Media

The media situation in Central Asia, generally, has been bad for many years now.

But, according to recent reports by the Paris-based organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and New York-based group Freedom House, the situation with media in Central Asia actually got even worse in 2016.

It was not only the "usual" Central Asian countries -- Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- that received low marks in the two groups' annual reports. The lowered ratings for Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and even Kyrgyzstan indicated that all three were increasing pressure on nonstate sources of information.

What just happened and why? Is this a new trend in Central Asia -- policies that strangle independent media?

To try to answer these questions and look at other aspects of government moves against the news organizations and the Internet, RFE/RL assembled a Majlis, or panel, to discuss events concerning the media in Central Asia in recent months.

Moderating the discussion was RFE/RL's Media Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir. We were fortunate to have people who played key roles in preparing the two reports mentioned above. From Paris, the Majlis was joined by Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. And the project director of Freedom House's annual rights report Nations In Transit, Nate Schenkkan took part from New York (Nate also hosts the Central Asianist podcast, which we at the Majlis highly recommend to everyone]. I have a connection to media in Central Asia, so I participated also.

Bihr started the discussion out by noting that "the situation with press freedom across all Central Asia in general has further deteriorated."

Control Habit

The situation for media in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan has worsened significantly.

The Majlis session came the day after it was reported that 20 journalists had fled Tajikistan recently to escape the government's tightening grip on media.

Bihr spoke about the "increasing habit of trying to control the Internet across Central Asia" and recalled, "In May last year, when Kazakhstan was marked by huge protests, the authorities were quick to make Facebook, Twitter, VKontakte, WhatsApp, etc. unavailable, which obviously prevented the free flow of information."

"Such kind of 'progress' also has been made in Tajikistan," he added.

Schenkkan said, "We actually see kind of a mixed strategy in [Central Asian] countries, particularly in Kazakhstan I would say, where defamation and libel suits have had a role for quite a while, in addition to some of those more aggressive tactics… like imprisonment."

Bihr saw a key similarity in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan that might partially explain why those two countries have recently been putting so much pressure on nonstate media. "Both in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan we can say that aging leaders are in power and succession wars have already started behind the curtains, this is clearly a factor of stress for the political life and press freedom in these countries."

Libel, Defamation Suits

Using the court system to shut down media that is critical of the authorities is nothing new. Schenkkan spoke about some of the independent media outlets in Kazakhstan that are "constantly subject to different kinds of libel and defamation suits."

And Schenkkan said, "I think [Kyrgyzstan's president Almazbek] Atambaev is picking up on that."

More than a dozen lawsuits have been initiated against independent media outlets in Kyrgyzstan recently.

According to Bihr, "the increasingly defiant speech of President Atambaev in Kyrgyzstan has been very worrying with very harsh words being pronounced [against journalists and media outlets]."

Both Bihr and Schenkkan pointed out the leadership change in Uzbekistan offers some small hope for an improvement in that country.

"The replacement of President [Islam] Karimov by President [Shavkat] Mirziyaev in Uzbekistan indeed raises hopes due to what appears to be increased pragmatism of the regime," Bihr explained.

Schenkkan agreed "there's been this wave of expectations after Karimov's death in August and a lot of attention to whether there could be some kind of thaw in Uzbekistan."

But they said Uzbekistan remained near the bottom of these most recent rankings by both their organizations, because their recent reports dealt with events during 2016.

Encouraging signs such as the release from prison of Uzbek independent journalist Muhammad Bekjonov, one of the longest imprisoned journalists in the world, in late February this year were not factored into the RSF and Freedom House reports that have just been issued.

Lack Of Leverage

Turkmenistan also stayed near the bottom of both lists, but there was no room for optimism from any of the panelists that the media situation could improve there.

Schenkkan said the very sparse information that can be gleaned from Turkmenistan kept that country from being at the very bottom of the Freedom House rankings. "You have a hundred-point scale," Schenkkan said, and added "we're at 98 on Turkmenistan right now."

The possibilities for convincing governments in Central Asia to ease their media policies are limited. "There are not so many powers that have some leverage on Central Asian countries," Bihr said.

Bihr noted, "The European Union… is continuing talks with Kazakhstan, for instance, about enhanced partnership agreements despite the fact the previous partnership agreement included some clear human rights conditions that were never fulfilled by Kazakhstan."

In the United States, President Donald Trump's administration has so far not sent any strong signals that it would press Central Asian governments on rights issues.

Schenkkan said, "I think there's no question but that the leaders in the [Central Asian] region have decided that they can go after the press pretty much as hard as they want and that there's practically no consequences, and that includes internationally."

Schenkkan added that Central Asian governments should be cautious in their treatment of independent media. Having only state media carries inherent risks for governments such as those in Central Asia.

"They [the Central Asian governments] still can't hide what's happening in terms of economics, in terms of politics," Schenkkan explained, and warned "it's dangerous for there to grow too large a gap between what you tell people [is] happening and what's actually happening."

