Referendum and media: the rights of journalists violated again

Clause 1 of the article 6 of the constitutional law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On the national referendum" states that the organization and conduct of the referendum are carried out openly and publicly. Alas, the rights of journalists were violated at the national referendum "On amendments and additions to the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan" on June 5, 2022.   Although there were much fewer violations compared to previous elections.

 Monitoring of the Adil Soz Foundation recorded 9 facts.

 It seems that the main reasons for the violations were low awareness of the rights of journalists of the members of the election commissions and the Rules of accreditation of journalists that were discriminatory for the media. In accordance to the Rules, the accrediting organization notifies the applicant in writing and (or) electronically about the accreditation of a journalist only if the application is considered positive. Unfortunately, Art. 126 of the Administrative Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan - “Impeding to legal activity of authorized persons of candidates, policy parties, representatives of mass media and spectators at elections” does not work. Besides it provides  quite a symbolic punishment  - fine of 35 MCI (monthly calculated index), i.e. 247 USD.

full text of the monitoring is available in Russian here