 2008 Human Rights Report: Kazakhstan US State Department, 26.02.2009  Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices February 25, 2009 The Republic of Kazakhstan, with a population of approximately 15.6 million, had a parliamentary system dominated by President Nazarbayev's Nur Otan Party. According to official results, Nur Otan received 88 percent of the vote in the 2007 national elections for the lower house of parliament, winning every seat in the chamber. Local and international observers noted some improvements in the electoral process over past national elections but criticized the elections as falling short of a number of international standards, particularly with respect to the legislative framework and the integrity of the vote counting and tabulation process. The constitution concentrates power in the presidency, permitting the president to control regional and local governments and to exercise significant influence over the legislature and judiciary. Changes or amendments to the constitution require presidential consent. The civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces. The following human rights problems were reported: severe limits on citizens' rights to change their government; military hazing that led to deaths; detainee and prisoner abuse; unhealthy prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of an independent judiciary; restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association; pervasive corruption, especially in law enforcement and the judicial system; prohibitive political party registration requirements; restrictions on the activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); discrimination and violence against women; trafficking in persons; and societal discrimination. RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS . . . a. Freedom of Speech and Press The constitution and the law provide for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the government used a variety of means, including laws, harassment, licensing regulations, Internet restrictions, and criminal and administrative charges to control the media and limit freedom of expression. Judicial actions against journalists and media outlets, including civil and criminal libel suits filed by government officials, contributed to suspension of media outlets and self-censorship. The government limited individuals' ability to criticize the country's leadership, and regional leaders attempted to limit local media outlets' criticism of them. The law prohibits insulting the president and other senior officials. The government continued to characterize the distribution of pamphlets by Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), a banned extremist political organization, as incitement for political and terrorist purposes and beyond the bounds of constitutionally protected free speech. According to government statistics, approximately 21 percent of the 2,810 media outlets were government-owned. Many privately owned newspapers and television stations received government subsidies. The overwhelming majority of broadcast media not owned by the government, including the larger outlets, were nonetheless owned by holding companies believed to be controlled by members of the president's family or loyal associates. The government controlled nearly all broadcast transmission facilities. Media observers believed that most of the seven nationwide television broadcasters were owned wholly or partly by the government. Regional governments owned several frequencies; independent broadcasters arranged to use the majority of these. All media were required to register with the Ministry of Culture and Information, although Web sites were exempt from this requirement. The licensing system is not transparent.On January 15, the government conducted a tender for new licenses, but media watchdogs charged that the government predetermined the results of the tender and awarded all new television frequencies to companies favored by the government. On March 21, government-owned Samgau holding bought 49.9 percent of Khabar stock in an auction where neither the names of the bidders nor the prices were orchestrated. Nevertheless, public activists and several politicians criticized the deal as unfair and alleged that the government orchestrated the process to consolidate its control of the media. The law limits the rebroadcast of foreign‑produced programming to 20 percent of a station's total airtime. This provision burdened smaller, less-developed regional television stations that lacked resources to develop their own programs, although the government did not sanction any media outlet under this provision. Harassment of and violence against journalists remained a problem. Press advocacy NGO Adil Soz reported 226 incidents of harassment and violence against journalists during the first 11 months of the year, compared to 227 such incidents during the first 11 months of 2007. Journalists covering organized crime and corruption reported harassment and intimidation by government officials and private actors. There were no developments in the 2006 beating of Aina Plyus journalist Kenzhegali Aitbakiyev, an attack allegedly connected to the paper's reporting on Kazakhgate, a bribery scandal involving possible illicit payments from foreign companies to senior government officials, including, allegedly, President Nazarbayev. On September 17, unknown assailants attacked the driver of Dulat Abish, director of the media holding company Aigak, and set his car on fire. Abish told the press that the attack was directly related to his paper's recent critical coverage of a local akim (governor). On November 28, the KNB searched the home and office of Ramazan Yesergepov, Editor in Chief of the newspaper Alma-Ata Info, after his paper published an article containing ostensibly classified KNB documents. On December 1, KNB agents attempted to take Yesergepov for questioning to Taraz, but he refused to go. The courts ordered Alma-Ata Info to shut down on December 4. The decision was overturned by the court of higher instance, but at year's end the paper was not publishing because its computers were confiscated in the search. Incidents of government pressure on the media continued. In March the Minister of Culture and Information met with directors of independent media outlets and purportedly instructed them to abstain from publishing stories about President Nazarbayev's former son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev. NGO Adil