would not entail a government directive requiring the compulsory registration of online sites in Belarus.
However, Liliya Ananich, first deputy information minister, said in May that her ministry favored a registration requirement for online media outlets, as "there is a problem of disinformation flows" from abroad. According to Ananich, such a problem has been successfully tackled by China, "which has cut off access to its territory for such sites."
Yury Ziser, the founder of the popular Belarusian online portal tut.by, predicted on June 17 that the requirement to obtain a state license for online information resources would lead to a mass migration abroad not only of opposition-minded Belarusian websites but also of those far outside politics.
The new media bill also includes such vague and ambiguous provisions as making media outlets liable to punishment for "distributing false information that can cause damage to state or public interests" or for "distorting generally established language standards."
According to Alyaksandr Starykevich, editor of the online publication "Salidarnasts," it is too early to predict whether the new media regulations might kill the Belarusian Internet completely or leave some free territories intact. But he, too, had no illusions as to the direction of the official media policy in Belarus.
"Our practice is worse than any laws. For the time being, it is hard to see what threats are coming with this bill, because it includes a lot of ambiguities regarding not only individual provisions and terms but also their interpretation," Starykevich says. "But it is clearly understandable that the Belarusian authorities are doing this solely for toughening control over the press."
"You can expect the worst," President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said in May, in response to a Reuters question about whether he would run for the presidency in 2011. As testified by Belarus's modern history, the worst in Belarus has usually been preceded by bad and worse. This case appears to be no different.
Will President Bakiev keep his pledge to ensure media independence?
Bakiev had promised to give full independence to the National TV and Radio Broadcasting Corporation as well as all other state-funded media outlets in Kyrgyzstan. But on June 4, Bakiev signed amendments to the country’s press law that appear to jeopardize the independence of the media.
In a statement on June 16, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the amendments "put many media under threat." RSF said part of the law "gives the president the power to appoint the executive director of state-run TV and radio KTR," which effectively "wrecks efforts undertaken to make [KTR] a public and not a state company."
Prior to the amendments, a 15-member supervisory council had governed KTR, with the president, parliament, and civic groups each selecting five board members.
Bakyt Orunbekov, a member of the supervisory council, tells RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service that the new law is an obstacle to further media reform. "This law is a huge impediment on the path to realizing the idea of creating public television," Orunbekov says. "Moreover, this has a negative influence on democratic processes and freedom of speech, which until recently Kyrgyzstan was praised for having."
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) last month urged Bakiev to veto the media bill, saying it "obliterates Kyrgyzstan’s attempt at broadcasting reform.”
The CPJ had objected to other changes in the media bill, such as legislation requiring that "half the programming carried by any television or radio station must be self-produced and in the Kyrgyz language," and a change that "enables state agencies alone to revoke, sever, or annul broadcasting licenses for various technical violations."
The CPJ noted that "those penalties could be sanctioned solely by the state agencies; approval from the Kyrgyz courts would no longer be required."
Marat Tokoev, the leader of Journalists, a Kyrgyz NGO, tells RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service that the new law could spell the end of some independent Kyrgyz television and radio stations.
"This law represents a step backward," Tokoev says. "Television channels and radio stations cannot endure the regulations included in it. That means that we are creating obstacles to the development of the [state television and radio] company. It is possible that many television channels and radio stations will be closed down."
Two television channels in the southern Osh area, Osh TV and Mezon TV, lodged appeals against the new law that were rejected by the Constitutional Court. Both stations broadcast in the Uzbek language to a large ethnic-Uzbek audience in the Osh area and across the border in Uzbekistan. Since the broadcasts are not in the state language of Kyrgyzstan, the channels fear they will be taken off the air.
Not Only Broadcasters
Tokoev could also have mentioned the print media. At least one independent newspaper is encountering troubles not seen in Kyrgyzstan since the 2005 change of power.
On June 14, Kyrgyz authorities raided the office of the independent newspaper "De Facto," confiscating the weekly's computers. The raid was troubling to many observers partly because such moves against the media have been rare since Kyrgyz independence in 1991.
The raid is merely one of several recent events in Kyrgyzstan that are raising concerns about the government's commitment to democratic principles.
A Kyrgyz court ruled that "De Facto" had printed libelous information and issued a warrant for the raid after the newspaper's June 12 edition alleged that an official of the Kyrgyz Taxes and Duties Committee was involved in corrupt activities. In the article, author Zamira Moldoeva appealed to Kyrgyz authorities to bring the official to justice.
Cholpon Orozobekova, the weekly’s editor in chief, said the article’s author is prepared to testify in court against the allegations and the raid. She added that the subpoena against the reporter is an attempt to silence the independent newspaper.
