The Paliament adopted the law in favor of corrupt officials

The experts of Adil Soz, other non-governmental organizations and mass media have been working on the draft law "On amendments into some legal acts of Kazakhstan on information and communications" in the work groups of the Ministry of Information and Communications, in the work groups of the Ministry of Communications and Majilis of Parliament since autumn of 2016. Our main proposals and objections have been ignored without any explanations.

In an open letter to Senate deputies, signed by several hundred journalists, civic activists and non-governmental organizations, we asked to reject this bill for the following reasons:

- the new law hinders corruption combat obliging journalists to get permit for spread of personal and family secrets although these concepts do not have an exact legal content;

- it deprives of the right of society for publicly important information by dividing it into official information and other information granting the state bodies the right to classify  it;

- it brings a new term of propaganda, whose unclear definition makes mass media unprotected before insubstantial accusations;

- it  increases the staff and extends the authority of authorized body for control and penalty of mass media sources.

Nevertheless, the deputies of both houses of the parliament ignored the opinion and proposals of the public, and the Minister of Information and Communications D. Abaev at the Senate plenary session said that the media representatives generally support the amendments proposed by the ministry.

Adil Soz intends to use the last opportunity to prevent coming into force of the media law that is dangerous for freedom of speech and does not correspond to the interests of society - to ask the President of the country to veto it.

21 December 2017