Soz reported that on March 13, the KNB inspected the opposition newspaper Respublika's printing house allegedly to check if there were any articles being published on Aliyev's case. On May 8, Gulzhan Yergaliyeva, the chief editor of the opposition newspaper Svodoba Slova, received an e-mail with threats that she should stop publishing pieces about Aliyev. In June the director of the Aktobe oblast's department of internal policy called the editor in chief of the independent newspaper Diapason and recommended that the newspaper not cover the visit of opposition activist Peter Svoik. Raushan Akhan, a reporter from Karaganda's Ortalyk Kazakhstan newspaper, was fired for criticizing the government. She successfully sued the newspaper and received material compensation, but did not get her job back. There were no reports of forced outlet closures under the restrictive media law enacted in 2006. Included in the amendment to the media law were tightened government control, requiring media owners to re-register upon any change in editor, address, or frequency of publishing; a ban on those convicted of libel from holding a managing editor position at another media outlet; prohibition on registering an outlet under a name similar to one that was shut down by court action; and imposition of fines against broadcasters for failing to offer the required 50-50 mix of Kazakh- and Russian-language programming time. The law enables the government to restrict media content under amendments that prohibit undermining state security or advocating class, social, race, national, or religious superiority, or cruelty and violence. Owners, editors, distributors, and journalists may be held civilly and criminally responsible for content, regardless of the source of information, unless it came from an official source. The government used this provision to limit freedom of the press. The law prohibits publication of any statement that promotes or glorifies "extremism," a term that international legal experts considered vague and necessary for the government to define. The government subjected media outlets willing to criticize the president directly to intimidation such as law enforcement actions or civil suits. While these events continued to cast a chilling effect on all media outlets, criticism of government policies continued. The law on state secrets makes it a criminal offense to release information about the health, finances, or private life of the president, as well as economic information such as mineral reserves and government debt owed to foreign creditors. To avoid possible legal problems, media outlets often practiced self-censorship regarding information on the president or his family. Criminal libel suits could be initiated by private parties on behalf of the government, and an individual filing such a suit would be able to file a civil suit as well, based upon the same allegations. Officials used the law's restrictive libel and defamation provisions to constrain media outlets from publishing unflattering information. Both the criminal and civil codes contain articles establishing broad libel liability. The fact that owners, editors, distributors, publishing houses, and journalists were held responsible for proving the veracity of published information, regardless of its source, promoted self-censorship at each level. At times fines for libel were exorbitant. In contrast to previous years, watchdog NGOs reported fewer libel cases, although some government officials still sued journalists for defamation of character. On September 18, a Petropavlovsk court began hearings on a libel suit initiated by the deputy director of the regional police department against Vremya newspaper reporter Victor Miroshnichenko. In a July 10 article, Miroschnichenko claimed the police official was accepting bribes. The trial was ongoing at year's end. Internet Freedom There were no formal government restrictions on access to the Internet, but observers reported that the government monitored e-mail and Internet activity, blocked or slowed access to opposition Web sites, and planted progovernment propaganda in Internet chat rooms. The country's only Internet service providers, state-owned Kaztelecom and privately owned Nursat, were regulated by the state. Nevertheless, Web sites expressed a wide variety of views, including viewpoints critical of the government. According to government statistics, there are 600,000 regular Internet users in the country (4 percent of the population). Internet users were primarily urban. The Agency for Information and Communication (AIC) controlled the registration of .kz domains. The AIC may suspend or revoke registration for failure to locate servers in the country. Observers criticized the registration process as unduly restrictive and vulnerable to abuse. Media watchdog group Adil Soz and two independent Internet publishers reported that the government blocking of four opposition-oriented Web sites continued intermittently throughout the year, although three of the four sites remained accessible through servers based outside the country. The blocking began in October 2007 in connection with the publication of audio recordings and transcripts of telephone conversations between high-level government officials. On July 1, the Almaty courts suspended the Web site posit.kz for three months for allegedly publishing comments that promoted racial, ethnic, or inter-clan discord. The site resumed operation after three months. Opposition Web site kub.info reported two coordinated cyber attacks against the site on June 30 and July 2. The site's owner, Rashid Nugmanov, alleged that hundreds of computers from locations outside of the country were used to block access to the site. He ascribed the attacks directly to the site's critical reporting concerning the government. On August 19, the Shymkent district court ruled that self-described writer and political analyst Nurlan Alimbekov was not competent to stand trial because of a mental illness and ordered the case suspended until his capacity improved. Alimbekov was arrested in August 2007 for inciting religious and ethnic hatred and insulting the president. The charges were based on e-mails sent by Alimbekov. A KNB spokesman had said the government did not violate privacy laws in obtaining his e-mails because Alimbekov sent them to multiple parties, including foreign diplomatic representatives, and they were eventually forwarded to the government. . . . 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