We were promised a cake but will get a dung cake?

In the era of New Kazakhstan, the Prosecutor General's Office issued a dozen warnings on dissemination of fakes, false information and other verbal dirty tricks. And there was not a single statement  in defense of journalists, neither arrested, nor beaten, nor intimidated. The Ministry of Information in duty bound condemns violations of the rights of journalists and expresses its readiness to help. But how can it help, without having any authority to do so? In fact its authority is to repress: to warn, to block, to annul.

We hoped that the situation would change dramatically with the new media law, there would be more freedom and protection for media. We joined the working group, made proposals, discussed acute issues ... until the head of the Ministry of Information and Social Development (MISD) fell dead silent. Today I wrote to the working group chat: when will you provide us with at least a draft of the bill concept? The answer was: do not worry, we will observe the time-limit.

How can we not to worry? The deadlines for submitting the bill to parliament are coming, and what we have seen so far from MISD and its behind-the-scenes mentors is a couple of carrots for the media in the form of specifying the statute on limitations on claims and issues related to advertising of beer and promises of tax breaks. All the rest was tightening registration, curbing bloggers, introducing responsibility for adequacy of information, lynching under the guise of self-regulation, etc. It looks as if MISD has decided to have no issue anymore with making semblance of cooperating with the working group, to design the law that would please the officials and conduct a quick so-called public discussion.