“De Facto” was earlier fined 1 million soms ($27,600) on June 2 for printing an article that alleged Bakiev's nephew was involved in a traffic accident that resulted in the death of a pedestrian.
Nongovernmental organizations in Kyrgyzstan are showing their support for “De Facto.” On June 17, the coalition For Democracy and Civil Society said in a statement that the legal case against the weekly is politically motivated and aimed at the "elimination of the free press and the intimidation of journalists."
Culture and Information Minister Sultan Raev urged patience, telling RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service that the matter is not yet settled and that the president and civic groups can still propose changes to the newly signed law.
"The decree of the president was signed with current realities in mind," Raev says. "For it to be implemented there are still some unresolved questions on which the president has already made recommendations to the culture and justice ministries. We are working currently to honor these recommendations."
Bakiev says the new law is still open for debate, and a special commission has been appointed to study proposed changes.
But RSF, among others, questions that effort. “We do not understand why the president should sign a law which he knows is unsatisfactory and then ask ministers to study proposals from civil society," the media watchdog said in its statement.
Director Tynchtykbek Tchoroev and correspondent Kubat Chekirov of RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service contributed to this report
Eduard Limonov fears the Kremlin will now target foreign-language media in Russia (RFE/RL)
Are Russia's media fanning the flames of race hate?
"Thank God it didn't happen during the afternoon, when there would have been many more people, more Muscovites. These were merely people from the Caucasus," one reader observed in comments published in the high-circulation tabloid "Komsomolskaya pravda." The reader went on to argue that the financial compensation allocated for the victims' families would be "better spent on pensioners."
The newspaper quoted another reader complaining about how "blacks" -- the blanket terms used by some Russians to denote many non-Slavs -- once barred her 81-year-old uncle from selling his homegrown apples at a Moscow market.
Unleashing Violence
Human rights groups have long warned that xenophobic tendencies in Russian mainstream media are feeding into a nationwide surge in racist attacks, which have already claimed 57 lives since the beginning of the year.
"Xenophobia itself is not on the rise. If you look at polls by the Levada Center, xenophobia remains very stable at 55-57 percent of the population," says Galina Kozhevnikova, the deputy director of the Sova center, a Moscow-based organization monitoring hate crimes. "But the mass media is contributing to maintaining this degree of xenophobia, to provoke conflicts, and to transform latent xenophobia into open aggression."
Kozhevnikova, who co-authored a book last year about xenophobia in the Russian media, says "Komsomolskaya pravda" remains one of the worst publications in terms of the frequency of racist comments.
In December, it published an editorial in response to the conviction of an Azerbaijani man on murder charges in Russia's Far East.
"This happens in other Russian cities -- road disputes with firearms and the inevitable participation of people from the proud Caucasus," wrote the daily's deputy editor in chief, Sergei Ponomaryov. "It's also possible to slaughter offenders with a dagger, slice them in two with a saber. Mountain customs, you know. But then what kind of treatment, dear Caucasus people, do you expect from the native inhabitants of inner Russia?"
'A Complete Nonentity'
Smaller, local publications aren't much better.
A newspaper in the northern city of Murmansk in January published a test offering readers to evaluate their level of culture.
One of the questions was: "Do you have Jews in your family?" A positive answer prompted the following conclusion: "Don't be upset. You are a complete nonentity. But people nonetheless adore you."
And Moscow's "Vechernaya Moskva" recently published an article blaming Roma for the country's rampant crime. "Being illiterate, they cannot set up a legal trade," the author argued. "So what's left? That's right: criminal goods, from which gypsies choose the most lucrative: drugs and 'live meat' -- prostitutes."
Nazar Mirzoda, a spokesman for the Tajik community in St. Petersburg, says racist remarks in the press do particular damage to migrant workers, the vast majority of whom perform unwanted jobs for a pittance.
"Some journalists and tabloids accuse migrants of all ills, they write lies about migrants violating everything and spreading diseases," complains Mirzoda. "That's not true. Migrants are not criminals and thieves, 70-80 percent of them work on construction sites, they are workers, simple people. But newspapers don't write about that, about the fact that countless square meters [of construction] in Russia were built by Tajik workers."
Russian lawmakers have yet to vote on a bill introduced last year in the State Duma that would ban media from mentioning the citizenship of victims and perpetrators when reporting on a crime.
The draft law has received a mixed response from ethnic minorities and rights campaigners. While many support it, others like Kozhevnikova point out that journalists will be able to bypass the law by using broader derogatory terms such as "blacks" and "southerners."
Slain journalist Abdul Samad Rohani