Page 15 - bne_newspaper_May_04_2018

Central Europe
May 4, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 15
In a bid to silence those who continue to resist in exile, such as Emin Milli and Ganimat Zahid, the authorities harass their family members still in Azerbaijan. The regime has also had Azerbaijani journalists detained in Georgia and Ukraine, and sued in France.”
Georgia (up three places to 61st) goes down as
a rare success story with the index entry credit- ing its media as “pluralist but still very polarised” while observing that “the reforms of recent years have brought improvements in media ownership transparency and satellite TV pluralism, but own- ers still often call the shots on editorial content”.
South Caucasus neighbour Armenia (down one place at 80th) is said to have print media that “are diverse and polarized [while] investigative journal- ism flourishes online, but pluralism lags behind in the broadcast media.” However, impunity largely prevails in the country when journalists are physi- cally attacked, the report says.
Moving across to Central Asia, Turkmeni-
stan (ranked 178th, just as it was last year, and only outscoring Eritrea and North Korea in the ranking), is referred to by the report as an “ever- expanding news black hole”.
Part of its entry states: “The Turkmen government controls all media, and the limited number of In- ternet users are able to access only a highly-cen- sored version of the Internet—but that does not satisfy President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamme- dov, also known as ‘Father Protector.’ Harassment of the few journalists who work clandestinely for media outlets based abroad continues to grow. One of them, Saparmamed Nepeskulyev, has lan- guished in prison since July 2015. In recent years, other journalists have been arrested, tortured, physically attacked, or otherwise forced to stop working. On the pretext of making cities more visually appealing, the authorities are continuing
a campaign of removing satellite dishes, depriv- ing the public of one of the few remaining ways to access uncontrolled news coverage.”
Kazakhstan (down one to 158th) is said to be plagued by “uncertainty surrounding the succession to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the ‘Leader of the Nation’ who has ruled since 1990, [which] has accentuated his paranoia and determination to keep a tight grip.”
The entry on Kazakhstan also says: “The main op- position national newspapers were all banned in 2013, the remaining few are collapsing under the impact of fines, and any new independent news- paper is inevitably closed within months. Journal- ists are often arrested and the Internet is now closely controlled, with mass surveillance, impris- onment of bloggers and frequent cuts in access
to news websites, social networks and messaging services.”
In Kyrgyzstan (down nine places to 98th), the re- port says society still benefits from “the pluralism of the Kyrgyz media [which] is still exceptional in Central Asia but the polarization of Kyrgyz society is reflected in the media and the environment for journalists.”
It adds: “There is still a great deal of self-cen- sorship on certain subjects, such as inter-ethnic relations, and the grounds for concern are grow- ing. Astronomic fines have been imposed for ‘insulting’ the president, accompanied by asset freezes and travels bans. Totally disproportionate sanctions were imposed on several critical media outlets in 2017: the leading news website Fergha- na was blocked, the Zanoza website was stripped of the right to use its name and the Sentyabr TV channel was closed.”
Uzbekistan (up four places to 165th) has, the report observes, benefited from President Islam Karimov’s death in August 2016. “Karimov had never stopped reinforcing censorship and perse- cuting independent journalists during his 25 years as dictator. His successor, former Prime Minis- ter Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has promised to improve the human rights situation. Well-known detained journalists have been freed and the signs of a thaw are growing,” the report says.