By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un1kazakh020510.html
UNITED NATIONS, February 5 -- When Kazakhstan's foreign minister Kanat Saudabayev took three questions from the Press in front of the UN Security Council stakeout on February 5, lack of media freedom was unaddressed while the leader Nursultan Nazarbaev was extolled. There was even an echo of Borat.
The UN Charter requires the Security Council to work with regional organizations. The OSCE, of which Kazakhstan took from Greece the chairmanship in January, is one such organization, involved in a number of frozen conflicts on which the UN cannot act, observing elections as the UN says it cannot do, most recently in Sri Lanka.
Inner City Press asked Minister Saudabayev two questions, but got only one answered. Using his February 15 trip to Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia as the hook, Inner City Press asked what Kazakhstan planned to do about Nagorno-Karabakh -- and then, to respond to questions raised about media freedom in Kazakhstan, in connection with its OSCE role. Video here, from Minute 9:43.
Through a translator -- more on him in a moment -- Saudabayev said that there are things in Kazakhstan's favor, in tacking Nagorno Karabakh: president Nursultan Nazarbaev "has high authority with participating parties." Saudabayev walked away without answering.
Inner City Press asked his translator the media freedom questions. He didn't answer that, but spoke about Evgeniy Zhovtis, saying that he's been a human rights lawyer in Kazakhstan for years without incident, but when he "ran over a pedestrian," all bets were off.
It is not political, the translator insisted, contrary to Human Rights Watch. They say
"Ramazan Yesergepov, editor of the newspaper Alma-Ata Info, was sentenced to three years in prison on August 8, for disclosing state secrets, after the newspaper published an article making corruption allegations against local authorities based on classified documents. In June, the independent Almaty weekly Taszhargan had to cease publishing after an appellate court upheld a prior decision awarding Romin Madinov, a member of parliament, 3 million tenge (about US$20,000) in "moral damages" for an article alleging that Madinov's business interests benefited from his legislative work. In September, an Almaty court ordered the weekly Respublika to pay 60 million tenge (about $400,000) in "moral damages" to the BTA Bank, which had sued the newspaper after a March article discussing the bank's possible bankruptcy allegedly cost the bank the equivalent of $45 million in deposits. The appeal is still pending, but the newspaper is not able to pay the fine and will cease publishing if the decision is upheld.
"The government could have easily shown its commitment to freedom of expression by not adopting the July amendments, which were sharply criticized by the OSCE. It also could have established a cap on civil defamation penalties and ensured that investigative journalists like Yesergepov are not unjustly subject to criminal prosecution."
The translator was Roman Vassilenko, previously the spokesman at Kazakhstan's Embassy in Washington. In that capacity, when comedian Sasha Baron Cohen of Borat fame came to the embassy, cameras in tow, Vassilenko had to deal with him. Now he is translating at the UN in New York for the foreign minister, accompanied by a coterie of pro-government Kazakh press.