The Majlis panelists had much more to say on these topics and other matters concerning the plight of the media in Central Asia.

An audio recording of the session can be heard here:

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Majlis Podcast: Bad Times For Media Freedoms In Central Asia

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Listen to or download the Majlis podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes.

The U.S.-based democracy monitor Freedom House says only 13 percent of the world’s population live in countries with a free press.

In its annual report released on April 28, the nongovernmental group says global press freedom declined in 2016 to its lowest point in more than a decade due to continued crackdowns on independent media in authoritarian states and unprecedented threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies.

The report -- titled Freedom of the Press 2017: Press Freedom’s Dark Horizon -- assesses the degree of media freedom in 199 countries and territories to classify each as either "free," "partly free," or "not free."

Freedom House says a free press is a media environment where coverage of political news is robust, state intrusion in media affairs in minimal, the safety of journalists is guaranteed, and the press is not subject to legal and economic pressures.

It says 42 percent of the world’s population has a "partly free" press, while 45 percent live in countries where the media environment is not free.

The report says that while authoritarian regimes continued or extended their crackdowns on media, politicians in some democratic states launched or escalated efforts to shape news coverage by delegitimizing media outlets, exerting political influence over public broadcasters, and raising the profiles of friendly private outlets.

It says U.S. President Donald Trump has disparaged the press both as a candidate and now as president of the United States, rejecting the news media’s role in holding government officials accountable for their words and actions.

The report says Trump has repeatedly ridiculed reporters as dishonest purveyors of “fake news” and corrupt betrayers of U.S. national interests, while his senior White House adviser described journalists as “the opposition party.”

Freedom House warns that when media are lambasted by political leaders in the United States – a cornerstone of global democracy -- it encourages their authorities abroad to do the same.

The democracy monitor points out that the protection of press freedom in the United States remains vital to the defense and expansion of press freedom worldwide.

It says that in 2016 Eurasia continued to be the worst-performing region in the world for press freedom. Not a single country was ranked "free" there.

According to Freedom House, 77 percent of Eurasia's population lives in countries where the press is "not free."

All five former Soviet republics in Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – were ranked "not free," along with the Caucasus former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Elen Aghekyan, a research analyst at Freedom House, says that even in the more democratic states of Eurasia, officials’ attitudes toward the media remain alarming.

Security forces in Armenia brutally assaulted several reporters covering mass antigovernment protests, Aghekyan added.

Russia was also ranked "not free."

One of Russia's last independent media groups, RBC, came under pressure after reporting on apparent corruption involving the family and associates of President Vladimir Putin, the report said.

Three RBC editors were replaced by recruits from the state-owned TASS news agency -- a clear reminder of the pitfalls on reporting about Russia’s ruling elite, Freedom House noted.

Meanwhile, faced with Moscow-controlled outlets that disseminate disinformation and undermine the legitimacy of Ukrainian institutions, the government in Kyiv continued to limit access to numerous Russian outlets and deny entry to dozens of Russian journalists.

Freedom House ranked Ukraine as "partly free," while Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimea region was ranked "not free."

Belarus, notorious for government crackdowns on dissent, was also ranked "not free."

But Freedom House noted some small improvements in the country’s media environment, netting Belarus a gain of eight points in Freedom House’s table of the Biggest Press Freedom Gains and Declines in 2016.

“Belarus, undoubtedly, in 2016 remained one of the most repressive and restrictive environments for journalists in the world,” Aghekyan said, adding that in authoritarian states like Belarus “very small improvements, or even the lack of violence in a given year in comparison to a history of stronger repression, can sometimes register small [increases]" in their score.

“For Belarus, in particular, the improvement in 2016 was due to the fact that journalists were able to cover the 2016 [parliamentary] election with significantly less interference, and especially not the kind of the violence that we have seen in the past election years,” Aghekyan told RFE/RL.

Most Balkan countries were ranked "partly free." The only exception, Macedonia, was ranked "not free."

In Serbia, Freedom House noted a “sharp decline” in the media environment in 2016.

According to the report, in order to discredit unfriendly media outlets, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic outsourced much of his presidential election campaign to the pro-government tabloid Informer, which published unfounded accusations against critical journalists.

Freedom House welcome “positive developments” in Afghanistan, where the government moved to improve the media environment.

Afghanistan was ranked "partly free," an improvement Aghekyan said was due to recent legal changes that illustrate the government’s more favorable stance on media independence, as well as long-term growth in the diversity of private media.

However, she pointed out that the security situation has continued to deteriorate, further restricting journalists’ ability to operate safely throughout the country.

A Taliban attack that killed seven Tolo TV employees in early 2016 marked the deadliest single assault on journalists in Afghanistan during the past decade.

The ongoing violence has forced hundreds of Afghan journalists to leave the country, an exodus that Freedom House warns could deal a heavy blow to the survival of democracy in Afghanistan.

Similar concerns about increasing threats against media and journalists across the world have been raised this week by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders in annual reports released ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3.