Call on the President on the draft of a new media (Sign-in)

Dear Mr. President Kassym- Jomart Tokayev !

Journalists and media experts in Kazakhstan are indignantat the situation with the draft law on mass media. For several months, a working group  under the Ministry of Information and Social Development consisting of NGOs, journalists, experts, lawyers, discussed the controversial points of the draft law and proposed progressive legal norms. However, another draft law was quite unexpectedly approved by members of the interdepartmental commission and sent to the parliament. The said version of the bill was not approved by the working group. More than that – the members of the working  group were not even aware of that.  

The fundamental points of the new text of the draft law include regulating all Internet resources as media, no statute of limitations for defamation cases, the excessive powers of law enforcement agencies in relation to the media and journalists under “special conditions”, obligations to approve  texts with officials before they are published , unchanged system of state funding of the media, "registration" of journalists under the pretext of issuing press cards, etc.

Such actions completely discredit the efforts of the civil society to develop  a really new, progressive law, corresponding to the reality and contributing to the development of the media. The text of the new bill does not protect the rights of journalists, but strengthens state control over the media, that contradicts international standards. It hinders media development in Kazakhstan.

In your State-of-the Nation address on March 16, 2022, you said: “ The state will pay special attention to the creation of an open information space and in-demand and strong media…I am convinced that there can be no further democratic transformation without an independent and responsible media. It is therefore necessary to revise the law on media to take into account the interests of the state, the demands of society, and the trends in the development of the media sphere”.

In this regard, we urge you to take special control of the actions of the government that discredit your ideas, i.e. its attempt to pass a law that is a mere compilation of two old documents without fundamental and really important changes that meet the interests of society and protect democratic principles.

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